Lesson 2 — Reading the Identifier Catalog
The catalog is a reference you will read far more often than you will edit. It ships pre-seeded and needs no configuring — the only setup this module asks of you is the handful of registry values for your own company, and those come in Lesson 4. Read the catalog first, because it answers the question that sends people around a database for an afternoon: which number is this, and where does it live.
The mental model: four things a row tells you. Every row names the authority that issues the identifier, who holds it — a company, a partner or an employee — its published format when one exists, and its legal basis. Most rows point at a field the suite already stores the value on, and for those rows the catalog stores nothing itself. It is a map, and a map is not a copy of the territory.
The click path. Open Settings › Accounting › Configuration › United Arab Emirates › Identifier Catalog. From there, filter or group by authority, holder or storage kind. Grouping by holder answers "what belongs on an employee record"; grouping by storage kind answers "what do I have to type in myself"; grouping by authority gives you the list to take into a meeting with that authority.
What a typical UAE company holds. The table below is a reading of the catalog, not a substitute for it. The last column is the one to read first — it is the difference between a value you enter here and a value you go elsewhere to edit, and Lesson 3 is devoted to it.
| Identifier | Authority | Holder | Where its value lives |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tax Registration Number (VAT) | FTA | Company | Existing field — the catalog row names it |
| Corporate Tax registration number | FTA | Company | Value registry |
| VAT GIBAN | FTA | Company | Value registry |
| Excise GIBAN | FTA | Company | Value registry |
| Corporate Tax GIBAN | FTA | Company | Value registry — ships inactive |
| Customs Registration Number | The customs administration of each emirate | Company | Value registry — several active values allowed |
| Emirates ID Number | EIDA | Employee | Core field identification_id |
| Passport No | Named on its catalog row | Employee | Existing core employee field |
| Work Permit No | Named on its catalog row | Employee | Existing core employee field |
| Visa No | Named on its catalog row | Employee | Existing core employee field |
| GPSSA Insurance Number | GPSSA | Employee | Value registry |
| GPSSA Employer Number | GPSSA | Company | Value registry — ships inactive, name unconfirmed |
The catalog documents more than fits in one table, and where the guides do not name an issuing authority the row itself does — which is why the row, not this page, is the thing to trust. Two identifiers are worth watching as you read. The Trade Licence and the WPS employer codes are company identifiers, named in the guides only as examples of what must never be offered on an employee record; and the module's overview lists the Customs Code among the registry-backed company identifiers while the walkthrough and the FAQ discuss the Customs Registration Number, so pick the type from the catalog row in front of you rather than from memory.
Most rows carry no format, and that is a decision. Most UAE identifiers have no officially published digit count, prefix or checksum. Rather than guess one and risk rejecting a customer's real government-issued number, those rows ship with descriptive help text only. Read an empty format as "there is nothing official to enforce", never as "somebody did not finish the row" — a validator invented to look thorough is a validator that will one day refuse a document the government itself issued.
Worked example. The consultant at Marina Ridge Trading LLC groups the catalog by authority and reads it aloud to the finance manager in ten minutes: the FTA rows, the EIDA row, the GPSSA rows, the customs row. Two numbers the company had been keeping in a spreadsheet turn out to have had a field in the system all along. The spreadsheet is deleted at the end of the meeting, which is the actual return on this module.
The failure mode. "I cannot see the Identifier Catalog menu." You need the UAE Identifiers / User group, or Manager; ask an administrator to grant it. Nothing is wrong with the install, and Lesson 6 covers exactly which group gives what.