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Petty cash: a brief overview of the main points

September 25, 2020
Natalia Gorpinchenko
Accountex Raamatupidamine

How often have you seen receipts from a store in company accounting, where the company details are handwritten by hand? Maybe you even write them yourself? If you don’t know yet, today I’ll tell you that this is pointless. We are not talking about simplified receipts (such as fuel receipts), but about the receipts we receive from the cashier.

The receipt must contain your company's details, but they must be printed by the cash register. What does this give us? It grants the right to account for input VAT.

So, can I use such a receipt in accounting?  
This is where the biggest confusion lies. If you send an employee to a store who used their own loyalty card for a discount and then brought back a receipt with their name on it, this is a document for your expenses. Based on this, you can reimburse the employee for the expense, but you cannot claim input VAT. The total amount including VAT goes into expenses.

There’s no point in writing company details on the receipt manually. Instead, ask the cashier to enter your company's details into their system so that next time you only need to mention your company’s name. In stores where loyalty cards can be used, set up the card under your company's name.

This issue with company details on receipts is quite confusing and unfortunately not very flexible. To avoid unexpected problems, I recommend being as familiar as possible with these rules. Below, you'll find an older post about company details that lists all the requirements for original documents.