Lesson 3 — The FAF tax-code mapping
An auditor reading your Supply Listing needs to know how each line was treated for VAT, and the file says so with a short code rather than with your tax's name. So every tax that appears in the period has to be bound to exactly one FAF code. This is the mechanism that stops a tax being silently dropped: nothing is guessed from the rate, and nothing falls through.
There are five codes, and the mapping is seeded automatically for the standard l10n_ae taxes when you install the module. Your work is to review what was seeded and to bind anything you have added since.
| FAF code | What it means | What is bound to it |
|---|---|---|
SR |
Standard-rated 5% | the standard-rated VAT taxes |
ZR |
Zero-rated | 0% EX, the export tax |
EX |
Exempt | 0% EXT, the exempt tax |
RC |
Reverse charge | taxes that apply the reverse charge |
IG |
GCC member state | taxes used for a GCC member state |
The click path. Open Accounting → Configuration → FTA Audit File (FAF) → FAF Tax-Code Mapping and bind each tax to one code. A User can view this screen; editing it needs Manager, and the configuration submenu itself is visible to Managers only. A mapping row with no company is a shared default across the companies in your database; a company-specific row overrides that default for that company alone.
Read the override rule twice if you run more than one company, because it is quiet in both directions. A correct shared default protects every company you have not thought about yet. A company-specific row that someone added during a migration will keep overriding that default long after the reason for it is forgotten, and nothing on the screen marks it as unusual. Check the company column, not only the code column.
Al Quoz Industrial Supplies LLC bought from two kinds of supplier in the quarter: domestic suppliers charging VAT, and an overseas consultancy whose services fall under the reverse charge. Two codes therefore carry the whole Supplier Purchase Listing.
| FAF code | What it carries | Net (AED) | VAT (AED) |
|---|---|---|---|
SR |
domestic purchases at 5% | 1,120,000.00 | 56,000.00 |
RC |
imported services, reverse charge | 240,000.00 | 12,000.00 |
| Total | 1,360,000.00 | 68,000.00 |
Check it yourself, because that is the fastest way to learn to trust the section. 1,120,000.00 at 5% is 56,000.00. The reverse-charge line carries 12,000.00 of VAT on 240,000.00 of services. The two net figures sum to 1,360,000.00 and the two VAT figures to 68,000.00, and those are the control totals in the Supplier Purchase Listing total section. Al Quoz had no GCC member state documents this quarter, so nothing was coded IG — and an unmapped tax that nothing touched in the period stays silent until it is used, which is where Lesson 5 begins.
The failure mode: a tax created after install. The seeding runs once, at install. A tax added later has no FAF code at all, and the first generation after it is used will be blocked. Al Quoz created a reverse-charge tax on 12 May 2026 for the new consultancy arrangement; it was never mapped, and it is the reason the July run in Lesson 5 fails at the first attempt. Add the mapping row at the moment you create the tax, and treat any new tax as an unfinished job until you have.