How to sell at the counter (simplified invoice and invoice-receipt)

What is it for?

When the customer pays at the time of sale, you do not need to issue an invoice and then a receipt. You issue a single document that is already paid: the simplified invoice (FS) or the invoice-receipt (FR). The Counter is the landing page of the Billing app for this. It also shows what is still to collect and what is overdue.

When you confirm an FS or an FR, fiscaldoo gives it a number, ATCUD (unique document code), QR code and signature, as on an invoice. And it records the payment on its own, in the Cash journal: the document is Paid straight away.

When to use it?

• A private individual pays at the counter for a small purchase and does not need an invoice with their tax number (NIF): simplified invoice, within the limit (see “Important notes”).
• The customer pays on the spot and wants a full invoice with their tax number, or the amount exceeds the simplified invoice limit: invoice-receipt.
• To see, at the start of the day, how many invoices are still to collect and which are past their due date.

Do not use the FS or the FR when the customer pays later: issue an invoice and, when they pay, the receipt. Sales on the point of sale cash register have their own path, in the Point of sale app.

Where to find it?

Billing › Home › Counter

Before you start

• Your profile is Billing or Accountant. The steps were done from start to finish with the Billing profile.
• What you are going to sell already exists as a product: How to create a product with the right VAT and type.
• The company has the simplified invoice and invoice-receipt series active for the year. The Journal list in step 3 must show Faturas simplificadas (FS) and Faturas-recibo (FR). If they do not appear, ask the Fiscal officer to create them: How to create a series and communicate it to the AT.
• For an invoice-receipt with the customer's tax number, the customer's form already exists: How to create a customer with the right tax details.

How to use it

1. Open Billing › Home › Counter. The page has four buttons (New invoice, New customer, Register a receipt and Send a copy), three cards (To collect, Late and Transport guides) and the What is pending list. Click New invoice.
2. A draft invoice opens. Click the Journal field, which comes set to Sales, and choose Faturas simplificadas (FS) or Faturas-recibo (FR). The journal decides the document type: with Sales, you get a regular invoice (FT), unpaid.
3. In Customer, leave it empty if the customer does not give a tax number: when you save, fiscaldoo sets Final consumer (tax number 999999990). If the customer wants their tax number on the document, type part of the name and choose the form.
4. Leave Invoice Date empty, so it takes today's date. Due Date and Payment Terms do not matter here, because the document is paid.
5. On the Invoice Lines tab, click Add a line, choose the Product and type the Quantity. Repeat for each product.
6. Check the totals: Untaxed Amount, the VAT for each rate and the Total amount. On an FS, the Total amount including VAT must stay within the limit (see “Important notes”).
7. Take the money and only then click Confirm. The document gets its number, ATCUD, QR code and signature, and the payment is recorded.
8. To give the document to the customer, click Print or Send (by email).

Example. At the Counter of Empresa Demonstração, Lda, on 29/10/2026: 1 Kit de canetas at €10.00 + 23% VAT = €12.30, with the Faturas simplificadas (FS) journal and Customer empty, became FS D26/4. With 2 kits (€20.00 + €4.60 = €24.60) and the Faturas-recibo (FR) journal, it became FR D26/3.

The simplified invoice fields that affect tax

• Other Info › SIMPLIFIED INVOICE › Taxable person (this document), with the options Taxpayer and Not a taxable person. It decides which of the two limits applies. If empty, fiscaldoo decides by the tax number on the form: no tax number, or a tax number starting with 1, 2, 3 or 45, is not a taxable person; any other tax number is. Only change it if you know the tax number rule does not fit this customer.
• Taxable person (simplified invoice), on the customer's form: Billing › Customers and items › Customers, open the customer, Billing tab, PORTUGUESE TAX DATA group. It has the same options and, when filled in, replaces the tax number rule on all of that customer's FS. The invoice's Taxable person (this document) field, when filled in, takes precedence over the form's, on that document only. In the demo, the Billing profile can change it.
• Retailer or street vendor, on the journal form: Accounting › Configure › Journals, Faturas simplificadas (FS) journal, PT Certification tab. It decides the €1,000 limit (see “Important notes”): ticked, the FS of this journal with goods sold to someone who is not a taxable person go up to €1,000; unticked, as in the demo, the limit is always €100. In the demo, the Certified Accountant / Fiscal Manager profile can change it; the Accountant does not have the Journals menu and, if they try, is refused. Do not tick it unless the certified accountant confirms the company is a retailer or street vendor.
• Special operations and the rest of the form are the invoice's, explained in How to issue a certified invoice. On an ordinary counter sale, leave them as they are.

The other Counter buttons and cards

• New customer opens a new customer form.
• Register a receipt records the payment of an invoice issued earlier: How to record a payment received and issue the receipt.
• Send a copy opens the invoice list: choose the invoice and click Send & Print.
• To collect and Late count the company's invoices that are not yet paid. The lines are in What is pending, with the number, the customer, the amount and the due date.
• Transport guides is view only: the card itself says the delivery note is issued from a delivery, by the Inventory profile.

What the Counter does not see. FS and FR do not appear in To collect or What is pending, because they are paid on confirmation. Point of sale sales do not either. The counts are only for the company chosen in the top right corner.

In a company with no invoices (seen in an empty company created in the demo), the cards show 0, “Nothing to collect” and “None overdue”, and the list says “There are no invoices issued yet, so there is nothing to collect.”.

Expected result

• The document becomes Posted, with the number in the title (FS D26/4 in the example) and the Paid label.
• The CERTIFIED DOCUMENT box shows the Series (FS D26), the ATCUD (DEMOFS2026-4) and the Hash. The Customer is Final consumer, 999999990.
• In Linked documents, Payments 1 appears. Below the totals you read “Paid on 29/10/2026 €12.30” and the Amount Due is zero.

• The payment is called PCX/2026/00006, in the Cash journal, with the document date and Payment Method Manual Payment.
• The PDF has the ATCUD below the totals and the QR code. Read with a QR reader, the code of FS D26/4 contains type FS, tax number 999999990, date 20261029, base 10.00, VAT 2.30 and total 12.30. The PDF title states the document type: “Fatura simplificada FS D26/4”.

The images are from the demo database: the ATCUD and the certificate number are fictitious.

For the accountant: the journal entries

Checked in the demo ledger, with the Accountant profile (the document's Journal items tab and the payment's journal entry). On 03/11/2026, an identical FS (FS D26/21, payment PCX/2026/00026) gave the same accounts and amounts:

Document	Account	Debit	Credit
FS D26/4	2111 Clientes gerais	€12.30
	711 Mercadorias		€10.00
	2433 IVA - Liquidado		€2.30
PCX/2026/00006 (FS payment)	111001 Caixa	€12.30
	2111 Clientes gerais		€12.30

FR D26/3 and payment PCX/2026/00007 produce the same accounts, with €24.60, €20.00 and €4.60. The receipt goes straight to account 111001 Caixa (cash), in the Cash journal.

Important notes

Simplified invoice limit

fiscaldoo refuses to confirm an FS above the limit and says which one applies. The limit is counted on the total including VAT: €1,000 for goods sold by a retailer or street vendor to someone who is not a taxable person; €100 in all other cases, including a document with a service line (VAT Code (CIVA), art. 40, para. 1). In the demo, the FS series is not a retailer's: €1,230.00 to Final consumer and €123.00 to Papelaria Exemplo, Lda were refused by the €100.00 limit. Above the limit, issue an FR (or an invoice) for the whole operation; fiscaldoo does not split the document. The FR has no limit in fiscaldoo and does not ask for the tax number: in the demo, FR D26/4 for €1,230.00 to Final consumer (999999990) was issued without any warning. If the law requires the customer to be identified above a certain amount, fiscaldoo does not check it: before issuing a high-value FR without the customer's tax number, check with the certified accountant. Pending validation by a certified accountant: limits in force, who counts as a retailer, what the simplified invoice must contain and whether an FR to a final consumer above a certain amount must identify the customer.

Confirm records the payment

When you confirm, the FS and the FR are paid, in cash, for the full amount. Only confirm after you have been paid. The payment is part of the document: on the payment, Reset to Draft is refused with “Payment "PCX/2026/00026" settles FS D26/21, a simplified invoice (FS) or invoice-receipt (FR): the payment is part of the document and cannot be changed, reset to draft, cancelled, rejected or unreconciled on its own, because the document would be “Paid” without the money recorded. To correct it, issue a credit note for the document.” If the customer did not pay after all, correct it with a credit note, as the message says, or ask the Fiscal officer to cancel the document: How to cancel an invoice or another certified document.

• An issued FS or FR can no longer be changed. It is corrected with a credit note or cancelled, like an invoice.
• Issuing is not communicating. The FS and the FR are issued without a connection to the Tax and Customs Authority (AT) and go into the month's invoice communication: How to communicate invoices to the AT and see the history.

Common problems

“… is a simplified invoice (FS) of … including VAT, above the legal limit of €100.00 …”

• Symptom: when you click Confirm, the Invalid Operation window opens: “Document "Draft Invoice" is a simplified invoice (FS) of €1,230.00 including VAT, above the legal limit of €100.00 that applies to it (CIVA art. 40.º n.º 1, b)): … The document is not split. Issue an invoice (FT) or an invoice-receipt (FR) for the whole operation instead.”
• Cause: the total including VAT exceeds the simplified invoice limit that applies to this customer and these products.
• What to do: click Close. On the draft, change the Journal to Faturas-recibo (FR) and click Confirm. The draft keeps its lines.

“… is dated …, which is before the last document already numbered in series "FS D26" …”

• Symptom: Confirm opens Invalid Operation: “Document "(no number yet)" is dated 01/09/2026, which is before the last document already numbered in series "FS D26" (FS D26/5, dated 29/10/2026). A certified series numbers documents in chronological order; fix the date or use a document dated on or after 29/10/2026.”
• Cause: in a series, numbers follow the order of the dates, and there is already a document with a later date.
• What to do: click Close, clear the Invoice Date (it takes today's) and confirm. At the counter, the date is the day of the sale.

“Cannot confirm yet … has the series A2026 for 2026, but it is not active yet”

• Symptom: in a new company, with the Fatura-recibo - Sede journal, Confirm opens “Cannot confirm yet. One thing is missing: Journal “Fatura-recibo - Sede” has the series A2026 for 2026, but it is not active yet. …”, with the Go to fiscal series and Close buttons. Seen in Empresa Nova Exemplo, Lda, created in the demo, which also has no simplified invoice journal.
• Cause: the invoice-receipt series does not yet have the AT validation code.
• What to do: click Close; the document stays as a draft. Ask the Fiscal officer to record the code and activate the series: How to create a series and communicate it to the AT.

“… cannot be a simplified invoice (FS): it has an exempt tax …”

• Symptom: Confirm opens Invalid Operation: “Document "Draft Invoice" cannot be a simplified invoice (FS): it has a tax exempt for export, international transport or intra-Community supply (M05, M06, M16). These are exemptions for operations that may be located in Portugal, not proof that VAT is not due here, and they require the customer to be identified. Issue an invoice (FT) or an invoice-receipt (FR).”
• Cause: the customer is from another country (in the demo, a customer from Spain and another from the United States: fiscaldoo automatically replaced the 23% VAT with the country's exempt rate), or you chose an exempt rate such as 0% EX on a line. The FS is not valid for these sales.
• What to do: click Close, change the Journal to Faturas-recibo (FR) (or Sales, if the customer pays later), check that the customer's form has the tax number and the country, and confirm.
• Similar refusals, with Final consumer: with the 0% EU S rate, “… uses an intra-Community exemption rate, but customer "Final consumer" is not established in another EU Member State (country: Portugal) …”; with a reverse charge rate (for example 0% AUT sucata), “… uses a reverse charge rate (…) but the partner has no tax number or is a final consumer (999999990) …”. In both cases, choose the right rate for the customer (for a Portuguese private individual, the standard or reduced rate). The 0% and 0% NS (not subject) rates were accepted on an FS to Final consumer in the demo: do not use them at the counter unless the certified accountant confirms. Pending validation by a certified accountant: when an FS may carry a 0% rate and with which exemption reason.

The simplified invoice journal does not appear in the list

• Cause: the company has no simplified invoice series. In the new company wizard, the simplified invoice is not ticked among the documents the company issues (the invoice-receipt, invoice, credit note, delivery note and other receipts are).
• What to do: use an invoice-receipt, or ask the Fiscal officer to create the simplified invoice series: How to create a series and communicate it to the AT.