You’ve emptied your pockets. Checked the glovebox. Looked through your emails. Had a rummage through the pile of papers that definitely wasn’t supposed to become a pile of papers…the receipt has gone…now what?
First: don’t stress.
One missing receipt doesn’t mean the expense never happened, and it doesn’t automatically mean your accounts are ruined. But we do need to work out what we’ve lost, what we can replace and whether there’s enough information to record the transaction properly.
First, can we get another copy?
This is always the best place to start.
Receipts and invoices are much easier to replace than they used to be. Depending on where you bought something, you might find another copy:
- in your email
- in an online account or app
- in your order history
- through the supplier’s accounts department
- by asking the shop or supplier to reprint or resend it
If you’re VAT registered and we’ve lost a VAT invoice, this step becomes particularly important. The VAT invoice is the primary evidence supporting a claim to reclaim VAT, so HMRC expects you to try to obtain a replacement rather than immediately relying on something else.
Often, a quick email to the supplier solves the whole problem.
But I can see the payment in the bank…
If I can see that £83.47 left your business account and went to a particular supplier, we haven’t lost all evidence of the transaction.
But as I’ve explained elsewhere, the bank only tells us that money moved – It doesn’t tell us what you bought, whether the whole purchase was for the business, how it should be treated in the accounts or, importantly, whether VAT was charged.
So, a bank transaction can help us piece together what happened, but it isn’t a replacement for the missing paperwork.
What other evidence have you got?
If we genuinely can’t get another copy, the next question is what else exists.
Perhaps you’ve still got an order confirmation, email correspondence with the supplier, a delivery note, a supplier statement or an online order history. We might be able to gather enough information across several different records to establish what you bought and why.
Even if something isn’t sufficient on its own, it might help build a much clearer picture of the transaction.
What if I’m VAT registered?
This is where I have to be more careful.
If we want to reclaim VAT, the normal expectation is that we hold appropriate evidence – usually in the form of a valid VAT invoice.
HMRC can consider alternative evidence where an invoice genuinely can’t be obtained, but that isn’t a handy loophole that allows us to stop bothering with VAT invoices. It’s discretionary, and HMRC makes clear that alternative evidence is intended for exceptional circumstances.
So if you’ve lost the invoice, we’ll try to get another copy first. If we can’t, I’ll look at what other evidence we have and decide how the transaction should be treated. Depending on the circumstances, that may mean not reclaiming the VAT.
That’s frustrating when you’ve genuinely paid it, but I can’t simply invent the evidence needed to support the claim.
Does losing the receipt mean I lose the whole expense?
There’s an important distinction between recording a business expense and reclaiming VAT on that expense.
If we have enough other information to establish that a genuine business expense occurred, losing the original receipt doesn’t automatically make the underlying cost disappear.
But the quality of the records matters – HMRC expects businesses to keep records of their income and expenses and to be able to identify their business transactions. So the less evidence we have, the more difficult it becomes to support what has been recorded if anyone ever asks.
Please don’t just leave it out
This is perhaps the most important bit! If you’ve lost a receipt, please tell me. And for the love of my sanity, don’t spend three months avoiding my bookkeeping query because you know the receipt vanished somewhere between the shop and the van.
I’d much rather know:
“Yep, that was a business purchase. I’ve lost the receipt and I’ve tried to get another copy, but I can’t.”
Now I know what happened, and I can decide what we can reasonably do with the information that remains.
One lost receipt isn’t the problem
Receipts occasionally go missing, we’re all human – I manage it myself from time to time. It becomes a problem, however, when missing paperwork is the norm rather than the exception.
Good records mean I can prepare your bookkeeping based on evidence rather than assumptions, make appropriate VAT claims and answer questions without having to reconstruct a purchase from three months ago.
So if you’ve lost something, don’t panic.
Try to get another copy, send me whatever other evidence you have, and tell me what happened.
We’ll take it from there.
