How to issue a certified invoice

What is it for?

The invoice is the document you issue when you sell goods or provide a service. In fiscaldoo, an invoice starts as a draft, which can still be changed. When you confirm it, it gets the next number in the series, the ATCUD (unique document code), the QR code and the signature, and becomes certified: from then on it can no longer be changed or deleted.

Issuing is not communicating. Confirm issues the invoice straight away, even if the company does not yet have the connection to the Tax and Customs Authority (AT); communicating invoices to the AT is a separate step. The invoice amount and VAT go into the accounts and, later, into the period's periodic VAT return.

When to use it?

• You sold goods or provided a service to a customer and payment comes later.
• The customer asked for an invoice with their tax number (NIF).

If the customer pays straight away, at the counter, there are specific documents (simplified invoice and invoice-receipt). To correct an invoice already issued, use a credit note.

Where to find it?

Billing › Invoice › Customer invoices › New

Before you start

• Your profile is Administrative or Accountant.
• The customer already has a form with the right tax number: How to create a customer with the right tax details. For a private individual in Portugal who does not give a tax number, use the Final consumer customer. A form without a tax number, from Portugal or another country, makes the invoice a sale to a final consumer (see “Important notes”).
• What you are going to invoice already exists as a product: How to create a product with the right VAT and type.
• The company has an active invoice series for the year of the invoice. If you are not sure, ask the Certified accountant to check: How to create a series and communicate it to the AT.

How to use it

1. Open Billing › Invoice › Customer invoices and click New.
2. In Customer, type part of the name and choose the customer from the list.
3. In Invoice Date, leave it empty to get today's date on confirmation (the field shows “Today”), or click the field and pick the date in the calendar. Normally, the right date is today. fiscaldoo refuses a date earlier than the last invoice already issued in the same series, or a date in a year with no active series. A date later than today should not be used either: fiscaldoo warns you and, if you issue it, the series is closed to dates up to that one (see “Common problems”).
4. In Due Date, choose by when the customer must pay, or choose Payment Terms (for example 30 days). It is printed on the PDF and decides when the invoice becomes overdue; it does not change the VAT.
5. If the goods were delivered, or the service was provided, on a different day from the invoice, open the Other Info tab and choose that day in Delivery Date. It is printed on the PDF next to the invoice date: on the invoice to Cliente Alemanha Exemplo GmbH, issued on 30/10/2026 with delivery on 28/10/2026, the PDF says “Data da fatura 30/10/2026”, “Data de vencimento 30/10/2026” and “Data de entrega 28/10/2026”. If delivery is on the same day, leave it empty. Pending validation by a certified accountant: the date of delivery of the goods or provision of the service is a mandatory mention on the invoice when it differs from the issue date (VAT Code (CIVA), art. 36, para. 5, (f)); effect of that date on when VAT becomes due and the period in which it is declared (CIVA, art. 7 and art. 8).
6. On the Invoice Lines tab, click Add a line and, in Product, choose the product. The line fills in with the product's description, price and VAT rate.
7. Type the Quantity and check the Price and the Taxes. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for each line.
8. Check the totals below the lines: Untaxed Amount, the VAT for each rate and the Total amount. If the customer is from another country, the Taxes column may already have been changed (for example 0% EU instead of 23%): see “Important notes”.
9. Click Confirm. The invoice gets its number, ATCUD, QR code and signature. If, besides Confirm, the Confirm dates and issue button appears, the invoice date is later than today: do not click it before reading “The date of document … is later than the system date” in “Common problems”.
10. To give the invoice to the customer, click Send (by email) or Print. The PDF tab shows the document as it will come out.

Example. Invoice to Papelaria Exemplo, Lda for 10 Kit de canetas at €10.00 + 23% VAT: €100.00 + €23.00 = €123.00. On confirmation, it became FT D26/31, with ATCUD DEMOFT2026-31.

The other draft buttons

• Preview entry shows the journal entry the invoice will create. It changes nothing.

• Cancel puts aside a draft you are not going to issue. It does not ask for confirmation: the draft gets the Cancelled state, still has no number and only has the Reset to Draft button, which puts it back into draft. This “Cancelled” on a draft is not the cancellation of an issued invoice, which has a number and is done as in How to cancel an invoice or another certified document. Once confirmed, the invoice no longer shows Cancel: you issue a credit note or cancel it (see “Important notes”).

• Deduct advance deducts on this invoice an advance the customer has already paid and that has already been invoiced. It is not used in this article.

• Special operations opens seven fields for cases that are not an ordinary sale. On an ordinary sale it stays closed and the fields stay as they are:

  • Intra-EU classification? stays empty; fiscaldoo fills it in on confirmation, from the customer's country and tax number and the product type. Empty means it is not an intra-Community operation.
  • Document form? stays at Invoice. The other options (Other form - art. 40.º n.º 5 CIVA, Other form - authorized under art. 40.º n.º 6 CIVA and Other form, not in the previous ones) are for sales documented in another form, which the periodic VAT return will declare separately from 1 July 2027.
  • SAF-T transaction type? stays at N — Normal. It comes from the journal and goes into the SAF-T file; you only change it on an entry that is not an ordinary sale (for example, an adjustment).
  • Collected or sent by the customer?, IOSS sale (imported goods up to 150 EUR)?, Triangular operation (Portuguese intermediary)? and e-Taxfree sale (VAT charged)? stay unticked.
  Pending validation by a certified accountant: when to choose a document form other than “Invoice” (CIVA, art. 40) and a SAF-T transaction type other than “N — Normal”, and the effect of each on the periodic VAT return and the SAF-T.

Expected result

• The invoice becomes Posted, with the series number in the title (FT D26/31 in the example) and the To pay label.
• Above it appears “Issued and signed document: it can no longer be changed. To correct it, issue a credit note.”
• The CERTIFIED DOCUMENT box shows the Series, the ATCUD and the Hash (the four signature characters).
• The buttons become Send, Print, Issue receipt, Credit Note and Actions.

• The PDF has, below the VAT table, ATCUD:DEMOFT2026-31 and the QR code and, in the footer, the four signature characters followed by “Processado por programa certificado n.º …/AT”. Read with a QR reader, the code of FT D26/31 contains the company's tax number (509999999), the customer's tax number (599999993), the country, type FT, date 20261029, the number, the ATCUD, the base of 100.00 at 23%, VAT of 23.00, total of 123.00, the four signature characters (RCZL) and the certificate number. When you print an invoice again, the PDF says “2.ª via” (second copy).

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

Demo video

No telemóvel, rode-o para a horizontal e veja o vídeo em ecrã inteiro: o texto do ecrã fica legível.

Issue a certified invoice · 29 s · sem som, com legendas · legendas (WebVTT)

Transcrição

Important notes

Confirm cannot be undone

Once you click Confirm, the invoice is certified: it does not go back to draft, cannot be changed and cannot be deleted. Before confirming, check the customer, the date, the quantities, the prices and the Taxes column. If you find an error later, correct it with a credit note; if the invoice was issued by mistake and the operation did not happen, see How to cancel an invoice or another certified document.

• The VAT changes on its own with the customer's country. fiscaldoo chooses the fiscal position from the customer's form. A customer in another European Union country with a tax number valid in VIES gets 0% EU; with no tax number, or with the tax number still to be validated in VIES, it stays at 23% with a warning at the top of the draft. A customer outside the European Union gets 0% EX. Check the Taxes column before confirming. How to validate the tax number, what each case implies and Recalculate VAT on a draft made before validation are in How to create a customer with the right tax details, “Customer from another country: the VAT changes on its own”. With the tax number not yet Valid, an invoice with 0% EU set by hand shows a red banner and is refused on confirmation: see The customer's tax number is invalid or missing.
• Customer from Portugal without a tax number. If the form of a customer from Portugal (or with no country on the form) has no tax number, the draft warns at the top, before issuing: “Customer "Cliente Sem NIF Exemplo" has no taxpayer number (NIF). If you issue this document, it is treated as issued to a final consumer: the print says "Consumidor final", the QR code carries tax number 999999990 and the SAF-T declares the customer as "Consumidor final" (NIF 999999990). To identify the customer on the document, fill in the tax number on the form before issuing; once issued, a missing tax number can only be added to the form, not changed on the document.” The invoice is issued anyway. In the demo, FT D26/33 to that form came out with the customer's name and “Consumidor final” on the PDF, and the October SAF-T was Generated, with a warning for that customer and not an error. If the customer has a tax number, fill it in on the form before confirming: afterwards, the invoice can no longer receive it. For a private individual who does not give a tax number, type Consumidor in Customer and choose Final consumer (tax number 999999990). Pending validation by a certified accountant: when an invoice to a final consumer can be issued without a tax number and when the customer must give it.
• Customer from another country without a tax number. With another Country on the form and no tax number, the draft warns at the top, before issuing: “Customer "Cliente Particular Espanha" (Spain) has no taxpayer number. If you issue this document, it is treated as issued to a final consumer of that country: the QR code carries tax number 999999990 and country ES, and the SAF-T declares the customer as "Consumidor final" (NIF 999999990, country ES), so the file remains valid. If the customer has a taxpayer number in their country, fill it in on the form before issuing; once issued, a missing tax number can only be added to the form, not changed on the document.” For a customer in another European Union country, the distance-sale warning also appears, and the invoice carries Portuguese VAT; for one outside the European Union (seen with the United States), the invoice carries 0% EX. The invoice is issued anyway. In the demo, FT D26/36 to that form, for €10.00 + €2.30 VAT at 23% (debit €12.30 to 2111 Clientes gerais, credit €10.00 to 711 Mercadorias and €2.30 to 2433 IVA - Liquidado), came out like this, and the October billing SAF-T was Generated, with a warning for that customer and not an error. If the customer has a tax number, fill it in on the form before confirming: afterwards, the invoice can no longer receive it. A company from another European Union country with no tax number on the form is treated as a private individual; what that implies is in The SAF-T is not generated or is Invalid, section “The customer is from another country and has no tax number”. Pending validation by a certified accountant: sale to a private individual from another country who does not give a tax number, treated as a sale to a final consumer with tax number 999999990 and the customer's country (Portaria n.º 302/2016, annex I, point 2.2.3).
• What the invoice must contain and the deadline. fiscaldoo prints the company and customer details, the description, quantities, prices, rates and VAT, the ATCUD, the QR code and the certificate number, and the delivery date when you fill it in (step 5). The invoice is issued within the legal deadline counted from the delivery of the goods or the provision of the service (under the general rule of CIVA, art. 36, para. 1, by the 5th working day after). Pending validation by a certified accountant: mandatory mentions (CIVA, art. 36, para. 5), the “Original” and “2.ª via” marking and the issuing deadline with its exceptions.
• When the customer pays, issue the receipt from the invoice: How to record a payment received and issue the receipt.

Common problems

“… before the last document already numbered in series …”

• Symptom: when you click Confirm, the Invalid Operation window opens. In the example, a draft with Invoice Date 01/10/2026, confirmed before issuing FT D26/33, when the last invoice in the series was FT D26/32, dated 30/10/2026: “Document "(no number yet)" is dated 01/10/2026, which is before the last document already numbered in series "FT D26" (FT D26/32, dated 30/10/2026). A certified series numbers documents in chronological order; fix the date or use a document dated on or after 30/10/2026.”

• Cause: in a series, numbers follow the order of the dates. The message says which is the last invoice in the series and its date. There are two cases:

  • that date is today or earlier: there is already an invoice with a more recent date than yours;
  • that date is later than today: the last invoice in the series was issued with a future date (see the next problem).

• What to do, if the date in the message is today or earlier: click Close, change the Invoice Date to a date between the one in the message and today (normally, today) and confirm. If the goods were delivered or the service was provided earlier, do not move the invoice date back: fill in Other Info › Delivery Date (step 5). Pending validation by a certified accountant: difference between the issue date and the operation date, and the effect on the VAT period.

• What to do, if the date in the message is later than today: the last invoice in the series was issued with a future date, and the message no longer says “on or after”: it ends with “… fix the date or use a document dated after 06/11/2026.” (in the example, after FT D26/41 dated 06/11/2026). The series does not accept the same date: with 06/11/2026 and Confirm dates and issue, Invalid Operation opens: “Document "(no number yet)" is dated 06/11/2026, but the last document in series "FT D26" (FT D26/41) was issued with the future date 06/11/2026. After a document with a future date, the series only accepts documents with a later date (Despacho 8632/2014, 3.4.2). Give this document a date after 06/11/2026 or use another series.” And a later date would be another invoice with a future date, with the wrong issue date. So:

  • do not give this invoice another future date just to move the series on;
  • click Close and leave the invoice as a draft;
  • ask the Certified accountant profile to decide, with the company's certified accountant, whether to wait for the day after the future date or issue the invoice in another series, and what to do about the invoice with the future date. The details are in The invoice cannot have a date earlier than the last document in the series, in the part about a series with a future-dated document.
  Pending validation by a certified accountant: what to do with sales on the days the series is closed by a future-dated document (wait or use another series) and how that document is corrected (Despacho n.º 8632/2014, point 3.4.2; issue date, CIVA, art. 36).

“The date of document … is later than the system date …” (future date)

• Symptom: with an Invoice Date later than today (in the example, 06/11/2026, on 31/10/2026), the draft shows at the top “The date of document "(no number yet)" (06/11/2026) is later than the system date (31/10/2026). Once issued, the series of this document is closed to documents dated on or before 06/11/2026. Confirm that the dates are correct to issue this document; the confirmation is recorded with your name.” The buttons become Confirm dates and issue, Preview entry, Confirm, Cancel and Deduct advance, with Confirm dates and issue and Confirm both highlighted. Confirm does not issue: it opens Invalid Operation with “The date of document "(no number yet)" (06/11/2026) is later than the system date (31/10/2026). Once issued, the series of this document is closed to documents dated on or before 06/11/2026. Confirm that these dates are correct before issuing (button "Confirm dates and issue" on the document, or the action "Confirm issue dates"): the confirmation is recorded in the audit log with your name. Otherwise, correct the document date or the system date and time (Despacho 8632/2014, 3.4.2 and 3.4.3).” Confirm dates and issue issues immediately, without any further question.
• Cause: the invoice date is later than today. Despacho n.º 8632/2014, point 3.4.2, requires the program to warn and, once a document dated later than the current date has been issued, not to allow a document with the current or an earlier date in the same series. In fiscaldoo, the series is closed to all dates up to and including the future date: it only accepts a later date. In the demo, after FT D26/41 was issued dated 06/11/2026, the next invoice with today's date was refused (previous problem), and so was one dated 06/11/2026.
• What to do: almost always, the date is wrong. Click Close, correct the Invoice Date (or leave it empty, for today) and use Confirm. Only use Confirm dates and issue when the future date really is right and with the Certified accountant's agreement: the confirmation is recorded with your name, and until that date the series accepts no more invoices. If the computer's date and time are wrong, ask whoever manages the server to correct them before issuing. Pending validation by a certified accountant: when an invoice may have a date later than the day it is issued (CIVA, art. 36) and whether the series should also refuse the same date, as fiscaldoo does, or only the current and earlier dates, as point 3.4.2 of Despacho n.º 8632/2014 says.

“Line "…" of invoice FT … has no VAT tax”

• Symptom: the line has nothing in the Taxes column and the totals only have Untaxed Amount and Total amount (in the example, €100.00 and €100.00), with no VAT line. When you click Confirm, Invalid Operation opens: “Line "[KIT-CAN] Kit de canetas" of invoice FT D26/33 has no VAT tax. Choose a VAT tax (or a 0% VAT tax with an exemption reason, or a "not subject" tax).” The invoice stays as a draft.
• The number in the message was not used up. The invoice still has no number: the message shows the number it would have. In the demo, FT D26/33 went to the next invoice issued. Do not look for that number in the list or report it as missing.
• Cause: the line's rate was deleted, or the product has no VAT rate.
• What to do: click Close and, on the line, choose the rate in Taxes. On an ordinary sale, it is the product's rate (in the example, 23%); if the product comes with no rate, correct the product: How to create a product with the right VAT and type. Only choose a 0% rate with an exemption reason, or a “not subject” rate, on the certified accountant's instructions; what the exemption reason is and who sets it is in The line has no VAT rate, or the 0% tax cannot be saved without an exemption reason. Pending validation by a certified accountant: when a sale carries a 0% rate with an exemption reason or “not subject” (CIVA, art. 9 to art. 15).

“Cannot confirm yet … has no series … ready for 2027”

• Symptom: with a date in a year that does not yet have a series, Confirm opens “Cannot confirm yet. One thing is missing: Journal “Vendas” has no series of type “[FT] Fatura” ready for 2027.”, with the Create the missing series button.
• Cause: in fiscaldoo, each year has its own series, which must be communicated to the AT before it is used. Pending validation by a certified accountant: whether the law requires a new series each year or only that each series be communicated to the AT before use (DL n.º 28/2019, art. 35).
• What to do: if the date is wrong, click Close and correct it. If the date is right, ask the Certified accountant to create and communicate the year's series: How to create a series and communicate it to the AT.

“Journal “Vendas” is not valid for issuing sales documents” (new company)

• Symptom: in a newly created company, Confirm opens “Cannot confirm yet. One thing is missing: Journal “Vendas” is not valid for issuing sales documents. Sales documents of a Portuguese company can only be issued in a journal certified by the Tax Authority. Change the “Journal” field to a certified sales journal, or ask the fiscal officer to certify this one.”, with only the Close button. There is no Create the missing series.
• Cause: the company has not yet been prepared for certified invoicing: it has no certified journal and no series. Seen in company Empresa Nova Exemplo, Lda, created in the demo in Accounting › Configure › System › New client company.
• What to do: click Close. The invoice stays as a draft. Whoever sets up the company runs step 4. Certified invoicing of the wizard: How to set up a new company with the wizard. After that, the same window lists what is still missing, for example “Journal “Fatura - Sede” has the series A2026 for 2026, but it is not active yet.”, until the Certified accountant records the validation code and activates the series: How to create a series and communicate it to the AT.

I need to correct an invoice I have already confirmed

• Cause: a confirmed invoice is a certified document and the law does not allow it to be changed.
• What to do: see I cannot change an invoice already issued, which explains the path for each type of error.

The line's VAT rate is not what I expected

• What to do: while still a draft, correct the rate in Taxes on the line. If the change comes from the customer's country, check their form first (How to create a customer with the right tax details). If it comes from the product, correct the product: How to create a product with the right VAT and type. If the line has no rate at all, see “Line "…" of invoice FT … has no VAT tax”, above.