--- title: "Credit and debit notes — React Box documentation" description: "Correcting an issued invoice with a credit or debit note: per-series numbering, creation, reasons, offsetting and the effect on your figures." url: https://www.react-box.com/en/docs/invoicing/credit-notes lang: en --- InvoicingCredit and debit notes # Credit and debit notes Correcting an issued invoice without ever rewriting it: a separate, numbered document that points back at it. Updated on September 11, 2026 ## Why a separate document An issued invoice is final. Moroccan tax law (CGI art. 145) requires continuous numbering per fiscal year: reopening an invoice or reusing its number is not an option. Corrections therefore take the form of a second document that references the first and carries all the mandatory mentions itself. ## The three documents Depending on the direction of the correction and which side it happens on. * Credit note You lower what your customer owes: goods returned, a discount granted after the fact, a billing error, a cancellation. It carries no due date and never enters dunning. * Debit note You raise what your customer owes: additional charges, an upward correction. Because it raises the taxable base it behaves exactly like an invoice — VAT, due date, payment, dunning. * Supplier credit note The credit note you receive from a supplier. It lowers what you owe them and is offset against their open bills. Dropped in the vault, document analysis recognizes it and records it in the right direction. ## Numbering Each kind draws its number from its own sequence. By default credit notes follow the “AV-” series and debit notes the “ND-” series, both independent from the invoice one. Issuing a credit note therefore never advances the invoice numbering, and the integrity check verifies each series separately. Note You can switch to shared numbering in the invoicing settings: one continuous sequence covering all three kinds. Both configurations are compliant — the law only requires each series to be uninterrupted. ## Creating a credit note From the invoice concerned, in a few steps. 1. Open the invoice A credit note is created from the invoice it corrects — which must be issued, sent or paid. 2. Choose the scope Full credit: every line is copied at the same amounts. Partial credit: you pick the lines and amounts to credit. Either way, the credit note carries over the ledger accounts of each credited line, VAT account included — the reversal lands where the invoice was allocated. 3. State the reason The reason travels with the document and drives the suggested accounting allocation. 4. Issue The credit note stays a draft until you issue it. On issuance it receives its number, its PDF is archived in the vault, and it becomes final. Warning Cumulative credits cannot exceed the invoice total. An invoice that already carries an issued credit note can no longer be cancelled: cancel the credit note first. ## The reasons What each one covers. * Commercial gesture — a discount or rebate granted after the invoice was issued. * Goods returned — the customer sent back all or part of what was invoiced. * Billing error — a wrong amount, quantity or line on the original invoice. * Cancellation — the sale or service ultimately did not happen. * Written off — you give up on collecting. ## Settling a credit note Three possible outcomes. * Refund The money goes back to the customer. The credit note is recorded as settled and the outflow shows in the bank account movements. * Offset The credit note reduces one or more open invoices of the same customer. An invoice fully covered flips to paid. * Pending The credit note stays as a credit balance for the customer as long as it is neither refunded nor offset. It shows in the figures as “to settle”. ## Effect on your figures Revenue is net of credit notes, the receivable is reduced by the credit notes still open, and collected VAT drops accordingly. On the purchase side, a supplier credit note lowers expenses and deductible VAT the same way. Note A credit note attached to a foreign-currency invoice reuses that invoice's frozen exchange rate, so that a full credit brings the operation back to exactly zero in your base currency. ## History A credit note keeps its own log, and the original invoice keeps the trace of its creation. Allocating a credit note to an invoice, like releasing it, is written on both sides: you read the same operation from the credit note and from the document it settles. Note The log in detail, the possible authors and the administrator-only organization log are described on the “Document history” page, in the Accounting section. ## What stays manual A credit request addressed to a supplier is not yet a document in the product: until the supplier issues their credit note, there is nothing to post. Record the credit note when it arrives. Tip The Atlas assistant can draft a credit note for you, but will never issue it: issuance stays a human decision.