Daily receipts book

What is a daily receipts book? 

In a daily receipts book, you record the sales for which no invoice has to be issued. In practice, these are usually transactions with private individuals (e.g. cash register tickets) that are not subject to the obligation to issue an invoice.

A daily receipts book is not a cash book (and vice versa)

There is sometimes confusion between a daily receipts book and a cash book. They are not the same! As a business, you manage a purchase journal and a sales journal, but you also need to keep a financial journal. This contains your bank statements and, where applicable, a cash book. A cash book contains all amounts paid or received in cash: so it is mainly about the payment method.

This means that a sale can sometimes be recorded both in a cash book and in a daily receipts book. For example, a private individual buys an item for which you create a cash register ticket (this goes into your daily receipts book) and he pays for it in cash (you record this in your cash book).

Formal requirements for the daily receipts book

  • You must keep a separate daily receipts book for each registered office or branch.
  • The total amount of the daily receipts must be recorded every day, broken down by VAT rate.
  • You must keep the supporting documents (e.g. cash register tickets, receipts, …) for these sales and be able to make them available in the event of an audit, for seven years.
  • Is there a sale where the unit price of an item exceeds € 250,-? Then you must record this sale separately in the daily receipts book, stating/describing the nature of the item sold.

Exceptions:

  • This separate entry may be replaced by one daily global entry if the supporting documents (e.g. cash register tickets, receipts, …) also accurately state the nature of the goods sold.
  • You do not need to keep a daily receipts book if a flat-rate VAT scheme applies to your business (e.g. pharmacists, bakers, …) or if, as in the hospitality sector for example, the so-called ‘White Cash Register’ (a Registered Cash Register System) is used.

Digital or on paper?

The days of paper daily receipts books are gradually behind us. Nowadays, a digital invoicing program such as onFact also offers the option of keeping a daily receipts book. There is an explicit condition attached, though: the system must guarantee that the figures entered cannot be changed. A regular Excel file that you created yourself will therefore not suffice in the event of an audit.

If you keep a daily receipts book that does not meet the set criteria, or if you don't keep one at all when you should, you risk a VAT fine. So that is best avoided!

Easy validation of the digital daily receipts book

The daily receipts book you create in onFact can easily be validated by an inspector. If the file cannot be validated, it was changed outside the system (= without tracing), which is not allowed.

The daily receipts book is digitally signed by onFact every day. This unique key is contained in the Excel file you can download. If you then upload this file into the validation tool, the key will be recognised and the file will be validated correctly. However, if the Excel file has been changed, the unique key will change automatically. The file can then no longer be validated, so in the event of an audit you will immediately see that the file has been modified.