A credit note and a new invoice appeared — what happened?

Occasionally an invoice is issued with the wrong tax treatment — for example VAT charged on a sale that should have carried none. An invoice is a legal document with a sequential number, so it is never edited in place. Instead the correction arrives as a pair on your Billing → Invoices page:

• a credit note (number starting C…) reversing the original invoice in full — same amounts, negative; and
• a new invoice with the next number in the series, carrying the corrected figures for the same purchase.

Together the three documents net out to what the purchase should have cost. What you bought is untouched: credits stay in your wallet, orders stay delivered — only the paperwork and, where applicable, the money moves.

Where is the money?

If the correction means you paid too much, the difference is refunded to the payment method you paid with, automatically, at the same moment the documents are issued. A bank-based payment (iDEAL, SEPA) takes a few business days to arrive back; cards are usually faster. The invoice list shows how much of a payment has been returned — a Partially refunded or Refunded status carries the amount right under it, for example €189.00 of €1,089.00 refunded.

Bookkeeping

File all three documents: the original, the credit note, and the corrected invoice. The credit note references the invoice it reverses on its face, so the chain is self-explanatory to an accountant. If your VAT return already included the original invoice, the credit note is what corrects the next one.

Something still looks wrong on a corrected invoice? See invoices-explained for what each field means, or open a support ticket with the invoice numbers.