Documentation/ Document types/ Credit notes
Credit notes
A credit note corrects or cancels amounts on an earlier invoice, so its amounts have to be recorded as negatives. Dijit.app spots these documents and warns you, but it leaves the decision about the sign to you.
On this page
How they are spotted
The system identifies a document as a credit note or as a corrective invoice from what is on it, and gives it the matching status in the list.
It is a best guess, not a certainty: what suppliers call these documents varies enormously, and some formats never say it outright.
The notice on the document
Open a document that has been spotted as one and the screen shows a notice with what it thinks it is and a prompt to adjust the sign if that is wrong. The notice does not block anything.
The two actions
| Action | What it does to the amounts | What it does to the type |
|---|---|---|
| It is an ordinary invoice | They go positive. | It stops being treated as a credit note. |
| Make negative | They go negative. | It keeps its credit note type. |
Both ask you to confirm first, saying exactly what is about to happen to the amounts.
Which to use when
| Situation | Action |
|---|---|
| It really is a credit note and the amounts are positive | Make negative. This is the usual case: the supplier prints the amounts without a sign. |
| It really is a credit note and the amounts are already negative | Nothing. The document is right. |
| It is an ordinary invoice wrongly spotted as a credit note | It is an ordinary invoice. That puts both the sign and the classification right. |
| It is a corrective invoice replacing another | Depends on your own accounting policy: keep the type and set the sign accordingly. |
Which list a credit note goes in
The same type as the invoice it corrects: a credit note from a goods supplier goes in the purchase invoice list; one for a utility, in expenses; one you raised to a customer, in sales.
There is no separate list for credit notes: you tell them apart by their status and by the sign on their amounts.
What to check before approving
- The sign on the amounts. It is what decides the effect on the accounts and on your totals.
- Which invoice it belongs to, if the document references one.
- The tax breakdown, which has to carry the same sign as the net.
- The list it has ended up in.
A credit note with positive amounts adds instead of subtracting. No arithmetic check catches it, because the document agrees with itself, and it only shows up when you go over the period's totals.