An issued invoice cannot be edited. Under GoBD it is a booking record, and the only lawful way to change one is to issue a second document that references the first: a Storno (full cancellation) or a Gutschrift (credit note for part of it). Deleting the original, or reissuing it under the same number, breaks the audit trail. This guide explains which of the two you need, what each must contain, and why the word "Gutschrift" is a trap in German invoicing.
Why you cannot just fix it
The GoBD principles require that a booking record, once entered, stays legible and unaltered — and that any change remains visible as a change. §146 Abs. 4 AO puts it plainly: a record may not be altered in such a way that its original content is no longer ascertainable.
An invoice you have sent is exactly that kind of record. Your customer has it, has probably booked it, and may have deducted the VAT. If you silently replace the file, two versions of "invoice RE-00042" exist in the world with different contents, and neither you nor an auditor can tell which one was real.
So the correction is additive: the wrong invoice stays, and a new document neutralises it. That is why compliant invoicing systems — including Rechna — have no edit button and no delete path.
Storno or Gutschrift?
The distinction is about scope, not about who is at fault.
Storno (cancellation invoice) reverses the whole invoice. Use it when the invoice should never have existed as issued: wrong customer, wrong address, wrong VAT treatment, duplicate, order cancelled before delivery. A Storno mirrors the original with negative amounts, references its number, and brings the balance to zero. If a replacement is needed, you then issue a fresh invoice with the next number.
Gutschrift (credit note) reduces an invoice that was otherwise correct. Use it for a partial return, a post-sale discount, a damaged item, a goodwill reduction. The original stays valid; the credit note documents the reduction and references the original.
A practical rule: if the answer to "what should this invoice have said?" is nothing at all, Storno. If it is a smaller amount, Gutschrift.
The "Gutschrift" trap
German usage overloads the word, and the tax consequences differ.
In the VAT sense, a Gutschrift under §14 Abs. 2 UStG is an invoice issued by the recipient of a supply — a self-billing document, the reverse of the normal direction. In everyday commercial usage, "Gutschrift" means what this guide calls a credit note: the supplier reducing an earlier invoice, the kaufmännische Gutschrift.
Why it matters: a document headed "Gutschrift" that shows a VAT amount can be read as a self-billed invoice by the recipient's accounting — and then §14c UStG comes into play, because a document that states VAT creates a liability for that VAT even when it was issued in error. The German tax authorities addressed this in their guidance on credit notes precisely because the ambiguity was producing wrong bookings on both sides.
The defensive habit is to label the document for what it does. "Stornorechnung" or "Rechnungskorrektur" for a cancellation; "Kaufmännische Gutschrift" for a commercial credit. Avoid a bare "Gutschrift" on anything showing tax.
What the correcting document must contain
A Storno or credit note is itself an invoice for VAT purposes, so it carries the full §14 Abs. 4 UStG particulars — and two more:
- A reference to the original invoice: its number and date. This is not optional decoration; it is what links the two records. In EN 16931 terms it is the preceding invoice reference (BT-25 and BT-26), and validators check for it.
- Its own number, taken from the same gapless sequence as everything else. A correction does not reuse the original number and does not get a separate series.
In the structured formats, the document type is explicit rather than implied by the title. EN 16931 uses UNTDID 1001 codes: 380 for a commercial invoice, 381 for a credit note, 384 for a corrected invoice. A ZUGFeRD or XRechnung credit note carries code 381 in the header, which is how the recipient's software knows to book it as a reduction without reading your prose.
Signs and amounts
A recurring source of rejected e-invoices: getting the sign convention wrong. In EN 16931, a credit note (381) carries positive amounts with the document type marking it as a credit — not negative line amounts on an invoice type. Sending negative totals on a 380 invoice is a validation error against the KoSIT rules, and it is the kind of error that only shows up when the recipient's system rejects the file.
This is one of the concrete reasons to let software build the document. The sign convention, the type code and the reference field are exactly where hand-built XML fails validation.
VAT timing
A correction changes what you owe, but not retroactively. Under §17 UStG the adjustment belongs to the period in which the reason for it arose — the return, the discount, the cancellation — not the period of the original invoice. You do not reopen a filed return; you account for the change in the current one.
The same applies to your customer's input tax deduction, which is why they need the correcting document: without it, their deduction no longer matches their records.
How this works in Rechna
Both paths are one action from the invoice list. "Correct" on an issued invoice offers a full Storno or a partial credit note; the resulting document takes the next number in the sequence, carries the reference to the original, is generated in the same formats as the original (ZUGFeRD, XRechnung, or both), and is archived write-once alongside it.
The original stays exactly as issued and stays downloadable. That is deliberate: the archive is the audit trail, so it only ever grows.
The short version
Never edit or delete an issued invoice. Cancel the whole thing with a Storno, reduce part of it with a credit note, always reference the original invoice number and date, always take the next number from the same sequence, and be careful with the word "Gutschrift" on any document that shows tax. The VAT adjustment lands in the period the reason arose, not the period of the original.
Plain-language summary, not tax advice — a Steuerberater should confirm how §17 timing applies to your bookkeeping.