Make a credit note in two minutes

Not on its own. A credit note reduces what is owed on paper; a refund moves money back. If the invoice is unpaid, the credit note alone settles it. If it was paid, you may credit the account or refund, and you should say which on the document. Credit note or refund covers the three cases.

Keep them positive and let the title do the work, since a credit note is understood to reduce what is owed. Match the original invoice's rates exactly rather than rounding to a convenient figure, or the two documents stop reconciling. The credit note template guide covers the one field that makes a credit note useful: the original invoice number.

A credit note reduces the taxable sale, which is why refunding without issuing one leaves you having paid tax on revenue you no longer have. Credit the tax proportionally to the net. Rules vary by jurisdiction and change, so confirm yours, but that principle holds widely.

No. There is no sign-up, no login and no trial, and nothing is held back behind one. The page works the first time you open it and the hundredth. Since nothing you type is stored anywhere, there would be nothing for an account to hold. The privacy page sets out what that means in practice.

Yes. Click the logo box at the top left of the sheet and choose an image. Resize it to around 600 pixels wide first: a photo straight off a phone can be several megabytes, and that weight goes into your saved file and any PDF you export. The logo is stored inside the sheet, so it comes back with the credit note next time you open it.

Use Save as file to write a small .json file to your own disk, then Open a saved file to bring it back with everything in place, logo included. That file is also the quickest way to build a template: fill in your own details once, save it, and open that copy each time. The credit note template guide covers what to fix and what to leave blank.

Choose Print or save PDF, then pick Save as PDF as the destination in your browser's print dialogue. The file is produced on your own machine and never passes through a server. Two settings decide how it looks: background graphics on, and scale at 100%. Turning an invoice into a PDF explains both, and they behave the same on every sheet here.

Every currency in common use. The picker opens on the one that matches your country, worked out from your browser's own locale rather than by looking anything up over the network. Change it whenever you like and the symbol follows through to every figure on the credit note. If you bill across a border, invoicing a client in another currency covers the decisions worth making first.

No. There is no server behind this page. Client names, prices, notes and your logo stay in the browser tab while it is open and go when you close it, which is why saving to a file matters. The privacy page sets out exactly what does and does not happen, including the one external request the site still makes.

Yes, and partial credits are normal. List only the lines being credited and only the quantities returned, at the rates on the original invoice. The rest of the invoice stands. Do not restate the whole invoice with a smaller total, which produces two documents each claiming to be the full picture.

Always. Put the original invoice number in the Details box. Without it neither your accounts nor the customer's can match the two, and the credit floats unreconciled. It is the single most important field on the document. Fixing an invoice you already sent explains why editing the original is worse.

No. One is paperwork, the other is money. You may issue a credit note without any money changing hands, for instance against an unpaid invoice. Where a refund does follow, record it separately with its own date, amount and method so your bank statement ties back to the paperwork.