The rule
TaxItEasy enforces one hard rule across the entire product: a VAT-bearing incoming invoice without a usable document cannot be approved. Not by you, not by the client, not through bulk approve, not through any side door. The server rejects the approval with a specific error, and the UI disables the Approve button with a hint plus a one-click path to request the document from the client.
There is deliberately no override. A gate with an override isn't a gate — it's a suggestion, and suggestions don't survive a busy month-end.
What counts as a usable document
- A live uploaded document — a scan, photo, or PDF attached to the invoice. If the upload was later deleted, it no longer counts (and the checklist will catch that — see below).
- The generated PDF of a finalized sales invoice — an invoice your client issued through TaxItEasy is its own legally valid record, so it satisfies the gate by itself. No one needs to upload a copy of a document the system created.
The zero-VAT path
An invoice with zero VAT and no document can be approved — but never silently. You get an explicit confirm: "This invoice carries no VAT and has no linked document. Approve it anyway?" The distinction is intentional: with no VAT there is no input VAT claim to substantiate, so the decision is yours — but it must be a decision, not an accident. Invoices with incomplete-looking data (missing number, vendor, or amount) sit behind a similar confirm.
The same gate on the bank side
Transactions follow the identical logic. A transaction that carries its own VAT, or that is matched to a confirmed invoice, sits in the Needs receipt bucket until a document exists — and Clear is disabled with a hint until then. The auto-clear loop respects it too: when you approve an invoice, its matched transactions clear automatically, but never past the receipt gate. There is no automation path that books a VAT amount without a document behind it.
Why this makes period close audit-proof
When you attest a period, what you're really vouching for is that every reclaimed input VAT amount can be substantiated. The receipt gate turns that from a hope into a structural property:
- Nothing VAT-bearing reached the approved state without a document — the system made it impossible, so there is no "I'll find that receipt later" backlog hiding in your closed periods.
- The period checklist double-checks the edges: item 5 counts reviewed invoices whose document was deleted after approval, and item 10 counts cleared transactions without a receipt. A period is only flagged ready to attest when both read zero.
- Every approval, skip, and auto-clear is recorded in an append-only audit log, so the record of how each booking got its document is tamper-evident.
In practice the gate changes advisor behavior in one pleasant way: instead of approving optimistically and chasing paper afterwards, you fire off receipt requests as you review and let the Waiting bucket track the chase for you.
What you'll see day to day
- Bulk approve skips gated invoices instead of failing: "Approved N · M skipped (no document)" — the skipped ones are exactly the receipt-request candidates.
- The No document bucket in the invoice workbench and the Needs receipt bucket in the transaction queue are, together, your complete missing-paper list for the period.
- Once the client uploads, everything downstream resolves on its own: query closed, invoice approvable, transaction clearable.
Related
- Request a receipt from your client — the one-click way through the gate
- The VAT workbench: reviewing client invoices — where the gate blocks Approve
- Period checklist and VAT return prep — the checklist items that backstop the gate
- The transaction work queue, explained — Needs receipt on the bank side