Sales Invoice VS Official Receipts

Today's article is about the difference between invoice and official receipt (OR). Probably most of us are still confused between the two receipts. With the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) implementing a new ruling on the receipts, it signals that they are becoming strict with their collection and taxation.

So, what is the difference between an invoice and an official receipt? Invoices, more specifically, Sales Invoices, are used for sales of goods while OR’s are used for sales of services. Sounds easy enough, right?

Here are some examples to show the difference.

Example 1: Food

• When you dine in a restaurant. They will give you an OR, because they sell the whole experience. It is not the food that you are paying for. Official Receipts are for services.
• When you buy your groceries and you ask for a receipt, they will give you a sales invoice.

Example 2: Construction

• When you buy at your local hardware. They will give you a sales invoice.
• But, if you have your house built by a construction firm, upon payment, you will receive an OR.

In both examples, there are different scenarios given but you receive different kinds of receipts. To reiterate, ORs are for sales of services, while Sales Invoices are for sales of goods.

There are also other types of receipts, called supplementary receipts as what the Tax Law says. Examples of these supplementary receipts are billing invoices, delivery receipts, etc. These are what we were accustomed to referring as “invoice”. So when we want our clients to pay us, we ought to give them billing invoice or service invoice – not an invoice or a sales invoice.