Credit Notes (Kreditnota)

A credit note formally reverses or corrects a previously sent invoice. It's the legally correct way to adjust an invoice in Norwegian accounting — you should never delete or modify a sent invoice directly.

When to Use a Credit Note

• Full reversal — the entire invoice was wrong and needs to be cancelled
• Partial correction — one or more line items need to be adjusted (e.g., wrong quantity, wrong price)
• Customer dispute — the customer contests a charge and you agree to reverse it
• Double billing — an invoice was sent twice by mistake

Creating a Credit Note

1. Open the invoice you want to credit (must be in Sent, Viewed, Paid, Overdue, Reminded, or Collection Warning status)
2. Click Credit Note in the action buttons
3. The credit note form opens, pre-filled with:
   • The same client details
   • A reference to the original invoice number
   • The original line items (you can adjust quantities or remove lines)
4. Review and adjust the line items as needed
5. Click Save as draft to review, or Send credit note to deliver immediately

The credit note gets its own invoice number (e.g., INV-0024) with type CreditNote, and is linked back to the original invoice.

Credit Note vs. Original Invoice

	Original Invoice	Credit Note
Type	Invoice	CreditNote
Amounts	Positive	Positive (represents the credited amount)
Effect	Customer owes you	You owe the customer (or reduce their balance)
Status of original	Changes to Credited	—
Linked	Shows credit notes in the detail page	Shows the original invoice number

What Happens When You Send a Credit Note

1. The credit note is emailed to the client with a PDF attachment
2. The original invoice's status changes to Credited
3. Both documents appear in the invoice list:
   • The original with a Credited badge
   • The credit note with its own status (Draft → Sent → etc.)
4. The original invoice's detail page shows a "Credit Notes" card listing all related credit notes

Credit Notes in Reports

Credit notes appear in:

• The invoice list (filterable by type)
• PDF/CSV exports with their own type column
• The VAT summary — credit note amounts are subtracted from the period's VAT totals, which is the correct Norwegian accounting treatment

Rules

• You cannot create a credit note for a Draft invoice — just edit or delete the draft instead
• You cannot delete a sent credit note — it's a legal accounting document
• A credit note cannot be credited itself — you can't credit a credit
• The credit note's line items are independent — you can change quantities, prices, or remove lines to do a partial credit

Norwegian Accounting Context

In Norwegian bookkeeping:

• A credit note (kreditnota) is a required document when reversing an invoice
• It must reference the original invoice number
• The VAT on the credit note offsets the VAT on the original invoice
• Both documents must be kept for accounting and tax purposes (Regnskapsloven)
• When filing MVA-melding, credit notes reduce the reported outgoing VAT for the period