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Receipt
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5 minutes reading
Last updated: 23 July, 2025
By Michelle Bendix Lauritzen
Content
What is a Receipt?
A receipt — kvittering in Danish — is a written confirmation that a payment has been made. It serves as proof of purchase for the buyer and proof of sale for the seller.
In a business context, a receipt carries a more specific meaning: it is a bookkeeping document (bilag) that must meet certain legal requirements before it can be used to document a company expense — and before VAT can be reclaimed.
Receipt vs. Invoice: What Is the Difference?
Receipt (Kvittering): issued after payment, minimal legal requirements, can only be used as a VAT document if it includes the seller's CVR number and itemised VAT.
Invoice (Faktura): issued before or at time of payment, strict legal requirements (CVR, VAT specification, itemised lines), used for creditor management and AP processing.
What Must Be on a Business Receipt?
For a receipt to function as a valid bookkeeping document and VAT basis, Danish tax rules (Skattestyrelsen) require:
- Date of purchase
- Seller's name and address
- Seller's CVR or SE number
- Description of goods or services
- Amount paid
- VAT amount specified separately (or stated as included with percentage)
Automate receipt capture and VAT validation with Acubiz
Acubiz automates receipt capture, VAT validation, approval workflows, and ERP posting. Employees photograph receipts on their phone, OCR extracts the data automatically, and the expense is routed for approval and posted directly to your accounting system — no manual data entry required.
Receipts in Employee Expense Management
For finance teams, the biggest challenge with receipts is the employee expense case. When employees travel, entertain clients, or make purchases on behalf of the company, they collect receipts that must be submitted, approved, checked for VAT compliance, entered into the accounting system, and used to trigger reimbursement.
When this process is manual — employees emailing photos of receipts, managers approving via spreadsheet, finance teams re-keying data — it is time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to audit.
Digital Receipts: What Is Legally Valid in Denmark?
Skattestyrelsen accepts digital receipts as valid bookkeeping documents, provided:
- The digital version is a true and legible copy of the original
- It contains all required fields
- It is stored in a way that prevents alteration
An employee photographing a paper receipt and uploading it through an expense app is legally valid. The original paper receipt does not need to be retained once a valid digital copy exists.
Retention Rules: How Long Must Receipts Be Kept?
Under the Danish Bookkeeping Act (Bogføringsloven), all accounting documents — including receipts — must be retained for five years from the end of the financial year in which the transaction occurred.
OCR and Automated Receipt Processing
Modern expense management systems use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to extract data from receipt images automatically:
- Date, amount, VAT, and vendor name are read from the image
- The system categorises the expense and checks VAT eligibility
- The employee confirms or corrects the extracted data
- The receipt is routed for approval and then posted to the accounting system
This eliminates manual data entry, reduces errors, and creates a complete digital audit trail — from receipt capture on a mobile phone through to G/L posting in the ERP system.
Retention Rules: How Long Must Receipts Be Kept?
Under the Danish Bookkeeping Act (Bogføringsloven), all accounting documents — including receipts — must be retained for five years from the end of the financial year in which the transaction occurred. For digital receipts stored in an expense management system, this retention is typically automatic.
Managing hundreds of employee receipts manually is one of the most common sources of accounting errors and audit risk. Acubiz automates receipt capture, VAT validation, approval workflows, and ERP posting — so your finance team gets a complete, compliant audit trail without the manual work.
Want to know more?
In Acubiz we have more than 20 years of experience automating expense management, from digital receipt capture through to ERP posting. Book a demo and see how it works for your finance team.
FAQ
Yes, provided it is clear, complete, and contains all required fields. Skattestyrelsen accepts digital copies of paper receipts.
No. To reclaim input VAT, the receipt must include the seller's CVR or SE number and a VAT specification.
A lost receipt creates a gap in the audit trail. In some cases, a signed declaration from the employee may be accepted — but VAT cannot be reclaimed without the original document.
Not legally, but best practice for internal control is to require approval for all expense claims above a de minimis threshold.