Simplified invoice: the till receipt, with rules
It counts as an invoice and it is perfectly legal. What almost nobody knows is that, exactly as it comes out of the till, it does not let whoever receives it deduct the VAT.
An invoice with less compulsory content, allowed only below certain amounts and for a defined list of transactions.
Article 4 of the invoicing regulations governs it. A simplified invoice can be issued in two general cases: when the amount does not exceed €400 including VAT, and where it is a corrective invoice.
The €3,000 limit
On top of that, paragraph 2 of the same article raises the limit to €3,000 including VAT in fourteen defined cases. Among them: retail sales, hotel and restaurant services, dance halls and nightclubs, hairdressing and beauty salons, transport of people and luggage, vehicle parking, use of sports facilities, dry cleaning and laundry, photograph developing, door-to-door sales, sales or services from a vehicle, film hire and toll motorways.
Outside that list, the limit is €400. And there are transactions where a simplified invoice is never allowed: intra-Community supplies, distance sales and transactions located outside the territory where the tax applies, among others.
What it carries and what it lacks
Article 7 requires: the number and, where applicable, the series; the issue date; the transaction date where it differs; the issuer's NIF and name; identification of the goods or services; the tax rate and, optionally, the words «IVA incluido»; and the total consideration. It does not carry the customer's details or the VAT shown separately, and that is why it gives no right to deduct.
The solution is in paragraph 2 of that article: if the customer is a business or professional and asks, the issuer has to put in their NIF and address and the VAT charged separately. Then it is deductible.
An example
A working lunch costing €78 in a restaurant is well within the €3,000 limit. But if you want to deduct the €7.09 of VAT (a base of €70.91 at 10%), you have to ask them to put in your NIF and break out the VAT before you leave. Afterwards is too late.
The mistake that comes up most
Keeping the restaurant or petrol station receipt thinking the VAT will be deductible anyway. Without the customer's NIF and without the VAT shown separately, that simplified invoice gives no right to deduct, and it is the number one reason a VAT inspection ends in an assessment.
Where this carries on in Cairos: See which fields each type of invoice requires.
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.
Sequential numbering
The obligation to number invoices consecutively within each series, with no gaps and no repeats.
VATInput VAT
The VAT you pay your suppliers on purchases and expenses, deductible only if the goods or the service are used in your activity and you have the full invoice.
InvoicingCorrective invoice
The invoice that corrects one already issued, in its own series and referring expressly to the invoice being corrected.
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.