Why Is the Invoice Issued as a Simplified Tax Invoice? And How Do I Issue a Tax Invoice?

When Saudi e-invoicing is enabled, the system determines the invoice type automatically from the client type recorded in the invoice: a business client is issued a tax invoice, and an individual client, or a client whose type isn’t specified, is issued a simplified tax invoice. So if your invoices have started to be issued as simplified, the reason is usually that the client type is individual or unspecified.

The Difference Between the Tax Invoice and the Simplified Invoice

	Tax Invoice (Full)	Simplified Tax Invoice
Issued to	Establishments and companies (B2B).	Individuals and consumers (B2C).
When it appears	When the client type is Business.	When the client type is Individual, or unspecified.
Buyer data	The business name, the tax number or the commercial registration / unified number, and the address.	It doesn’t require the buyer’s tax number.
Sending to the Zakat Authority	It is sent for approval (Clearance) before sharing it with the client.	It is sent for reporting (Reporting).
The printed title	Tax Invoice	Simplified Tax Invoice
The refund invoice	Tax Refund Invoice	Simplified Tax Refund Invoice

How Do I Issue a Full Tax Invoice?

1. Open the client from Clients and click Edit.
2. Choose the Client Type: Business.
3. Enter the Business Name, and the Tax Number or Commercial Registration / Unified Number, and the country and the address, then save.
4. Create the invoice for this client, and a full tax invoice is issued.

The required business client data, and the messages if anything is missing:

The Item	The Message When Missing or Wrong
The country	The client’s country is required
The client type	The client type is required
The business name	The client’s business name is required
The tax number or the commercial registration (for Saudi clients)	The client’s tax number (VAT) or commercial registration / unified number is required
The building number (if entered)	The client’s building number must be 4 digits
The postal code (if entered)	The client’s postal code must be 5 digits

I Issued a Simplified Invoice for a Business Client by Mistake. What Do I Do?

• If the invoice hasn’t been approved by the Zakat Authority yet: change the client to Business and complete their data from the edit client link shown in the invoice, then resend it.
• If the invoice was approved: it cannot be edited or converted to a full invoice. Issue a credit note on the simplified invoice with the same value, then issue a new invoice after changing the client to business.

Notes

• The printed title appears automatically if the invoice design contains the variable {%sa_auto_invoice_title%}. And if the title is written manually in the Invoice Designs, it won’t change according to the invoice type.
• From Client Settings you can make the client type Business only, Individual only, or Both; so if all your clients are companies choose business only.
• Point of sale invoices and cash clients with no specified client are issued as simplified.
• Changing the client type doesn’t change the previous invoices, and applies to new invoices only.