How to tell whether a receipt is legitimate
You paid, you got paper, and something feels off. Here is what to look at before you accept it.
A supplier hands you a receipt. It looks fine at a glance. But you are going to rely on it, so it is worth knowing what a usable document looks like and what a worthless one looks like.
This matters most for businesses, because a receipt that turns out to be invalid is a cost you cannot support.
Why you should care
Two reasons.
If you are a business, documents from suppliers are what let their charges count as your costs. An invalid document leaves you with money spent and nothing to show for it, which can mean paying tax on income you no longer have.
If you are a consumer, the receipt is your proof of purchase for warranty, returns, and disputes. A piece of paper that does not identify the seller properly is not much use when a product fails.
What to look at
Does it identify the seller properly? A usable document names the business, its address, and its taxpayer number. A slip with just a shop name and a total is not a proper document.
Is it the right kind of document? Businesses issue documents appropriate to what they sold and how. An acknowledgement written on plain paper, an order slip, or a delivery note is not the same as the document meant to evidence the sale.
Does it have the structure of a controlled document? Proper receipts and invoices are produced through an authorised process and carry the markings that come with it, including their own series. A document with no series and no printer details deserves a question.
Do the details match the transaction? The date, the amount, and what was bought should reflect what actually happened. A receipt with a blank amount, or with a description that does not match the goods, is a problem even if it is otherwise genuine.
Is it in your name? For a business expense, a document made out to someone else, or to no one, is much weaker.
The requests that should worry you
If a supplier offers a receipt with the amount left blank for you to fill in, or offers to write a different description, or asks whether you want a receipt as though it were optional and priced accordingly, you are being invited into a problem.
The last one is the most common. A supplier who quotes one price with a receipt and a lower one without is telling you they do not intend to record the sale. The saving is small and the exposure is not, because your records then rest on a transaction the other party never recognised.
When the document is missing or wrong
Ask for a correct one at the time. Suppliers can usually reissue on the spot and almost never a year later.
If a supplier genuinely cannot issue anything, treat that as information about the supplier. For small amounts it may not matter. For anything substantial, it should change who you buy from.
Keep the document. A valid receipt filed nowhere is functionally the same as no receipt, and this is by far the most common failure: businesses that received perfectly good documents and cannot find them.
Unsure whether the documents your suppliers give you will actually count? Ask AskOnward for a plain answer from the official BIR rules, so the money you spend is money you can support.
This article is for general information and is not affiliated with the government. For official forms and the latest rules, see the Bureau of Internal Revenue at bir.gov.ph.