Online, cash, EFTPOS, PayPass – there are so many ways for customers to buy our products and services. For a small business owner, this makes understanding your responsibilities around receipts or proof of purchase increasingly complex.
By law, you need to give a customer a receipt or proof of purchase for anything valued $75 or over. Proof of purchase can take the form of a tax invoice, cash register printout, or handwritten receipt, and is usually delivered at the time of purchase.
The advent of e-commerce and its exponential growth means that, today, there are many more ways to provide proof of purchase than a physical receipt.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) lists other types of proof of purchase as:
Issuing a receipt doesn’t need to be complicated, but it’s important to include all the information the customer may deem relevant. This is necessary in case you need to provide a refund, repairs, or maintenance somewhere down the track.
Any receipt or proof of purchase you provide to customers must include:
Additionally, you are obliged to provide an itemised bill or account if your customer requests one. Under such a scenario, the customer has 30 days to lodge the request and you then have seven days to provide the invoice free of charge.
The itemised account needs to show how you worked out the price, and it must include a breakdown of the hours of labour (with price per hour) and materials involved. A customer can then use that itemised receipt to ask for a refund, repairs, or replacement at some time in the future.
By keeping accurate records of all your customer transactions, you will not only avoid or reduce the severity of any future disputes, you will also know exactly which jobs you are devoting your labour and materials to. It will also provide a clear and concise picture of how business performance is tracking, while simultaneously reducing the amount of work you might otherwise need to do around tax time.
For more information, or if you are unclear about your responsibilities as a small business owner, visit the ACCC website.
To read more about how to run your business, check out these helpful resources.
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