Invoices to your buyers

Sooner or later someone turns up at your desk or in your inbox with the question: "could I have an invoice for that?" A company that booked a team building day, a school, a freelancer who wants to expense the visit. This article explains how to arrange that without having to type anything yourself.

What is "an invoice in your name"?

You are the one selling. We sell nothing — we are the system you sell with. So your invoice carries your name, your address and your VAT number, and you are the one issuing it.

What we do is draw up the document in your name and on your behalf. That is expressly allowed: the European VAT directive permits a third party to draw up the invoice, as long as the seller issues it and remains responsible for it. That is why one small line at the bottom of every invoice says it was drawn up via Passavo. Beyond that, our name appears nowhere on it.

It also means you remain responsible for what it says. We suggest the legal wording that matches your country and your status, but only you (or your accountant) know exactly which provision you rely on.

Switching it on

Go to Settings → Organisation, tab Invoices to buyers, and switch on Invoices to buyers are on. Only the Owner role can do this. Then you fill in four things and click Save at the bottom.

1. Your VAT status

This is the most important choice on the screen. There are three:

Status	What appears on the invoice
VAT-registered, with VAT number	VAT per rate, the way you report it in your return.
VAT-exempt (small business or association)	No VAT, with the legal wording of your exemption alongside.
Not VAT-registered	No VAT and no VAT number.

The difference between the last two looks small but is not. If you are exempt, you are a taxable person and you must state the exemption. If you are not VAT-registered, you must not do that: you would suggest a VAT status you do not have.

What if your non-profit has no VAT number?

That is perfectly normal, and you can still invoice. Two cases:

• Your association has no VAT number at all and does nothing that falls under VAT. Then choose Not VAT-registered. Your invoice is simply an invoice, without VAT and without a number.
• Your association has a number but falls under an exemption — in Belgium article 44 for cultural and social activities, or article 56bis if you stay under the small business turnover threshold. Then choose Exempt, and under What is your exemption based on? pick the right ground. With the Fill in the suggestion button we put the matching wording in the Legal wording on your invoice field; your accountant can adjust it.

In doubt? Call your accountant before your first invoice goes out, not afterwards. An issued invoice can no longer be changed.

2. Your number series

You choose a Prefix (for example F or FACT), a starting number under Start at, and whether the series should Start again at 1 every year. With that switch on (the default) you get F2026-0001; without it, F-0001, which simply keeps counting. Below the fields you can see which number your next invoice will get.

One rule is hard: the series must be continuous. No gaps, no duplicate numbers. In an audit, a missing number looks like an invoice that disappeared. So we keep the counter ourselves, and the starting number can only be changed while no invoice has gone out yet. Already made 249 invoices by hand this year? Set the starting number to 250.

3. Your details

The name, address, company number and VAT number as they officially are. This need not be the same name as your shop's: "Friends of the Castle npo" on the invoice, "Laarne Castle" above your tickets. Your logo and colour come from the Look and feel tab, so your invoice looks like your shop.

An IBAN is allowed but not needed: your invoices are always already paid. So there is no due date, but there is "Paid by Bancontact on 12/09/2026".

4. Delivery and requests

Fill in an address under Copy to your accountant and your accountant automatically receives every invoice and every credit note as a blind copy. That saves them an email a month.

Under Request afterwards up to ... days you choose how long after their visit a buyer can still request an invoice themselves (30 by default; see below).

How a buyer asks for their invoice

Four routes, all four with the same result.

In the web shop. At checkout a tick box appears, "I would like an invoice", with fields for company name, address and VAT number. That VAT number is optional: a private person expensing their visit does not have one.

Afterwards. Almost nobody thinks about their expense claim at checkout; a week later they do. So the confirmation email and the confirmation page both say "Need an invoice? Request it here." That link is personal and works up to a number of days after the visit — you set how many yourself (30 by default; 0 means: no end date). The clock runs from the last date on the order: someone who buys a ticket in March for a concert in August can still ask for an invoice in September.

At the desk. After a completed sale the till screen shows an Invoice button. You copy the details from the business card or purchase order the customer brings, and the invoice goes out by email straight away.

In the back office. If someone phones a week later asking for an invoice, go to Invoices to buyers in the menu and click Create invoice. Choose the order and fill in the buyer's details. This only works for a paid order that does not have an invoice yet; otherwise a credit note is the way to go.

What happens then

As soon as the payment goes through, we create the invoice: a number from your series, the date, your details as the seller, the buyer's details, the lines with VAT per line, the totals per VAT rate and the legal wording. The pdf goes by email to the buyer, with a copy to your accountant if you set one.

The VAT follows automatically from your status and your customer's country:

Situation	What happens
Customer in your own country (or country unknown)	The rate of the product: 6% on a guided tour, 21% on a glass of wine.
Business from another EU country with a VAT number	VAT reverse charged, 0%, with the wording alongside.
Private person from another EU country	Simply your own rate.
Customer outside the EU	Export, 0%.

With reverse charge and export the amount does not change: the buyer paid what the shop showed, and that amount appears on the invoice without VAT. If you are exempt or not VAT-registered, there is never any VAT on it, whoever the buyer is.

Do you mainly sell admission to an event? Then there is an exception: that is taxable where the event takes place, including for a foreign business. So switch off Reverse charge VAT for a business customer from another EU country in the settings. Check with your accountant.

Correcting: credit notes

You never change an issued invoice. If something is wrong, a credit note takes back (part of) the invoice, with a reference to the original number. Without such a document you cannot reclaim the VAT you paid over.

If you refund an order (partly) through your payment provider, that happens automatically as soon as the provider confirms the refund: the refunded amount is spread proportionally across the lines, so the VAT per rate stays correct. If there is no refund through your payment provider — you handed cash back, or the invoice is in the wrong name — you create one yourself via Invoices to buyers → open the invoice → Create credit note. Leave the amount as it is to credit the whole invoice, or enter part of it.

By default credit notes run in the same series as your invoices. That is allowed in Belgium, as long as the document says it is a credit note and which invoice it refers to. If your accountant asks for a separate journal, switch on a series of its own under Credit notes in the settings, with its own prefix.

Keeping your accountant happy

Under Invoices to buyers in the menu, top right, there is an Export button with three forms. You choose a period with From and Up to and including — the current month by default, often you want a month or a quarter — and get a file.

• CSV for bookkeeping to check or read in: one line per document, with a net column and a VAT column for each VAT rate, plus the totals, the customer's VAT number and the payment method. Credit notes appear negative, because in a journal they come off the turnover.
• UBL (zip) — importable to import. This is the format Yuki, Exact, Octopus, Billit and e-Boekhouden read directly; your accountant has nothing to retype.
• Pdf (zip) to archive.

How does your accountant import the UBL?

UBL is one xml file per invoice, in the Peppol BIS Billing 3.0 format — the same standard the Peppol network uses. Almost every accounting package has an Import button or a folder you drop such files into:

1. Download the zip for the period and unpack it.
2. In Yuki: drag the xml files into the file's inbox.
3. In Exact Online: Sales → Incoming documents → Import.
4. In Octopus or Billit: use the usual UBL import folder.

If your package does not recognise the file, send one to your accountant and ask which format they expect — chances are they simply mean a different button.

Peppol: e-invoicing between businesses

Since 1 January 2026, Belgian VAT-registered businesses must send each other structured invoices instead of a pdf. That applies between businesses. If you sell a ticket to a private person, nothing changes: they get their pdf by email as always.

If you switch Peppol on, we check for every business invoice whether your buyer's VAT number is known on the network. If it is, the UBL file goes straight there — and the pdf goes alongside it, because an accountant still wants something they can open. If it is not, it stays with the pdf. You can see per invoice in the list, in the Peppol column, what happened: Not via Peppol, Waiting to be sent, Sent via Peppol or Delivery failed. If delivery failed, open the invoice and click Retry via Peppol.

Registering your organisation

To be able to send, you need an access point: a party connected to the Peppol network that passes your documents on. Passavo works with Recommand, a Belgian access point.

1. Ask support to have your business registered on the network with Recommand. You will need your company number.
2. You then get a Peppol address (for a Belgian business 0208: followed by your company number) and a number at the access point.
3. Under Settings → Organisation → Invoices to buyers, block Peppol, switch on Send invoices via Peppol, fill in Your Peppol address and Your number at the access point, and click Save.

As long as Peppol is not yet connected on the platform, everything simply carries on by pdf, even if you switch it on. Nothing breaks and no error appears.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to give everyone an invoice? No. For a private person a ticket or a till receipt is enough. If a visitor asks for one anyway, give it — that is always allowed.

Can I adjust an invoice afterwards? No, and that is not a limit of Passavo but of the law. Make a credit note and a new invoice.

What if I pick the wrong VAT status? Change it in the settings. Invoices already issued stay as they were — that is what the credit note is for.

My customer asks for a purchase order number on the invoice. That is possible: when requesting, there is a field Your reference or purchase order (optional). At the desk it is called Reference (optional), in the back office Customer's reference. It appears at the top of the invoice and goes along in the UBL too.