Receipt for Payment of VAT Invoice

[mph60]

If I have issued a full VAT invoice for services, what type of document should I issue as a receipt for the subsequent payment.

My logic tells me that the VAT document is the original invoice and my receipt is no more than a memo of the payment and so need not contain the VAT details, just the total amount and "received, thanks, etc".

Is this correct?

[jpcentral]

Whenever we are, very occasionally, asked to provide a receipt, we usually send a copy of the original invoice with "Paid in Full" and the date written across it.

[mph60]

Thanks jpcentral. The receipt is produced by the system which takes the payment, so unfortunately a copy of the invoice is not an option.

[jpcentral]

In which case all you really need is the date and amount of payment and the invoice number (and possibly date) of the invoice it has been applied to.

[mph60]

As a follow on to that, if they pay an invoice (which already has VAT) and also take some other goods and services which are VATable, and make a single payment, can that go on the same receipt? Would I just mark the invoice payment as N/A in the VAT column?

[jpcentral]

Maybe I'm missing something, but, surely, you issue another VAT invoice for the additional goods purchased and the receipt can cover both.

[mph60]

Let me give you a likely scenario.

Let's say we are have a ordering system which allows people to order goods and receive an invoice. We also have a shop front and people can come in to pay their invoice and at the same time can pick-up other goods from the shop.

So, they go to the counter and we till-up their new goods and the invoice they are paying to then arrive at a total amount due. We then take a single credit card payment and issue a receipt. That receipt will show the new goods (along with their VAT) and the invoice payment.

What should my receipt show and how does it identify the items and their VAT status on that single receipt?

[jpcentral]

This could depend on how integrated your till and your accounting software is, if at all.

If your till fully integrates with your accounting software, presumably, it can pull through the invoice onto the screen and you can add items to it. It doesn't sound as if that is the case.

There are a lot of different tills out there with substantial differences between them so it is pretty difficult to establish what will work in your particular situation. It sounds as if your card machine is integrated with the till and you want to be able to collect the full amount of the invoiced and just purchased items in one go.

If you can program one of the buttons on your till as a "cashback" item which is outside the scope of VAT, you could manually enter the invoiced amount and then continue to enter the new purchases and arrive at a total for them both. You would then, presumably, have to manually enter the cashback amount into the software which produces your invoices.

I don't really rate that as a solution, but, without knowing a lot more about the systems you are using, it is impossible to know what will, or will not, work.