QuickBooks and JoFotara

What is JoFotara?

JoFotara is the Income and Sales Tax Department's e-invoicing platform in Jordan. Each invoice is sent to the system when it is issued; the system checks it and returns a QR code that is printed on the invoice. Sales invoices for goods and services are issued through the system directly, or from accounting software connected to it.

Is there a direct link?

Neither QuickBooks Desktop nor QuickBooks Online includes a ready link to Jordan's national e-invoicing system. The link is made through a bridge program that reads invoices from QuickBooks and sends them to JoFotara, and work in QuickBooks stays as it is.

What you need first

• An account for the business on the JoFotara portal.
• The income source sequence number of the activity that issues the invoices.
• A Client ID and a Secret Key, created on the portal when you link a device or program.
• The business's tax number, and the customer's tax or national number where required.

The Secret Key stays with you and in the bridge program only; it is never sent by email or message.

Step by step

1. You issue the invoice in QuickBooks as usual.
2. The bridge reads the invoice: customer, items, quantities, prices, discount and tax.
3. It converts it to the format the system requires (UBL 2.1 XML), and sets the invoice type and the tax category of each line.
4. It sends it to JoFotara with the two keys, and the system checks it.
5. When accepted, the system returns a QR code that is printed on the invoice. When rejected, it returns the reason, and the invoice is corrected and sent again.

Credit notes

A return in QuickBooks (Credit Memo) is sent to the system as a return invoice linked to the original invoice, so the original invoice is sent and accepted before its return.

Common errors

• A line's tax rate does not match its category: standard, zero-rated or exempt.
• The invoice total does not match the sum of its lines after discount and tax, because of rounding.
• Sending the same invoice twice.
• Sending a return for an invoice the system has not accepted yet.

Zoho Books and Odoo

The same steps apply to Zoho Books. Odoo includes a Jordan localization for JoFotara, and setting it up needs the same two keys.

Connecting with BadirTech

We connect QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books to the national e-invoicing system through Sanid Invoicing Solutions, without changing your accounting software. For invoices issued in the field, the Sanid app sends sales reps' invoices to the system and syncs them with QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online, Zoho Books and Odoo.

This guide is for general information; the official reference is the Income and Sales Tax Department.