ERPNext for Saudi Arabia: ZATCA-ready, Vision 2030-aligned.

• Saudi VAT is 15%. ERPNext handles it via standard Tax Templates; the rate is the only structural difference from a UAE 5% setup.
• ZATCA Phase 2 is active in waves. Each enrolled taxpayer must integrate Sales Invoices to the Fatoora platform with cryptographic stamps and QR codes. ERPNext core does not ship this — we wire it up via approved middleware or direct integration.
• Vision 2030 has accelerated ERP demand. Mid-market and family groups across Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam are upgrading from Tally / on-prem accounting to fit Tadawul-listed reporting expectations and giga-project supply chains.
• Saudization (Nitaqat) is an HR data problem. ERPNext\'s Employee DocType plus a Nitaqat dashboard tracks your Green / Platinum band live; we configure this on every Saudi HR engagement.
• We deliver from Dubai. No physical Saudi office. Senior consultants on a plane for kickoff, UAT, training and go-live; everything else is remote with weekly demos. Honest, and faster than a thin local outpost.

VAT at 15%. Saudi raised the standard VAT rate from 5% to 15% in July 2020 and it has remained there. Configuration in ERPNext is the same machinery as any other GCC VAT setup: standard, zero-rated, exempt and out-of-scope tax templates, with Tax Rules to default the right template based on customer and item categories. Returns are filed monthly or quarterly through the ZATCA portal depending on turnover thresholds.

ZATCA Phase 2 (Integration Phase) e-invoicing. Phase 1 (Generation Phase) made structured electronic invoices mandatory in late 2021. Phase 2, which has been rolling out in waves since 2023, requires real-time integration with the Fatoora platform: each B2B tax invoice must be cleared (cryptographically signed and pre-approved) before it is delivered to the customer; B2C simplified invoices must be reported within 24 hours. The XML format is UBL 2.1-derived with Saudi extensions, and each invoice carries a UUID, a previous-invoice-hash chain, and a Base64 QR code containing the cryptographic stamp.

ERPNext core does not ship Phase 2. There is no "tick the box and you are compliant" path — the integration involves device certificates issued by ZATCA, a signing process that runs either in-process or in a sidecar service, and an outbound HTTPS call to Fatoora on every invoice submit. We deliver this either via an approved Saudi e-invoicing middleware (where the volume is moderate and the client wants vendor support behind the integration) or via a direct ZATCA SDK integration (where the volume is high enough that the per-invoice middleware fee becomes material). Both patterns are well-trodden; neither is a one-day job.

Corporate Income Tax and Zakat. Saudi runs a split regime: Zakat applies to GCC-national shareholders (broadly 2.5% on the Zakat base), Corporate Income Tax applies to non-GCC shareholders (generally 20% of taxable profit). For mixed-ownership companies the liability is apportioned. ERPNext does not file these — your auditor or tax advisor does — but it produces the trial balance, related-party schedules and supporting ledgers they need. We do not pretend to replace the tax advisor; we make their job mechanical.

Mudad and WPS payroll. The Wage Protection System mandates that salaries are paid through the banking system in a format the regulator can audit. Mudad is the digital platform that brokers most of this for SMEs. ERPNext\'s payroll module produces a SIF (Salary Information File) compatible with the major Saudi banks; for Mudad-direct integration we either route via the bank or use a Mudad partner API depending on the client\'s setup.

GOSI. The General Organization for Social Insurance contributions are configured as standard payroll deductions on the Salary Structure. Rates differ by employee nationality (Saudi vs expatriate) and category, which we handle via salary components conditional on the Employee DocType\'s nationality field.

Craft Interactive is registered in Al Garhoud, Dubai. We do not have a Saudi office and we will not pretend otherwise. What we do have is a senior team that flies into Riyadh, Jeddah or Dammam for the parts of an engagement that demand presence, and runs the rest remote-first on Dubai time — which overlaps the Saudi working day almost completely.

Discovery: on-site, 3–5 days. A consulting lead and a senior implementer come to your office for the kickoff. We walk the warehouse, sit with finance, see the existing system, meet the future ERPNext users. This is not a remote workshop. Discovery on a 12-week implementation that ends with surprises is worth less than discovery on a 14-week implementation that does not.

Configuration and build: remote. Chart of Accounts, tax templates, custom DocTypes, ZATCA Phase 2 wiring, print formats, integrations — all built from Al Garhoud. Weekly demos are scheduled on a video call; the issue tracker and design documents are shared in real time. Time-zone overlap with Saudi is essentially complete (UAE is one hour ahead of KSA), so synchronous work is easy.

UAT and training: on-site, 1–2 weeks. User acceptance testing, role-based training and dry runs of the close cycle are best done in the room. We block consultant time on-site for this phase, including weekends if your business runs on a Sunday–Thursday cycle.

Go-live: on-site, the first week. A senior consultant is in your office for cutover and the first close after go-live. Tickets after that go through the AMC support channel with response-time SLAs.

Why this model and not a Saudi office? Because a credible Saudi office means three or four full-time senior consultants in-country, year-round, paid to wait between engagements. The economics of that get passed to the client. A fly-in model with senior people on the projects that need them has, in our experience, produced better outcomes — and more honest pricing — than a thinly-staffed local outpost.

The Jeddah family trading group. A second- or third-generation family business with three or four trading licences across FMCG distribution, building materials and a small manufacturing arm. Currently on Tally or a legacy Saudi-localised ERP. Wants consolidated reporting for the family office, Phase 2 e-invoicing, and an HR module that handles GOSI and Mudad cleanly. We deliver one ERPNext instance with multi-company, a shared Chart of Accounts pattern, ZATCA integration on each entity\'s sales flow, and a consolidated dashboard at the group level.

The Riyadh contractor scaling into giga-projects. A mid-sized contracting firm that has won a Tier-2 sub-contract on a Vision 2030 project and now needs project accounting, retention tracking, sub-contractor PO management and milestone-based billing — none of which their existing accounting tool does. We extend ERPNext with custom DocTypes for retention and progress claims, configure Project hierarchies down to work-package level, and integrate with the main contractor\'s supplier portal where required.

The Dammam industrial supplier upgrading post-acquisition. An Eastern Province trading and light-manufacturing business recently acquired by a regional PE-backed group, now expected to produce monthly group-pack reporting, a defensible audit trail and automated VAT/ZATCA compliance. The brief is essentially "make this look like a portfolio company". We do a clean ERPNext implementation with the group\'s Chart of Accounts, automated month-end checklists, ZATCA Phase 2, and dashboards aligned to the PE reporting pack.