Delivery note: it proves the goods arrived, not that they have to be paid for
It is the most used document in the warehouse and the worst understood in the office. It is there to prove a date, and that date happens to be exactly the one the tax turns on.
The document evidencing the delivery of goods and its date; it is not an invoice and has no tax effect on its own.
The delivery note is not governed by the invoicing regulations and does not appear in the VAT Act. It is a commercial document, not a tax one. It gives no right to deduct VAT, it is not entered in the record book and it never replaces an invoice.
What it does do, and it matters
It fixes the transaction date. And that date is what determines the chargeable event: on supplies of goods, article 75.One.1 of the VAT Act places it when the goods are made available to the buyer, not when the invoice is issued and not when it is paid. A signed and dated delivery note is the evidence of that.
How delivery notes turn into an invoice
You do not need one invoice per delivery note. Article 13 of the regulations allows a recapitulative invoice: it groups several transactions carried out for the same customer within the same calendar month. It is issued by the last day of the month at the latest; if the customer is a business or professional, before the 16th of the following month.
An example
A distributor delivers 14 delivery notes to the same hardware shop during March, for a total of €6,480. It can issue a single recapitulative invoice for March — with the list of delivery notes — and issue it before 16 April. The VAT on the €6,480 goes to the first quarter, because the deliveries were in March.
The mistake that comes up most
Closing the quarter with delivery notes not yet invoiced. VAT already became chargeable on the transaction the day of delivery, so the quarter is incomplete even if the invoice goes out in April. And if the delivery note is lost, the evidence of the date is lost, which is the only thing that piece of paper contributed.
Where this carries on in Cairos: Delivery notes, stock and transfers between warehouses.
Terms that go with this one
Almost no tax concept makes sense on its own. These three are the ones that most often turn up beside it.
Pro forma invoice
An informative document that looks like an invoice but has no tax effect: it does not trigger the chargeable event, it is not entered in the books and it does not allow a deduction.
VATDevengo (the chargeable event)
The moment a transaction is treated as having taken place and the tax obligation arises, regardless of when it is paid for.
InvoicingSequential numbering
The obligation to number invoices consecutively within each series, with no gaps and no repeats.
This, handled without thinking about it
Cairos keeps the invoices, the record books and Hacienda's forms from the same data, so the theory on this page turns into boxes that are already filled in.
No card and no minimum term.