It’s important for a business to keep records of their day-to-day activities. Part of this includes the issuance and retention of important receipts. This allows you to monitor the progress of your business and prepare financial statements for internal accounting.
A receipt offers a range of benefits for your organization. This is something to take advantage of in order to settle related problems in the near future. Given the importance of a receipt to the success of your business operations, learning how to make one correctly is a task worth mastering.
Listed below are the major elements of a receipt:
1. Name: The name of the profit or nonprofit organization responsible for issuing the receipt must be indicated on the upper section of the page. Including this element is a must due to legal and tax purposes. This will also distinguish your company from market competitors.
2. Date: This refers to the date as to when the receipt was issued. This is especially important when completing a sales report for the business, as this may be used to measure a company’s performance over a given period. Managing your records would also be more convenient if your documents remain consistent and accurate with what actually transpired. You may also see expense receipt examples.
3. Address and Contact Number: Following a transaction, it is possible for customers to have concerns or suggestions they’d want to raise. Don’t make it difficult for customers to get in touch with you by providing your office address and contact details for them to refer to.
4. Item Name and Price: Similar to a sales invoice, a receipt also contains an itemized list of products or services purchased by the buyer. A brief description of the item will make it easy for you to trace a particular transaction in your records. The description reflected in the receipt should also match your inventory list for easy tracking. While some receipts are more detailed than others, a standard receipt may only note the name and price of the corresponding item.
5. Total Price: The total price of all of the items purchased must always be documented on the receipt. You can get the grand total of the transaction by adding all of the items listed, plus the taxes and charges due. This can be computed manually or through a POS system to generate accurate results.
One way to establish consistency with your business records and legal documents is to use a template for every material. Fortunately, developing a business receipt for your company is extremely easy with the help of the guidelines below:
1. Determine your purpose: Though most receipts are designed for a similar function, there may be slight differences between them that are particular to the receipt’s intention. This will help you identify the key parts of your receipt that you and your customers might find useful.
2. Gather the necessary information: Some of the primary elements of a receipt include your company logo, name, address, and contact details. This information should be grouped together in a custom letterhead for customers to find and refer to.
3. Fill in your template: Once you have gathered the required data, look for a template that will best cater to your purpose. Be sure to edit the template with your business information before using it for different transactions. It’s also a good idea to limit the use of text unless completely necessary. Otherwise, it would be difficult for customers to understand what is being conveyed in the receipt.
4. Finalize the receipt: Review the document for any errors that were overlooked. The last thing you would want to do is to issue multiple receipts under a misspelled business name or the wrong telephone number. Since the rest of the receipt’s content will likely vary depending on what and when the goods were sold, simply save the personalized template or have it printed for manual issuance. You may also see work receipt examples.
Every business is mandated by law to issue an official receipt to customers for every good, property, or service sold. This will be used to document every purchase and assist the company with its internal accounting. From a buyer’s standpoint, the receipt may serve as evidence to prove that a payment was made to complete the transaction.
A shoebox full of receipts might sound a bit overwhelming, but it’s one way to help us stay organized. You may want to hold on to some major receipts for taxes or records, while others can be stored for weeks, months, or until the warranty expires. Before you even consider shredding those receipts, make sure they don’t contain any sort of information you might worry about. It’s also best to request for a receipt after every purchase for security reasons.
A receipt is a valuable document that both sellers and buyers should not take for granted. As simple as it seems, that ordinary slip of paper can help protect you from possible disputes in the court of law. Feel free to use the templates provided in this article to help track your sales and expenses with ease.