A credit note is a document issued by a seller to a buyer that reduces the amount the buyer owes for a product or service. Credit notes can be issued for partial or full amounts, depending on the situation, and a single invoice can have more than one related credit note.
For example, you may need to issue a credit note if your client returns a product or if you accidentally issued an invoice with incorrect information.
💡 By law, an invoice cannot be modified or deleted once it’s been issued. As such, a credit note is a mandatory type of document that allows you to fully or partially cancel an invoice, so that a new one can be created with the most up-to-date information.
How can I create a credit note?
Log into your Qonto account from a desktop device and click on Invoicing on the navigation bar.
➡️ If your invoice is unpaid:
From the invoice list, select the invoice that you wish to issue a credit note for and click on Cancel with credit note.
Enter the required details:
Credit note number: If you’ve previously set up automatic invoice numbering, your credit notes will also be numbered automatically, which you can customize from the Settings tab. Conversely, if you’re using manual invoice numbering, you’ll also need to manually number your credit notes.
💡If your set up is on manual numbering and you’ve previously issued credit notes on another tool, please ensure that credit notes created on Qonto are sequentially numbered; for example, if the last credit note issued on a previous tool was CN-1, your first credit note on Qonto should be CN-2. You’ll be able to customize your credit note numbers if you set up manual invoice numbering in the Settings tab when creating an invoice.
Issue date
Additional details (optional)
Please note that for credit notes issued from unpaid invoices, the Items section will carry over and cannot be modified.
➡️ If your invoice has already been paid:
From the invoice list, select the invoice that you wish to issue a credit note for and click on Create credit note.
Enter the required details:
Credit note number (manual or automatic, depending on your preferences)
Issue date
Items: Enter a line for every invoice item that you’re canceling. For partial credit notes, you can modify the quantity, price, and VAT rate per item as necessary.
Additional details (optional)
When you’re ready, take one last look and click on Create credit note. Once you have created a credit note, you will not be able to cancel it. On the other hand, you’ll then be able to share the credit note with your client by email or link.
If by mistake you create a credit note with a lower amount than the one you wanted, you can generate a second credit note.
Please note that a full credit note will automatically change the invoice’s status to Canceled (whether it was paid or unpaid). Meanwhile, paid invoices with a partial credit note will still appear as Paid. In all cases, all invoices with a related credit note will appear with a small credit note icon on the invoice list. To view your credit note, open the related invoice and click on the Credit note shown in the Related document(s) section.
💡Please note that credit notes are available on desktop only
Can I create debit notes on Qonto?
Currently, you can only create credit notes on Qonto. If you issued an invoice for a lesser amount than that owed by your client, you can issue another invoice for the outstanding amount. If needed, you can also add a short explanation on the optional Terms, conditions, and legal notices field on your invoice.