Delivery is part of invoices. In both purchase and sales invoices. You'll find the delivery field between the tax rate and category, at the end of each invoice line.
It is mandatory to state on invoices when something is delivered, it is not supposed to be absent from an invoice. Not on yours, and neither on those of your suppliers. In case that does happen, it should be assumed that everything was delivered on the invoice date. If delivery has been considered, then it is indicated as one date or a period. This may apply to the entire invoice or differ per invoice line.
Delivery date or delivery period?
- Delivery date: the item of the invoice item is, or will be, delivered on this date: for example, a product. In this case, the two dates are the same. Such as: Mar. 1, 2024 - Mar. 1, 2024.
- Delivery period: the item of the invoice line has been, or will be, delivered over a longer period of time: for example, a service. The two dates then differ. Such as: Mar. 1, 2024 - Mar. 1, 2025.
When you create a new purchase or sales invoice in Daxto, each invoice line will automatically adopt the invoice date as the delivery date. You can adjust this delivery yourself if needed. To make it easier for you, your Daxto assistant will help you with this. When you add a new item to an invoice, your Daxto assistant will adopt the delivery for this item from the item above it. As a result, it saves you some work.
Why a delivery?
Whether the delivery is a delivery date or delivery period, it is mandatory to state it. This has to do with laws and tax. To be precise, the accrual principle (Art. 2:362.5 BW) and profit tax.
To clarify this, you can divide an invoice's income or expenses into two pieces: revenue and VAT. You pay or receive VAT in the period in which the invoice date of the invoice occurs. You don't pay profit tax on revenue until later, after preparing the annual statement and filing the tax declaration.
Delivery period and profit tax
An example makes it easier to explain how the delivery period affects the profit tax. Imagine the following:
- You create a sales invoice of € 120.00 excluding VAT for a service you will provide for 12 months.
- There is 21% VAT added, so € 25.20. That brings the invoice total to € 145.20 including VAT.
- You set the invoice date to April 18, 2024, because you immediately bill the customer that day in advance.
- The service will be delivered from May 1, 2024 to May 1, 2025. That delivery period is therefore set for the invoice item.
In your accounting, roughly the following will happen:
- For the second quarter of 2022, € 25.20 of VAT is remitted because the invoice date is April 18, 2024.
- After that, there remains € 120.00 of revenue that must be divided over the appropriate period for profit tax purposes.
- The first 8 months of the service are delivered in 2024. Therefore, the 2024 result increases by € 80.00.
- The remaining 4 months of the service will be delivered in 2025. Therefore, the 2025 result increases by € 40.00.
Daxto automatically spreads the income and expenses of invoices with delivery periods over the set period, even down to the day. This gives you as a business owner a better picture of your income and expenses, instead of showing all revenue or expenses on 1 invoice date.
Of course, this does mean that your reports show the results "smeared out," which is exactly what you want as a business owner. However, sometimes you also want insight into actual amounts received and paid in a period. And you can. For this, consult your cash flow.
Delivery in the past
But it also works the other way around. Suppose you have received a purchase invoice for the company cell phone subscription. You receive it on January 15, 2025, but the invoice is for cell phone usage between December 15, 2024 and January 15, 2025. Setting the delivery on the purchase invoice correctly will include part of the invoice in the previous year's figures.
This is one of the reasons why you don't prepare your annual statement and file your tax declaration right after the year-end. It is wiser to wait at least until mid-February. As of that time, all invoices that could still affect the previous fiscal year must have been received by you.
Delivery and the balance sheet
Income and expenses with a delivery different from the invoice date increase or decrease your result in the future, the past or both. This must be corrected on the balance sheet to keep it balanced. If you understand that concept then you probably have no problem with the concept of time travel either, they are similar. Yet this has been made easy for everyone. Your Daxto assistant handles the balancing completely automatically for you. The following balance categories are used for this purpose:
| Balance category | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Vooraf gefactureerde omzet levering | Previously invoiced revenue, excluding VAT. Due to delivery, they do not yet count towards the result. |
| Achteraf gefactureerde omzet levering | Later invoiced revenue, excluding VAT. Due to delivery, they are already counting towards the result. |
| Vooraf gefactureerde kosten levering | Previously invoiced expenses, excluding VAT. Due to delivery, they do not yet count towards the result. |
| Achteraf gefactureerde kosten levering | Later invoiced expenses, excluding VAT. Due to delivery, they are already counting towards the result. |
Example: you created a sales invoice worth € 100.00 excluding VAT on December 1. The delivery period is from December 1 to February 1. If you look at your balance sheet report on December 31, you will see a result of € 49.21. After all, the rest of the sales do not count until the next fiscal year. To keep your balance sheet in balance, the remaining € 50.79 is temporarily placed in the category 'Vooraf gefactureerde omzet levering'.
Do not confuse these four categories with the two below, which serve a different purpose:
| Balance category | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Nog te factureren aan klanten | Income (including VAT) that has already been received but for which a sales invoice has not yet been created. |
| Nog te factureren door leveranciers | Costs (including VAT) that have already been paid, but for which a purchase invoice has not yet been received. |
In Daxto, a deliberate decision was made to keep these two categories separate from the previous four. This way you keep a clear overview of income and expenses due to deliveries. As well as amounts received or paid in advance of invoices.
Example: a customer deposits € 50.00 into your account on December 31, but you are not going to create the invoice until January of the next fiscal year. Because the customer's deposit must be processed in the accounting records, you connect this transaction to the balance category 'Nog te factureren aan klanten'. After you create the invoice in January, change the connection and make the transaction count as payment for the sales invoice you just created.
Most entrepreneurs rarely, if ever, encounter these. But should you encounter this, use these two categories. Preferably, never book anything yourself on any of the top four categories.
Daxto automatically helps you keep track of all the numbers correctly in your accounting system, from results report to annual statement. By setting up the delivery of invoice items when needed, you automatically see the correct figures everywhere.