About Invoices and Receipts for Paid Orders
3 min
In this article
- What is an invoice?
- What is a receipt?
- Choosing between issuing receipts or invoices
- Invoicing required for all sales
- Reconsiling invoice numbering before and after payment
- FAQs
Invoices and receipts are important financial documents that serve different roles in your business. You can generate invoices or receipts automatically after payment is received.
This article explains each document and can help you decide which one you should send customers after a sale.
Tip:
You always have the option of manually sending a receipt or an invoice after payment. Learn how to manually generate an invoice or a receipt.
What is an invoice?
An invoice is a document that lists the products or services provided, their quantities, prices, and payment terms, as well as details about the seller and buyer. It's an official record for both you and your customer.
Usually, you send an invoice before delivery as a formal, legal request for payment, however, you can also send it after payment is received.
What is a receipt?
A receipt lists the products or services provided, their quantities, prices, and payment terms, as well as details about the seller and buyer, similar to invoices. They can help both merchants and customers with accounting and tax records.
Receipts prove that a transaction took place. As opposed to invoices, you issue receipts only after a payment is received, never before.
Choosing between issuing receipts or invoices
If you want to enable automatic receipts or invoices, we recommend choosing one or the other to prevent payments appearing twice in your records. If you simply want to provide proof of payment, in most cases, you'll want to issue receipts. However, there are a number of instances where invoicing may be useful instead of or in addition to receipts.
Important:
Invoices are issued per order for the full payment amount, while receipts are issued per payment. If an order is paid with multiple payments, a separate receipt is issued each time a payment is received.
Invoicing required for all sales
Certain countries or regions require invoices for all sales, including paid orders. Check with your accountant or local tax authorities to see if this regulation applies to you.
Reconsiling invoice numbering before and after payment
Every time you issue an invoice in Wix Invoices, the invoice has a unique, consecutive number. An invoice automatically created after full payment is received has the same number. Some local authorities require these numbers to be the same.
Note:
Receipts have their own unique, consecutive numbering which do not align with invoicing numbers.
FAQs
Do I need to make my invoices VAT-compliant if I’m in the EU?
Can I enable both automatic invoicing and automatic receipts?
Do receipts and invoices have legal standing?
Why do I have more receipts than invoices for some orders?
How can I set up invoices or receipts?
