Documentation/ Document types/ Receipts and simplified invoices
Receipts and simplified invoices
Receipts go through like any other document, but three things set them apart: they have no list of their own, they usually carry VAT inside the total without breaking it out, and they are printed on the worst paper there is.
On this page
Which list they go in
There is no receipts list. Each one goes to the type its contents call for:
| A receipt for… | Type |
|---|---|
| Fuel, tolls, parking | Expense |
| Office supplies or consumables | Expense |
| Meals and subsistence | Expense |
| Goods bought to resell or to make something from | Purchase |
VAT inside the total
A simplified invoice may not break out the net and the tax: it gives you one total with the tax already in it. The document lets you flag that, and from there the system works the net and the tax out from the total and the rate that applies.
It is the same mechanism as on any VAT-inclusive document, and it is described in the section on the document header.
What they usually leave out
A receipt, by its nature, leaves out things a full invoice carries:
- The recipient's tax number. A receipt is not made out to anybody.
- An invoice number in the usual sense.
- A tax breakdown by rate.
- Payment terms, since it was settled on the spot.
Their absence can trigger the missing-fields status. That is not a reading failure: it means the document does not have them.
The paper they are printed on
Thermal paper is the worst thing to read from: it fades with time and heat, and a photograph taken weeks later can be illegible. The 99 % accuracy figure is for an original PDF; on photographed documents it follows the quality of the image.
For paper receipts:
- Scan them soon, before the paper goes.
- Photograph them on a flat surface, evenly lit, with no shadows.
- Get the whole receipt in frame, including the bottom, where the total usually sits.
Volume and what it costs
Receipts come in numbers and for small amounts, which has a direct effect on usage: each receipt processed costs the same one unit as a large invoice, on accounts counted by the page.
Worth bearing in mind when you size your monthly volume, especially in a business with a lot of travel.
What we advise
- Do them in batches. Photographing and uploading a week's receipts in one go beats doing them one at a time.
- One receipt per picture. Several receipts in the same photograph are processed as a single document.
- Check the total, which is the number that matters when there is no breakdown.
- Check the type: most are expenses, but not all of them.