A Receipt template is a written acknowledgment that a certain article, service or amount of money has been received. They are essential to any business and come in many forms depending on the type of business and regulations that apply. It is worth doing some research and searching the internet for online solutions as you can save a great deal of money.
Receipts are required by most businesses and need to include certain information such the price of the items, any vat charged and the total. The easiest solution is for a small business to use a receipt template.
To get a receipt template you could:
- Download from the internet
- Use Office software websites (see the ones listed here)
- Create your own in Word / Open Office
- Use a standalone program
- Buy a pre-printed book
Download a receipt template from the Internet
If you search for receipt templates via the search engines you will see a lot of web sites offering them. Some are good, but the ones highlighted on this site are better. Free receipt templates are available if you know where to look.
Buy online at an office web site
There are many sites available that will provide a receipt template either free or for a small cost. Free ones tend to be limited but there are good suppliers that charge a small amount for receipt books.
Create in Word / Open Office
If you know what information needs to be included on a receipt template then you can use a standard office program such as Word, Excel or Open Office to produce them yourself. They won't look as good as the purchased templates but they will do the job.
Use a standalone program
You can purchase programs that will calculate all the necessary item charges and vat etc. This can be a good option for a larger business.
Some things to consider:
- Provides duplicate copies of receipts
- Pre-printed layout
- Carbonless paper
- Colour-coded duplicate pages
- Strong twin-wire binding
Find the best receipt template for your business.
What’s on a Receipt?
Receipts can be very simple or contain a lot of information depending on the type of product or service and the business. An online ecommerce receipt, for example, could be complicated and have multiple pages. A book of printed receipts, on the other hand, may only have a few lines for good received, price paid and any tax or VAT.
Some items that could be included on a receipt are:
- Business name
- Customer name
- Customer reference
- Receipt date
- Item prices
- Discounts
- Vat rate
- Vat amount
- Total
- Contact details
- Signature
A clear, well designed sales receipt will give a business more authority than one that just uses hand written receipts. So it is worth getting some properly printed receipts or working on your online version.
Firstly you need your business name on the receipt. It can include the business address and further contact details, but it's not essential.
The customer name to show who purchased the goods. Again, it can include further details such as address and contact information.
A receipt reference number is useful for internal accounting and keeping records. A duplicate book would include this.
The date of the transaction is also important.
The prices of all goods or services should be listed along with any discounts, taxes or VAT, and a total provided.
For printed receipts a signature space is provided to authenticate the receipt. Online receipts, including those by email, will be authenticated by the company sending them.
Law and Receipts
Are receipts required in law?
The law in the UK is covered by the Sale of Goods Act 1973.
The terms implied when selling to a consumer form a contract that the goods are of satisfactory quality and meet their description.
If the supplied goods or service are not of acceptable quality, there is the right to reject them (there is no right to an exchange of goods).
The Sale of Goods Act 1973 does not state that a receipt must be produced.
If there is a dispute the purchaser would have to prove to a court that the purchase had taken place. In that case a bank or card statement would suffice be a receipt.
If no receipt has been given, or can not be produced, the seller can not deny liability for the contract of sale, and may be covered in the Unfair Contracts Terms Act 1977.
Bank Receipts
Should you keep receipts from your bank or cashpoint machine?
Sometimes people say you should keep cashpoint (or ATM) receipts, and check them with the actual statement from the bank.
Withdrawing money from a cashpoint is an automated procedure that always transfers the correct amount from two accounts. Or, at least, it should!
It's a good idea to keep the cashpoint receipts. The hardware and software of the cash machine have to talk to the bank computers via data connections, and sometimes errors can occur, as with any software. Errors would normally get caught between bank cashpoint software and the main bank computer, errors can happen, and the bank would need additional evidence in the form of a printed receipt to be able to rectify the problem.
One user said:
"I've found it's just simpler to keep all of my receipts rather than debate which receipts to keep and which to throw away. I shove all my receipts from August in an envelope labeled August. Then, next year (12 months later) I shred the envelope. That way, if I see a bank error, need to find a receipt to do a return or warranty work, etc. I have all of them available for a year. Doing 1 envelope per month means I only have 12 envelopes at any time and I can shred an entire envelope without bothering to sort through receipts inside the envelope."
That's being very organised, and could save a lot of money if anything goes wrong with a transaction.
Download Receipt Template
There is a basic receipt template available to download below, in both Excel and PDF versions. The Excel version can be customised as needed.
