Sri Lanka VAT Schedule 02: Prepare and Reconcile Purchases

Sri Lanka VAT Schedule 02 is the input VAT schedule for local purchases. The preparation job has two lanes: supplier-submitted invoice records that already appear in the purchaser's RAMIS account for review, and other local purchases that the taxpayer still has to submit. Separating those lanes before preparing an upload prevents the same purchase from being counted twice.

Schedule 02 records local purchase invoices. Purchase-side tax credit and debit notes affect Schedule 04, so they should be tracked as adjustments rather than entered again as new Schedule 02 purchases. Imports belong in Schedule 03 and sit outside this local-purchase workflow.

IRD's VAT filing guide gives Schedule 02 separate VAT Amount and Disallowed VAT Amount fields and associates its local-purchase totals with cages I and 6 of the VAT return. Capturing VAT from an invoice therefore does not, by itself, establish the amount that is allowable as input tax.

Start with the workbook linked under Value Added Tax on the official IRD schedules page. Use the current Schedule 02 file rather than a saved copy from an earlier period, because the template and its validation rules can change.

Build One Review Workbook Before Preparing the Upload

Assemble the period's supplier tax invoices, credit notes and debit notes before working in the IRD template. Compare that source pack with the purchase ledger or accounts payable listing used for the period. The ledger helps expose a missing document; the document remains the source for the fields entered in the working file.

Use one row per invoice or adjustment document. At minimum, capture:

• invoice date and tax invoice number
• supplier TIN and supplier name
• description of the supply
• purchase value excluding VAT
• VAT amount
• document type, such as invoice, credit note or debit note

For recurring batches, it helps to define invoice fields for spreadsheet extraction before processing begins. Invoice Data Extraction can extract supplier invoice data into a reviewable spreadsheet as Excel or CSV, following a prompt that sets the fields and row structure. Each output row includes the source file and page number, and a result that needs manual verification can be marked Review Needed. Those references shorten the check back to the original document, but the accountant still decides the VAT treatment and prepares the RAMIS submission.

Add working columns for the source file and page, the record's provenance lane, RAMIS status, duplicate check, exception reason and reviewer notes. These controls belong in the review workbook, not in the official Schedule 02 upload. They show where a row came from, what happened to it and why it was included, excluded or held for investigation.

Keep three amounts or decisions distinct. Captured VAT is the amount read from the document. Disallowed VAT Amount is a field in Schedule 02. Allowable input tax is the tax treatment decided by the responsible accountant under the applicable rules. An extracted value can populate the working data without answering the tax question.

Map Reviewed Purchases to the Official Schedule 02 Fields

The current Schedule 02 layout contains these columns, in order:

1. Serial No.
2. Invoice Date
3. Tax Invoice No.
4. Supplier's TIN
5. Name of the Supplier
6. Description
7. Value of purchase
8. VAT Amount
9. Disallowed VAT Amount

Map the reviewed working data into those columns only. Source filenames, page numbers, provenance labels, duplicate results and reviewer comments should remain in the review workbook. Adding them to the upload file changes the prescribed layout and can cause validation problems.

The IRD guide specifies MM/DD/YYYY for Invoice Date. Value of purchase is the invoice value excluding VAT. VAT Amount should agree with the purchase value and the valid rate applicable on the invoice date, while Disallowed VAT Amount must not exceed VAT Amount. These are mapping and arithmetic controls. Whether the underlying invoice supports an input-tax claim remains an accounting and tax review; use the separate guide to check Sri Lanka tax invoice format requirements.

Work in the latest IRD workbook and preserve its column order. When the mapping is complete, save the schedule in CSV format and name it using the current IRD convention, including the taxpayer TIN, Schedule 02 identifier, period code, submission date, ORIGINAL or AMENDMENT status, and version number. Recheck those instructions against the live workbook before each filing rather than copying the layout or filename from an older period.

---

Reconcile RAMIS Records Without Submitting Purchases Twice

The IRD purchaser-record notice describes the two lanes. When a supplier submits Schedule 01 and Schedule 04 data through the Web API, the corresponding records populate the purchaser's Schedule 02 and Schedule 04 views in RAMIS. The purchaser must review and approve the applicable invoice and tax credit or debit note records. Other purchases from suppliers that have not integrated with the Web API are submitted by Excel CSV upload or through the Schedule Record Submission interface.

Give every row in the review workbook one provenance status before building the upload population. A compact status set might distinguish RAMIS populated, approved and Matched, requires taxpayer submission, and exception. Match the working row to RAMIS using the supplier TIN, invoice number, invoice date, purchase value and VAT amount rather than relying on the supplier name alone.

For a populated record, compare it with the source invoice before approval. The IRD permits approval as an individual record or in bulk, with up to 5,000 records at once. Once approved, the record status becomes Matched. Bulk capacity is not a substitute for review: a difference in the supplier TIN, document number, date or values should move the row to the exception queue.

Only rows classified as requiring taxpayer submission should feed the Schedule 02 upload or record-entry population. If the same invoice appears in RAMIS and in that population, treat it as a duplicate exception, not two purchases. An unmatched or incomplete record should be traced to the source document and supplier data before it is approved or uploaded.

The same notice describes import and export pre-population from Customs data as an intended enhancement. Do not treat that planned capability as part of the current Schedule 02 process.

Keep Credit and Debit Note Adjustments in Schedule 04

A tax credit note or tax debit note changes the purchase-side position, but it is not a new local purchase invoice. Record the adjustment in the Schedule 04 workflow and exclude it from the Schedule 02 invoice population.

The review workbook should retain the document type, adjustment date, supplier TIN, credit or debit note number, original invoice reference, and the affected purchase and VAT values. Keeping the original invoice reference visible prevents a credit note from being treated as a standalone purchase and makes its effect on the period totals traceable.

Before submitting an adjustment, check whether the supplier's Schedule 04 record has already populated the purchaser's RAMIS view. Apply the same provenance rule used for invoices: review and approve a supplier-submitted record, or submit the adjustment through the applicable taxpayer route, but do not do both.

Records submitted through the Web API cannot be edited or deleted. Where invoice tax was overstated or understated, the IRD directs the correction to be made through a tax credit note or tax debit note. Preserve that correction chain in the working papers instead of replacing the original source value or entering a compensating invoice in Schedule 02.

Tie Schedule 02 Back to the VAT Return

Reconcile the filing in layers so that a difference points to a defined part of the process:

1. Agree the review workbook to the complete source population for the period, including invoices held as exceptions.
2. Agree each row's provenance status to either the RAMIS-populated records or the taxpayer-submission population, then combine the reviewed totals once, without duplication. The upload file alone is not the complete purchase population.
3. Reconcile the combined Schedule 02 purchase and VAT totals, together with the relevant purchase-side Schedule 04 adjustments, to the figures carried to cages I and 6 of the VAT return.
4. Agree those adjustments to the Schedule 04 records and their original invoice references.

Run a separate control over Disallowed VAT Amount. The IRD filing guide directs the combined disallowed VAT totals from Schedules 02 and 03 to cage 8. Schedule 02 VAT Amount, Schedule 02 Disallowed VAT Amount and the allowable input-tax claim are therefore not interchangeable totals.

When the figures do not agree, test the causes that change the filing population before changing any amount:

• a source invoice or adjustment is missing from the workbook
• a purchase is present in both the RAMIS-populated lane and the upload population
• an invoice date places the document in another period
• the supplier TIN or invoice number prevents a match
• Value of purchase includes VAT instead of excluding it
• a credit or debit note has the wrong sign or has been treated as an invoice
• a record has not yet been approved, uploaded or accepted

Resolve each exception against the source document and keep the evidence or reviewer note with the working row. Export a clean official file only after the exceptions affecting the filing totals have been cleared. A tax-treatment question that cannot be resolved from the records and current IRD guidance should go to the responsible tax adviser or the IRD, not be forced into agreement by overwriting a source value.