FORM M REGISTRATION: MULTIPLE ITEMS

Form M registration is fairly easy for pro forma invoice with single or few items. The Form M processing steps are detailed in my article for how to process and obtain Form M in Nigeria. Hence, I urge you to make reference to that article. However, what if you have up-to 500 items in a proforma invoice? It becomes extremely difficult to type and enter all items’ detail in the e-Form M system.

WHY THIS ARTICLE FOR FORM M REGISTRATION?

This article for Form M registration is designed to make your life simple by providing an alternate Form M registration rout. The purpose of the article is so that you could have a template in an excel format to give to your supplier. Thus, this arrangement means that your supplier will do lot of the work for you.

Consequently, in this article, we will talk about conversion of excel sheet (prepared in a template form that will be given) to XML document. Read carefully and drop your comments or any information considered relevant so that other people can benefit. Finally, feel free to ask questions and contact us using the appropriate page in our website.

FORM M REGISTRATION PROCESS

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Step 1: DOWNLOAD EXCEL SHEET TEMPLATE FOR MULTIPLE ITEMS:

• Click here to download template

• From the page above, click the ‘download’ button, that will take you to the following drop-down menu.

• Looking at the menu above, choose the CBN Forms Conversion Items from Excel to XML Template. The template is as below. No worries if you do not understand anything at all, we shall look at each heading separately and with examples. That is why I am here to see you succeed on the Form M registration.

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• Save the template as is in your local computer or device.

STEP 2: ENTER ITEMS AND DETAIL IN THE SAVED TEMPLATE:

What I will do in this section is look at each column separately with examples to give you hands-on-tool kind of information.

ENTERING INFORMATION IN THE DOWNLOADED XLS TEMPLATE

Now, I like you to do as I do. Open up your system and do it yourself as we treat each column in the excel sheet.

ITEM NO:

Do nothing here, excel cells has a way of numbering itself already. Just leave it as is.

HS CODES:

Enter the ten digit HS Codes of each item in the order you want them.

DESCRIPTION OF GOODS:

Enter the commercial description given to the items by the manufacturer or as found in the pro forma invoice:

FREIGHT CHARGE:

Do nothing, the e-Form M system takes care of this down the line once you enter the freight value in the invoice, if you have read my article for how to process and obtain Form M in Nigeria. Otherwise, suffice to say you do nothing here.

STATE OF GOODS CODE:

This refers to either new (N) or used (U), so choose N if item is new.

SECTORIAL PURPOSE CODE:

By sectorial purpose it means whether item is used for manufacturing, as spare parts, cosmetics, rubber products, building materials, etc. I prefer to just leave it at spare parts with the code A0103. You will appreciate why when we get back to the e-Form M application portal.

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NO. OF PACKAGES:

Leave this as one (1). Again you will fill the actual figure when you get to the Single Window e-Form M application portal and as explained in my article for how to process and obtain Form M in Nigeria.

PACKAGE CODE:

This refers to the unit of the package, like kg, meters, cm, etc. but we leave it as ‘Units’ with code U because that is the language the system understands as we shall see.

THE FOB VALUE:

Enter the actual price for the item. FOB = unit price x quantity

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN CODE:

If you check in the e-Form M application, you will see that all country is got a code; NG for Nigeria, PL for Poland, etc. Check the countries against your items and fix the codes. See more for instance:

THE QUANTITY:

Enter items quantity.

THE UNIT PRICE:

Enter unit price of items.

THE UNIT OF MEASUREMENT CODE:

We still leave this as ‘unit’ with code U. This kind of covers all units.

NET WEIGHT:

Again do nothing here. Weight is not important at the Form M stage.

FREE OF CHARGE:

Yes or No (codes 1 or 0). Most times nothing is free even in free Town. So it’s mostly No and code 0

STEP 3: SAVE YOUR DOCUMENT AS XML:

• Once done, click save, input file name, choose XML data under ‘save as type’ as shown below.
• Do not choose XML spread sheet.

FORM M REGISTRATION: FILLING THE E-FORM M PROPER

• LOGON TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA SINGLE WINDOW FOR TRADE HERE

• Use your TIN as username and your password to the window to login

• CLICK ONLINE SUBMISSION AND CHOOSE FORM M

• TAP THE MOUSE ON IMPORT XML TO CHOOSE THE XML DOCUMENT YOU SAVED IN THE FIRST SECTION OF THIS ARTICLE.

This will import all items for you instead of mechanically typing all items. The beauty of this is that you could make your supplier fill the excel sheet for you in the template, while you do the conversion.

• DEBUG ALL ERRORS: you will see some highlighted areas in red, correct all things using what you know already, and save. If the wrong xml is chosen, the system will refuse to load it until all things are put correctly.

• FILL IN ALL MISSING DATA: correct all highlighted errors following the steps already given in my article for how to process and obtain Form M in Nigeria.

• ATTACH NECESSARY REGULATORY DOCUMENTS AND SUBMIT THE Form M.

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In Conclusion:

This article is yet a freebie that I have painstakingly prepared to assist my friends do their job without much hindrance. Equally, I had in my article for how to process and obtain Form M in Nigeria explained in detail how to process Form M in Nigeria for few items. My purpose of writing this particular article – Form M registration is to empower you to be able to tackle form m still, when the items in the invoice are many. Therefore, careful read on this article should move you to drop a comment, share it and make it go viral. Kind regards, Wilson.

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