Invoice or receipt — which one do you actually need?
The words get used interchangeably and they are not interchangeable. The distinction is about when the document sits relative to the payment.
The one-sentence version
An invoice is a request for payment: it is issued before the money moves and it creates a debt. A receipt is an acknowledgement: it is issued after the money moves and it discharges one.
| Invoice | Receipt | |
|---|---|---|
| Issued | Before payment | After payment |
| Says | "You owe this" | "This was paid" |
| Usually carries | Payment terms, due date, bank details | Payment method, date paid |
| Typical use | Billing a client | Proving an expense |
Which one is being asked for
Your employer's expense system → receipt
They are reimbursing money you already spent. What they need is proof it was spent: the amount, the date, the merchant, and evidence of payment. An invoice addressed to you would be unusual here, because you are not being asked to pay anything.
Your own bookkeeping → receipt, kept as the source document
A purchase you have already paid for is recorded from the receipt. If you also have an invoice from the supplier, keep both — but the receipt is what ties the entry to the bank line.
A VAT reclaim → a document meeting your country's specific requirements
This is where the vocabulary stops helping. Most VAT regimes require a document carrying the supplier's VAT registration number, the tax rate, and the tax amount as a separate line — regardless of whether the header says "invoice" or "receipt". A receipt with those fields works; an invoice without them does not. See VAT on marketplace purchases.
Billing your own customer → invoice
If you bought something to resell, the document you issue is an invoice: it is addressed to your customer, carries your company as the supplier, and asks to be paid. It has nothing to do with what your own supplier sent you, and it should not reveal them — see invoicing without exposing your supplier.
Fields that both need
- A unique document number, sequential within your own numbering
- A date — the transaction date, not the day you produced the file
- Both parties: who supplied, who received
- Line items with quantity and unit price, so the total is auditable
- Charges itemised: shipping, tax and discounts as their own rows
- A total that actually equals the sum of the rows above it
That last one is not a formality. A document whose figures do not reconcile is the single most common reason an expense claim comes back, and it is usually caused by a charge that was on the order page but did not make it onto the document — a shipping row, a currency fee, a coupon.
When in doubt
Ask what the person receiving it is trying to do. Someone releasing money to you wants proof the money already left. Someone you are billing wants to know what to pay and how. Everything else is naming.
OrderVault produces either from a marketplace order page, with your own numbering and company details, and lets you switch between them with a dropdown after the fact.