Credit notes and correcting a tutoring invoice

A credit note is a negative invoice that corrects or cancels a tutoring invoice you have already issued. Once an invoice has gone out to a parent, you cannot rewrite it: you issue a second document that offsets it. Here is how to do it cleanly, with no gap in your numbering and nothing to explain if the tax office ever asks.

You never edit an invoice you have sent

While an invoice is still a draft, you can correct or delete it freely. Once it reaches the parent, that option is gone: the French rules, set out on service-public.fr, say a transmitted invoice can no longer be modified or erased. Reopening the file to change a figure and resending the same invoice leaves you with two versions of one number, and that is exactly what an audit penalises.

An invoice you have sent is not edited. You cancel it, or correct it, with a new document that references it.

Two tools do this: the corrective invoice and the credit note. One detail decides which you use, and that detail is payment.

Corrective invoice or credit note: which one

Before payment: the corrective invoice

If you catch the mistake before the parent has paid (wrong amount, wrong number of lessons, wrong address), you issue a corrective invoice. It carries a new number, repeats every mandatory field, and states "cancels and replaces invoice no. …". The old invoice stays in your records, superseded by the new one, but it is never destroyed.

After payment: the credit note

If the invoice is already paid, or you owe a refund, you use a credit note. It is a separate document, with its own number, that cancels all or part of the original invoice. A credit note also applies when there is no error at all: a parent stops a prepaid package partway through, and you issue a credit note for the lessons not taught before refunding them.

What a credit note must contain

A credit note repeats the fields of a normal invoice, plus a clear link to the invoice it corrects. Check these before you send it:

• the words "Credit note" and a unique number, drawn from the same sequence as your invoices;
• the reference of the original invoice: its number and date;
• the date of the credit note, your details and the parent's;
• the corrected detail, meaning the lessons or the amount being cancelled;
• the total amount, shown as a negative.

Invoice numbers run in a continuous, chronological sequence. A credit note therefore takes the number that follows your last invoice: you never skip one, and you never reuse an old one. If you run a micro-entreprise under the VAT franchise, the credit note carries the same line as your invoices, "TVA non applicable, art. 293 B du CGI", and there is no VAT to reclaim. For the rest of the mandatory fields, our guide on invoicing private lessons walks through them.

The common cases in private tutoring

A handful of situations come up for almost every tutor, each with its own fix:

• Wrong amount spotted before payment: a corrective invoice that "cancels and replaces".
• Prepaid package cut short: a credit note for the unused lessons, then a refund of that share.
• A lesson billed twice: a credit note that cancels the duplicate.
• Wrong name or address on an invoice already paid: a credit note, then a fresh, correct invoice.
• A forgotten discount, a sibling rate for instance: a credit note for the difference.

The package case is the trickiest, because it mixes lessons taken with lessons still owed. If you sell lesson packages, set the refund rule up front: how many lessons remain, refunded at what rate. You can put those terms in writing with Kadrella's free lesson-contract generator. A clear contract keeps these credit notes rare and easy to justify.

Keep a clean trail

Every credit note has to show up in your books. In your income ledger, the credit note is deducted in the month you issue it, so the turnover you declare to URSSAF reflects what you actually collected, not the cancelled invoice. File the original invoice, the credit note and, where there is one, the proof of refund in the same folder: if a question comes up, the history reads in a minute.

If you still keep all of this in a spreadsheet, that is where numbers get skipped and duplicates slip through. Kadrella handles the numbering, writes the invoice after each lesson, and keeps the credit note tied to its original invoice, so your records stay right without extra work.

Sources

• Tout savoir sur la facturation – service-public.fr
• Mentions obligatoires sur une facture – service-public.fr
• BOFiP – corrective invoices and credit notes (VAT)
• Micro-entreprise tax regime – service-public.fr