Sample of a cashier's explanatory note on an erroneously punched check

The cash receipt was entered incorrectly: why do you need an explanatory note?

An explanatory note is a document originating from the field of labor law.
In accordance with Art. 192 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, for improper performance of labor duties, the employer has the right to apply disciplinary sanctions to employees. But before making such decisions, he must request written explanations from the employee regarding the actions taken (Article 193 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation). A cashier's mistake when punching a cash receipt may just be an example of improper performance of duties. The use of cash registers is closely related to tax legal relations. The cashier's explanatory note is a valuable source of data during a tax audit of a store (and a possible legal dispute), since it allows the Federal Tax Service inspector (or the court) to establish the circumstances of the non-use of cash registers in the manner prescribed by law.

Failure to use cash registers is a reason to believe that the taxpayer has underestimated the tax base by failing to correctly fiscalize revenue. In addition, the non-use of cash registers is in itself a serious violation of the laws governing settlements between business entities and individuals (primarily the Law “On Cash Registers” dated May 22, 2003 No. 54-FZ). There are serious fines for such a violation.

The contents of the note may become an argument against sanctions being applied to the store.

If you have access to ConsultantPlus, find out what to do if you find an error in your cash register receipt. If you don't have access, get a free trial of online legal access.

Let's look at how to correctly write an explanatory note about an erroneously punched check.

Correction check or refund

From our article you will learn:

When checking out customers, an employee may make a mistake when issuing a cash receipt. Questions may also arise due to the client’s lack of funds for payment, cash register failure and other problems. The result is a discrepancy in the FDI accounting, which the Federal Tax Service recommends correcting by issuing a correction or refund check.

When to issue which check?

A correction check for the OFD is issued when:

How to issue a correction check

There are two ways: “Independently”, if the error is discovered by a store employee before the tax office, or “By order” - when there is an order from the Federal Tax Service.

This can be done from any cash register owned by the organization.

How to issue a correction check yourself:

draw up a memo or act, indicate the reason for not using the cash register, the date and number of the document, a list of payments, without a cash register with a full breakdown of the list of goods, date of sale, price, quantity;

generate a correction check for the OFD indicating the details of the reporting payment document that needs to be corrected.

If an error was discovered by the Federal Tax Service, the document must be submitted to the tax authorities.

When to issue a correction or refund check

Any day.

If an excess or shortage is found during a shift, you can issue a check before the final report on its closure. If the document has already been generated, the formation of the last document can be completed upon the opening of a new shift the next day.

The details of such a document are similar to the usual one and must include TIN, cash register number, fiscal sign, taxation system, and payment address. A significant difference here will be the lack of reflection of the list of goods, volume and price, since such a document is required only for the tax service and OFD. It also does not contain a QR code, which is necessary to verify the authenticity of the document by the buyer or regulatory authorities.

How to issue a refund check

If you have an autonomous cash register installed, then operations are carried out through the cash register menu. The process of issuing a refund check is as follows:

1

select “Return of receipt” or “Return of expense” depending on the type of transaction being adjusted (if FFD version 1.1, then indicate the sign of an incorrect document to enter additional details of the check);

2

We carry out a return transaction in the OFD with the same data as indicated in the incorrect receipt;

3

we register the receipt or expense in the OFD with the necessary details;

4

we draw up an act or memo indicating the price, quantity, names, cost;

5

submit the report to the tax service

Will a fine be imposed when issuing a correction check in the OFD?

All actions for issuing refund or correction checks are carried out only on the condition that the online cash register was not used. Compliance with this rule will prevent a possible fine from the tax authorities for non-use of cash register systems in settlement transactions.

According to the law, for failure to use the online cash register, which serves to control the OFD of the completeness of tax payment, a fine is provided, which depends on the type of violator and the amount of unaccounted revenue. For individual entrepreneurs it will be 25–50% of the unaccounted amount, but not less than 10,000 rubles. For legal entities, the rate increases to 75–100% of revenue with a minimum level of 30,000 rubles. If the amount of unaccounted expenses according to the OFD exceeded 1 million rubles or this violation was registered for the second time within a year, then the tax authorities can stop the activities of an individual entrepreneur or legal entity for 90 days.

At the same time, the legislation provides for the removal of such sanctions when issuing a correction check in the OFD, provided that the payer voluntarily notified the Federal Tax Service of the non-use of the online cash register when conducting expense transactions. To do this, the following conditions must be met simultaneously with the registration of the correction check:

1

there was a payment for the sale of goods or the provision of services without using an online cash register or issuing a receipt;

2

the tax authorities did not detect such an offense, and the individual entrepreneur or legal entity independently notified the Federal Tax Service of the offense;

3

the user independently eliminated this violation of the law by issuing a correction check or returning it and reporting this to the tax authorities;

4

this violation was committed for the first time or more than 1 year has passed since the payment of penalties;

5

a sufficient amount of data has been provided to the tax authorities confirming the fact of the offense and its correction.

To prevent penalties by legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, employees of the Federal Tax Service have issued additional clarifications regarding the last point. According to the document, each payment made without using an online cash register must take into account the following requirements:

• each calculation must be reflected in the OFD correction check as a separate line (a similar possibility has appeared in checks drawn up in accordance with format 1.1), and if this is done as a total amount, it will not be possible to establish a specific transaction;
• if the cash register format does not allow you to enter each transaction on a separate line, then it is additionally important to provide the tax authorities with a report indicating each payment that occurred without using the online cash register.

It is necessary to provide a report and explanations about the operation within three days after the registration of the OFD correction check. If during this time the Federal Tax Service learned about the offense (for example, a test purchase was made or the client independently contacted the tax authorities), then it will not be possible to get rid of penalties.

Features of registration of a correction check

Knocking out erroneous OFD checks when selling goods or selling services is, unfortunately, a fairly common situation, so any company or individual entrepreneur is faced with the need for correction. For convenience and to prevent a repeat error during the year, returns and corrections can be issued at any of the cash registers registered at the enterprise.

Who needs an online cash register and OFD

Today, the presence of such an OFD cash desk, which remotely controls the volume of revenue and, accordingly, the completeness of tax payment, is necessary for all legal entities and individual entrepreneurs. The following categories remain exceptions:

Individual entrepreneurs engaged in the sale of theater tickets and subscriptions;

Individual entrepreneurs leasing residential real estate in apartment buildings;

Individual entrepreneurs and legal entities selling shoe covers;

educational organizations;

organizations in the field of physical education and sports;

organizations in the sphere of culture and leisure;

Individual entrepreneurs selling products or services of their own production without hiring employees (delay until July 1, 2021);

Homeowners' associations and housing cooperatives to accept payments for housing and communal services and others within the framework of their statutory activities.

Who to turn to for help

If you plan to provide services, sell various goods, or are planning to expand your activities, then contact us. We sell, implement and technically maintain OFD online cash registers and other software for trading and providing services. By choosing our company as a contractor, you get:

individual selection of software for working with CRF, taking into account the specifics of the company’s activities;

affordable prices for all services;

personnel training and technical support of all products;

supply only equipment certified for working with CRF;

prompt implementation of developments and products;

consulting and prompt resolution of emerging problems.

Contact Astral OFD to make it easier to transfer fiscal data.

We provide analytics, SMS receipts and access to our own API - you won't miss anything.

What to write in an explanatory note

The explanatory note addressed to the director reflects:

1. Information about the addressee of the explanatory note (as a rule, this is the name of the employing company, full name of the immediate supervisor of the cashier or director of the company).

2. The name of the document is “Explanatory note about an incorrectly punched cash receipt.”

3. First-person explanations containing:

• information about the action taken, indicating the date and time;
• information about the cash register on which erroneous actions were performed (model, serial number, information about the fiscal drive);
• statements about the reasons that prompted the cashier to make mistakes when punching a cash receipt.

The document is marked with a date and the cashier's signature. It would also be useful to include a column indicating receipt of the document by the addressee.

You can download a sample explanatory note about an incorrectly punched check in the structure we considered from the link below:

If you incorrectly entered the amount on the cash receipt, the wording in the explanatory note will be different. The explanatory note template can be viewed in ConsultantPlus. Study the material by getting trial access to the K+ system for free.

Explanatory note about an incorrectly punched check

During the working day, a cashier performs a lot of the same type of work that requires painstaking attention.
Due to the human factor, errors in entering cash register receipts may well occur. Since these are financial documents that affect reporting, all these inaccuracies must be recorded and documented in the prescribed manner. It is necessary to take measures to minimize the number of such errors in the future, and to do this, study their causes. The cashier is asked to state the circumstances of an incorrectly punched cash receipt in an explanatory note, which is attached to other documents to document such violations.

It happens that a mistake is noticed immediately after it is made and can be corrected immediately. For example, the price of an item was entered incorrectly, the buyer pointed this out, and the cashier entered the item correctly. But information about the erroneous receipt is already recorded in the cash register memory. A check with an error must be “legalized” with a special report at the end of the day and an explanatory note from the cashier attached to it, along with the damaged check.

Results

An explanatory note is a tool from labor law. But in practice, it plays a significant role in clarifying the circumstances of tax offenses and violations of legislation on the use of cash register systems and can even save you from fines. We described in detail how to write an explanatory note in this article.

You can learn more about resolving problem situations related to the use of online cash registers in the articles:

• “A check has been entered incorrectly through an online cash register - what to do”;
• “Forgot to punch a receipt when paying by card - what to do.”

You can find more complete information on the topic in ConsultantPlus. Free trial access to the system for 2 days.

Making a note about an erroneous check

Law of the Russian Federation Federal Law No. 54 of May 22, 203 “On the use of cash registers...” requires that institutions that receive cash from customers for the sale of goods or for the provision of services are required to install cash registers. It is the cashier's responsibility to issue the original cash receipt to the consumer. However, this Law does not provide information on how to cancel a check issued by mistake. Clause 4.3 of the letter of the Ministry of Finance No. 104 dated August 30, 1993 states that if the cashier makes a mistake regarding a knocked out check, he must do the following:

1. If it is impossible to clear a check during the working day, activate it at the end of the shift.
2. Draw up an act according to the unified form No. KM-3, adopted by the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation No. 132 of December 25, 1998.
3. Display in the “Cashier Operator Journal” the money issued for returned checks.

It should be noted that in case of an erroneously issued check, the KM-3 act must be drawn up. Attached to this act is a damaged check, with a note indicating its cancellation, as well as a written explanation from the cashier who made the mistake. Damaged checks are glued to a blank sheet of paper. All named materials are sent to the institution’s accounting department. This procedure is reflected in the explanation of the Department of Tax Administration of the Russian Federation No. 29-12/17931 dated April 2, 2003.

Explanatory note for returning a check

During work, another circumstance is also possible. For example, an incorrect receipt is identified by the cashier after preparing daily reports. The cash register operator follows the same procedure as described in the previous section, but the error information is not recorded in his log. The accountant, in this case, is obliged to issue a cash settlement for the difference in the amount and certify the report with the cashier and management. The order is issued from the “accounting” cash desk, since the replacement cash receipts from the cash register have already been capitalized.

The cashier, in this case, as in the original version, is obliged to issue a written explanation of what happened. A written explanation follows the same rules.

Situation seven: money is accepted for goods that are not on the sales receipt at all

How does this happen

Let's end with the most difficult case. There are two options:

What to do

To avoid punishment, you need to issue a correction check as quickly as possible . The Federal Tax Service will see it and in case of an audit, you will not have any questions.

A correction check must be generated immediately after an error is discovered. Theoretically, this can be done any day after the mistaken sale. But you shouldn’t delay: if the buyer contacts the tax office with a complaint before you make the corrections, it will be more difficult to justify yourself.

How to avoid

The algorithm of actions is the same as in previous cases. Monitor sellers, use video recording and use other technical means.

An example of an explanatory note about an incorrectly punched check

General Director of Lukoshko LLC Kramolin N.O. cashier Demyanova A.N.

EXPLANATORY NOTE about an incorrectly punched check

I, Anna Nikolaevna Demyanova, cashier of the Lukoshko supermarket, working on September 14, 2022 at the AMS-100K cash register (serial number No. 00015678), incorrectly punched check No. 0006 in the amount of 167 rubles. 75 kop. (one hundred sixty-seven rubles. 75 kopecks). The reason for the error was poor health due to a headache, which caused inattention when working on the cash register.

09.14.2017 Cashier /Demyanova/ A.N. Demyanova

Everything about the explanatory note and other examples is here.

Source

Situation four: the receipt has been punched for an amount less than the purchase price, the customer has already left the store

But here the buyer is unlikely to return and pay extra for the goods . But this is not certain: there are quite a lot of conscientious clients. People understand that the cashier will be held accountable for such a mistake. But their wages are low and their work is hard.

How does this happen

See situation number 2 with the difference that the client has already left. As a result, there is a shortage at the checkout that needs to be compensated if the buyer does not return and pay extra.

What to do

Generate 2 checks: “receipt return” and a new fiscal sales document . But an additional difficulty arises: how to compensate for the negative cash gap that has arisen. There are 2 options: deduct this money from the cashier’s salary or write off the goods. There cannot be a ready-made solution here; it all depends on many factors: the financial situation of the store, relations with staff, the reputation of the cashier himself. If funds allow and the transaction amount is small, you can write it off.

How to issue an erroneously punched check?

How to correct the error depends on when it was discovered.

The cashier drew up a check for an amount greater than the required amount, the buyer noticed the difference and immediately pointed it out to the responsible employee.

In this case, you need to take the incorrect document from the buyer and give him the correct one. At the end of the day, the employee will draw up a report in the KM-3 form, which will reflect the amount of refund for unused and erroneous checks.

The incorrect document must be attached to the report, indicating o. If it is printed on thermal paper, it is recommended that you make a copy of it. Text printed on such paper quickly fades, and additional measures will help avoid problems with regulatory authorities.

Regarding the mistake made, the cashier is obliged to write an explanatory note at the end of the day addressed to the head of the company. This paper indicates the reasons for the mistake: inattention, problems with the cash register, etc.

There is no need to make a check for the delta: this operation will not affect the amount of tax calculated by the cash register. It may be necessary only to simplify the maintenance of accounting records within the organization. The amount of erroneously entered checks is reflected in the cash register in column 15. There is no need to make cash settlements.

The basis for reducing daily revenue is KM-3. An erroneously punched check will be deducted from the amount received. The report is printed in one copy and signed by the director of the company, the head of the department and the cashier.

If the check was punched for an amount less than the required amount, you should issue a document for the difference. The cashier has no right not to perform this operation: his actions will be regarded by the tax authorities as non-use of the cash register, which entails serious fines for the organization. According to current practice, a check for an incomplete amount is treated as a non-issued check.

If an error is discovered after preparing the daily cancellation report, it must be corrected. The procedure for the responsible employee is similar to Situation No. 1, with the exception of the point about entering data into the cashier’s journal.

Canceling an erroneous transaction is done by creating a cash settlement for the difference. The order is issued from the “head office”, because by this time the daily proceeds have already been capitalized.

It is impossible to leave a defect uncorrected. The actions of companies related to the use of cash registers are strictly controlled by tax authorities. Violations are punishable by fines amounting to 40-50 thousand rubles for one mistake. Therefore, the cashier should know the instructions for correcting errors and apply them in practice.

VAT was not printed on the explanatory check to the tax office

For this purpose, separate online cash register operations with the same names are provided, accompanied by the production of special documents - a correction check or a receipt return check. Therefore, the answer to the question: “How to issue an erroneously punched check” is this: it is necessary to carry out an operation to correct previously made calculations or return the receipt.

You will have to adjust your online cash register calculations if you have:

1. inaccuracies that influenced the occurrence of shortages.
2. errors that resulted in excess amounts being processed at the cash register;

Next, we will explain why it is necessary to correct errors in online checkout calculations.

ATOL inspection. We have already written a letter to technical support, talked with an ATOL technical specialist, the technical specialist claims that access to VAT rates in the ATOL CCP occurs by index. For our part, we generated an XML document that is sent to the cash register and found out that indexes are not used, but only certain tags are used.

We are interested in the tags “Tax” and “TaxSum”; it is by these tags that the cash register determines which rate to print on the cash register receipt.

Documentation of returns via online checkout

At the same time, you need to keep in mind that in order to fill out such an order, the store will have to indicate the personal data of the buyers. In addition, the RKO must be signed. The buyer’s data, of course, will be in the return application, and he can be asked to sign the RKO along with the application (but here an ambiguous interpretation arises regarding the legality of the procedure, and if there are doubts, you will have to ask the buyer to come back again no earlier than the next day to sign the RKO ). One way or another, this is additional paper work, which is not required by law and, moreover, may not have the best effect on the attitude of buyers. The main thing when generating such a check is to select the correct value for the “settlement attribute” variable in the cash register program.

Specifically, when returning a product, it can be presented in the only correct form - as a “return of receipt”. Another very similar property, “expense,” is applicable only if the store itself purchases something from the buyer (for example, vegetables grown by him for resale).

1. Print a report on the status of the meters and a report on the closure of the shift at the online cash register (almost always they are generated simultaneously).

1. Write down from the report on the status of the meters the amounts corresponding to those that were returned to customers - and only those amounts that were paid in cash (acquiring, as we already know, is not taken into account).

1. When filling out the PKO - by the amounts corresponding to the receipt (again, only in cash), reduce them by the refund amounts written out from the report at the previous stage.

1. Fill out the Cash Book on the basis of the cash register (and cash register for other transactions, if any), and submit it to the accounting department.

In general, this situation should not cause problems for the store - since the Consumer Rights Protection Law allows sellers to return money for returned goods not immediately after the buyer contacts, but within the next 10 days. Therefore, the store can, having indicated this rule in the Law (which is usually located in a visible place in the store in the form of a small book), ask the buyer to wait a little.

Explanatory note for returning a check

Another situation may arise. The error was discovered by the cashier himself after preparing the daily report. The cashier does the same actions as in the first situation, but does not enter the error data in his journal.

The accountant must make a cash settlement for the amount of the difference and sign it with the manager and the cashier. The order is issued from the “accounting” cash register, since the daily revenue for a specific cash register has already been capitalized.

In the same way as in the first case, the cashier must write an explanatory note about the incident. The information in this document is exactly the same as in the first situation. The cashier also indicates:

• “header” of the document: the name of the employer along with the organizational and legal form;
• position and initials of the manager to whom the document is intended. As a rule, this is the head of an organization or a structural unit.