Three extracts from your accounting system. No logins, no remote sessions, no access to anything live. This page exists so you can see the whole request before agreeing to any of it.
All three are exports you can produce yourself and open in Excel before sending. If something in them looks too sensitive to share, delete that column and send the rest. We would rather work with less than have you hesitate.
Every product and service you can put on an invoice. Not the transactions, the catalogue itself.
| Column | Why we need it | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Item code or ID | So corrections come back matched to your records | yes |
| Description | This is what classification is based on | yes |
| Type: goods or service | Decides which code scheme applies, HS or SAC. If your system has no such field, say so and leave the column out | if it exists |
| Existing classification code | Many companies have codes from customs or procurement. They are usually the wrong scheme, but they shorten the work | if it exists |
| Unit of measure | Occasionally settles a goods-or-service question | helpful |
| Active or archived flag | So we do not bill you for classifying items you stopped selling in 2019 | helpful |
Customers and suppliers. Suppliers matter too: incoming invoices are validated against the same rules.
| Column | Why we need it | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Counterparty code or ID | Matching corrections back | yes |
| Legal name | Must match the tax register, not the name on the purchase order | yes |
| Tax registration number | The single largest source of rejections | yes, where you have it |
| Country | Decides whether a number is needed at all | yes |
| Customer, supplier or both | Different rules apply in each direction | helpful |
| Contact email | Only if you want us to run the collection campaign. See below | optional |
Twenty representative documents are usually enough for a first look, provided they cover your main transaction types. A wider population, several currencies or unusual arrangements may need a larger or more targeted sample. PDF is fine. What we are looking for is the shape of your documents: which fields your template carries, how tax is presented, and whether anything unusual is going on.
If you can also export the same twenty as structured data, send both. If not, PDFs alone are workable.
Do not send your twenty cleanest invoices. Send the export, the free zone sale, the credit note, the one with a deposit, the one your accountant argued about. Edge cases are where the specification bites, and a sample of ordinary invoices tells us the least.
The names differ, the content does not. If a column below does not exist in your system, that absence is itself a finding and we want to know about it.
| System | Notes |
|---|---|
| FirstBit | We have worked with this one directly. The tax number sits behind a "VAT taxpayer" checkbox and is invisible on the counterparty card until that box is ticked, so an export can look empty when the data is there. There is no field for service codes at all, which changes what the fix looks like. |
| Qoyod | We have worked with this one directly. Standard exports cover items and customers. |
| Tally | Stock item and ledger master exports. Tally installations vary a great deal by implementer, so send what your export produces and we will tell you what is missing. |
| Zoho Books, QuickBooks, Xero | All three export items and contacts to CSV from their list views. |
| SAP, Oracle, Dynamics, NetSuite | Your IT team will know the material and business partner masters better than we do. Ask them for the fields in the tables above. |
| Excel or Word invoices, no system | Then there is no item master to extract, and building one is part of the work rather than a prerequisite. Send the sample invoices and we will start from those. |
The reason is not modesty about security. Access we never hold cannot be misused, and an incident on our side cannot reach your live systems. Extracts are also reproducible: if something goes wrong you can send the file again, and there is a record of exactly what we saw and when.
Collecting missing tax numbers means writing to your customers and suppliers in your name. We prepare those letters and the follow-up schedule. We do not send them. You review them and you send them, or you give explicit written approval each time. Correspondence going out under your name is your decision, every time, and no arrangement between us changes that.
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Within two business days of receiving complete files | A readiness report: how many item records and counterparty records would block an invoice, grouped by cause rather than by document, with the order the work should happen in. Free, no obligation, and yours to keep whether or not you work with us. |
| If you go ahead | A workbook split into two sheets: what we could resolve with a documented source, and what needs a decision from you. The second sheet is deliberately separate, because a mixed list gets read either entirely or not at all. |
| Before go-live | We generate documents from your data and run them through the published validation rules, so you see the rejections before your service provider does. |
Say so and we delete the extracts. The report stays with you. There is no retention clause, no notice period, and nothing to cancel.
Email and WhatsApp are for arranging the transfer, not for carrying it. We do not yet operate our own access-controlled upload channel, and we are not going to pretend that a zip attachment is one. Nothing about your item master, your counterparties or your invoices should leave your systems until the route is agreed in writing.
The sequence. Write to hello@involane.com or message +971 50 597 2615 and say what you invoice with and roughly how many items and counterparties you carry. We reply with a confidentiality agreement and a proposed transfer method. You approve both, or you propose your own. Only then does any file move.
Confidentiality first, and on your paper. If your policy requires a signed agreement before anything is discussed, send yours and we will sign it rather than argue about whose template to use. We are content with UAE governing law and UAE courts. If you would rather we send one, ask and we will.
The method is yours to choose. Most companies already have something their own security team has approved: a SharePoint or Google Drive folder shared to one named address with an expiry date, an SFTP drop, or their own portal. Any of those is better than anything we could improvise, and we would rather work inside your controls than ask you to step outside them. If you have nothing in place, say so and we will agree an encrypted archive with the password sent by a different channel — as a stopgap, and we will call it a stopgap.
What we will not ask for. A login to your accounting system, remote access, a password, or anything that would let us reach further than the extract you chose to send. That is the list from section 1 and it has no exceptions.
Where this page and a source disagree, the source is right. Tell us: hello@involane.com