A restaurant is the textbook case for the simplified tax invoice: a direct sale to a consumer who receives the invoice at payment, QR code included, reported to the platform within 24 hours in Phase 2. What earns restaurants their own guide is not the rule — it is the daily exceptions.
Every till is an invoicing unit
The cashier in the dining room, the quick-service screen, the POS in your second branch — every device that issues invoices is registered with the Authority as its own unit, with its own certificate and its own counter. Opening a new branch means registering its units before its first invoice, not after. And each unit's counter is an independent sequence that must never break.
Delivery-app orders
Who invoices the customer — the restaurant or the app? The answer is set by your contract with each platform (agency on your behalf, or buy-and-resell), and each arrangement has different tax consequences for both sides. The practical rule: fix the arrangement in writing with every platform, and make sure your system invoices only your side of it — never a duplicate of the same order on both your invoice and the app's.
Rush-hour cancellations
An order cancelled after its invoice was issued is never deleted — it is corrected by a credit note referencing the original. In a restaurant this happens dozens of times a week, so the credit note must be a one-tap action at the POS, not an accounting chore deferred to closing time. And remember: a "new corrected invoice" instead of a note is the classic mistake — it leaves the first invoice standing uncorrected.
Corporate accounts and catering
A company's catering order or a monthly corporate account is not a simplified invoice: it is a full standard tax invoice carrying the customer's VAT registration number, taking the clearance-before-sharing path. A restaurant whose system supports only one path will be improvising the day a corporate client asks for an invoice they can deduct input VAT against.
A quick restaurant checklist
- Inventory every selling device in every branch; register each as a unit.
- Menu items correctly tax-classified; service and delivery as clear line items.
- Credit notes one tap away from the cashier.
- Delivery-app arrangements documented; no double invoicing.
- The full standard-invoice path ready for corporate customers.
- Offline behaviour tested — where invoices queue, and when they are reported.
In alFatora, simplified and standard invoices are built from the same document model, and a credit note is issued from the original invoice in one click — run your restaurant's full cycle in the free sandbox.
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