Receipts, Invoices and the Bewaarplicht: A Records Setup for a One-Person Business

Most one-person businesses have a routine for invoices, because that is how the money arrives, and none for receipts, because nothing arrives when you issue one. Then a client's finance department asks for proof of payment, or the tax office asks for the documents behind a deduction, and the routine that did not exist costs an afternoon.

I invoice through my own company and keep the records the Belastingdienst (the Dutch tax office) expects, so this is the setup I use. It covers when a receipt is a different document from an invoice, what has to be on it, a filing system that still works in year seven, and the retention rules in the Netherlands, the EU and the US.

An invoice asks for money. A receipt confirms it arrived

An invoice is a request: this is what you owe, by this date, to this account. A receipt is a confirmation: this amount was paid, on this date, by this method, for this. Different documents, different moments.

For business-to-business work the invoice is the legal document. Once it is paid, the invoice plus the bank statement is the proof, and in the Netherlands nobody expects a separate kwitantie (receipt) for a bank transfer between two companies. A receipt is needed when:

• Cash changes hands. No bank record, so the receipt is the only record, for both sides.
• The client's procurement or expense system wants a document that says "paid". Government bodies and large companies often cannot close a purchase order on an invoice alone.
• The customer is a consumer. A private customer paying for a service gets a receipt, and in most countries has the right to ask for one.
• A deposit or part payment makes the amount received differ from the invoice total.

Stamping PAID on the invoice and sending it again is what most freelancers do. It works for the bookkeeping. It does not carry the payment method or the transaction reference, and those two fields are exactly what the finance department asked for. The Receipt Generator produces the document with those fields filled in, and the Invoice Generator makes the request that comes before it.

The seven things that have to be on it

The legal minimum differs by country. This list satisfies every one I have had to deal with:

1. Your business name, address and registration number. In the Netherlands that is the KVK number (the Chamber of Commerce registration) and, if you charge VAT, the BTW-id (the VAT identification number).
2. A receipt number that is unique and sequential. R-2026-014 is fine. Gaps in the sequence are the first thing an auditor asks about.
3. The date the payment arrived. Not the date you made the document.
4. Who paid: name and address.
5. What for. "Test management, August 2026, settles invoice 2026-031" is specific. "Services rendered" is not, and a deduction that rests on it can be refused.
6. The amount, with VAT shown separately: net, rate, VAT, total. A receipt that mixes 9% and 21% items shows each rate on its own line.
7. How it was paid: bank transfer with the reference, card with the last four digits, or cash.

A logo, a thank-you line and your terms for any balance still open are optional. The seven above are not.

A filing system that still works in year seven

Five habits, in the order of how much trouble they save.

Separate accounts. One business bank account, one business card, everything through them. This removes most of the sorting at year end by itself.

Photograph every paper receipt the day you get it. Thermal paper fades to blank inside a year, and a legible scan is accepted by the Belastingdienst as long as you can produce it on request. Photograph, file, bin the paper.

One file name pattern: 2026-06-14_ns_38.90.pdf, date, vendor, amount. Sortable by date, searchable by vendor, and readable by whoever does your books after you.

One folder per year with a folder per month inside, for what you received, and a parallel tree for what you issued. Your own receipts get filed the same way as the ones you collect, because your income records get audited too.

Reconcile once a quarter, when the VAT return is due anyway. Every bank line matches a document: an invoice or receipt you sent, or a receipt you got. A line with no document gets fixed in the quarter it happened, not in year seven when nobody remembers what it was.

When the accountant wants a month in one file, PDF Merge joins the folder into a single PDF in date order.

Digital storage is allowed. Losing it is not

Digital records are accepted by every tax authority I know of, the Belastingdienst included, on two conditions: they stay legible, and you can produce them within a reasonable time for the whole retention period. That rules out a phone that gets replaced next year and a free cloud account tied to an e-mail address you might close.

Keep the tree in a cloud folder that also syncs to a computer, so there are two copies without you doing anything. Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud and OneDrive all index the text inside PDFs and photos, so a search for the vendor's name finds the receipt with no tagging.

E-mail receipts count. Save the PDF into the tree, or forward the mail to a folder you keep. The e-mail is a second copy with a timestamp on it.

Retention is the number people get wrong. In the Netherlands the bewaarplicht (the statutory duty to keep business records) is seven years, and ten for anything to do with real estate. Elsewhere in the EU it runs from five to ten years by country. In the US the IRS says three years in the general case, six if income was under-reported by more than a quarter, and seven for a bad-debt claim. Keep everything seven years and you are covered almost everywhere; ten if property is involved. Storage is close to free. Reconstructing 2019 from bank statements is not.

Different businesses, and the point where a template stops being enough

A consultant's receipt names the period, the engagement and the invoice it settles. A shop's lists each item with quantity and unit price, then subtotal, VAT and total. A subscription business issues one per billing cycle with the plan and the period on it. A tradesperson adds the job address and refers back to the quote. Lawyers, accountants and medical practices usually have a professional body that prescribes extra fields, and that list beats anything in this post. The Receipt Generator keeps your business details and lets you change the lines per document, which covers all of these at low volume.

Low volume is the condition. Up to ten or so receipts a month, a template is fine. Past that, stop typing and do one of three things:

• Let the accounting package issue it. Moneybird, e-Boekhouden, Xero and QuickBooks all produce a receipt the moment you mark an invoice paid.
• Let the payment processor issue it. Stripe, Mollie and PayPal send the customer a receipt on every payment, with your details on it, once you switch that on.
• For a web shop or a SaaS, generate it in code when the payment webhook arrives, and e-mail it from there.

Whichever path, keep your own copy of every receipt you issue, in the same tree as the ones you collect. Issued receipts are income records. They get the same seven years.

FAQ

Do I have to issue a receipt for every payment?

For cash, yes, everywhere. For a bank transfer between two businesses, the invoice and the bank record are normally enough and a receipt is issued on request. For consumers, most countries give the customer the right to ask for one, and a shop is expected to offer it without being asked.

Is a PDF or an e-mail a valid receipt?

Yes, in every jurisdiction I am aware of, provided it carries the same content as a paper receipt and you can still open it in seven years. PDF is the safe format. A screenshot from an app usually is not, because it lacks the issuer's details.

What is the difference between a receipt and proof of purchase?

A receipt is one kind of proof of purchase, and the strongest, because it names the seller, the buyer, the goods and the tax in one document. A bank statement proves an amount left your account and says nothing about what it bought. For a deduction you want the receipt; the statement backs it up.

How long do I keep them?

Seven years in the Netherlands, ten for real estate. Five to ten elsewhere in the EU, by country. Three to seven in the US depending on the situation. If you would rather not look it up per country, seven covers nearly all of it.