As you will be aware, if you’re a Zambian client, the kwacha will be rebased on 1 January 2013, making 1000 old kwachas equal to 1 new kwacha. In keeping with Bank of Zambia guidelines and requirements, this will affect our invoicing as follows:
- Invoices we issue between 15 and 31 December 2012, inclusive, will be issued in old kwachas, but will also include a value in new (rebased) kwachas. If you pay the invoice on or before 31 December, you will need to pay the old kwacha amount. If you pay the invoice on or after 1 January, you will need to pay the new kwacha amount.
- Invoices we issue between 1 January and 30 June will be in new kwachas, but will include the value in old kwachas for comparison.
- Where we have used the “K” symbol we will use the “KR” symbol (“kwacha rebased”) between 1 January and 30 June, inclusive. After that we will once again revert to using just the “K”.
- Where we have used the currency code ZMK, we will use ZMW on and after 1 January.
- Any account balances carried over into 2013 will be converted to new kwachas (ZMW) by dividing by 1000, and rounding as per BOZ guidelines. Similarly, previous account balances, although billed and paid for in old kwachas, will be converted to new kwachas for the purpose of calculating your running account balance in new kwachas.
Invoices will be rounded off to the nearest 5 ngwee to facilitate cash payments by those clients who prefer to pay in cash.CORRECTION, 2013-01-30: Invoices will not be rounded. If you are paying in cash in person, your balance owing will be rounded to the nearest 5 ngwee at the time of payment. If you deposit cash to our bank account, please round to the nearest 5 ngwee. Whether the rounding is up or down, we will record the actual payment and carry forward a balance of the difference (1 or 2 ngwee) between your payment and the actual invoice amount. If the rounding is down, this will not adversely affect the state of your account with us.- The cover emails to which invoices are attached (and all reminders, expiry notices, etc.) will reflect amounts only in old kwachas in 2012, and only in new kwachas in 2013. These emails are only an unofficial summary of the official invoice, which is the PDF document attached to the invoice email.
- We will, in due course, publish new rates on our website. There will be no increase in our rates at this time — i.e., all rates in new kwachas will be the same as the old rates, divided by 1000.
If you have any questions about this, please let us know. Thank-you.
