Credit & debit notes — money-only adjustments
Adjust a party's balance without moving any goods: a post-sale discount, a rate correction, or a charge you are recovering.
Sometimes you need to change what a party owes — or what you owe them — without any goods changing hands. That is what credit notes and debit notes are for. They are pure value adjustments, recorded the same way you record a journal: a few balanced lines, no item table, no stock movement.
| Note | Raise it when… | Everyday example |
|---|---|---|
| Credit Note | You are reducing what a customer owes you | A discount agreed after the invoice, or a rate revised downward. |
| Debit Note | You are increasing what a party owes you | Recovering freight from a supplier, or a rate revised upward on a purchase. |
Raise a note
- 1
Open the voucher
Go to Transactions → Vouchers → Credit Note (or Debit Note).
- 2
Enter the lines
Add balanced lines just like a journal — name the party account on one side and the matching head (a discount, an income, or a tax account) on the other. Debits must equal credits.
- 3
Add a narration
Say exactly why the adjustment is being made — it is the first thing anyone reviewing the account will read.
- 4
Save
The party's balance updates immediately, and the note appears in the voucher registers.
When it counts for GST
If a note includes a tax line, it is reported in the credit/debit-note section of your GST return automatically. A purely financial note with no tax line simply adjusts the ledgers and stays out of GST — exactly as it should.
Goods actually moved? This is the wrong screen.
Credit and debit notes never touch stock. If a customer physically returned goods, raise a Sale Return; if you physically returned goods to a supplier, raise a Purchase Return. Those keep your inventory correct; notes do not.
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