Sending an invoice through eBill is straightforward enough once you are set up. What is less obvious is what happens when something goes wrong — you invoiced the wrong amount, the goods came back, the project was cancelled. In a paper world you would send a credit note or pick up the phone. In eBill there is a defined process for each scenario, and it is worth knowing how it works before you need it.
The two scenarios: correction and cancellation
eBill distinguishes between two different corrective actions:
A credit note reduces or cancels the financial obligation from a specific invoice. You use it when a delivered invoice was correct at the time but circumstances have changed — a return, a partial refund, a price adjustment after the fact.
A cancellation is for an invoice that should not have been delivered at all — wrong recipient, duplicate send, invoice sent before the goods were shipped. If the payer has not yet approved the invoice, cancellation is the cleaner option.
The distinction matters because eBill's network processes them differently, and because your own accounting records need to reflect the correct document type.
Sending a credit note via eBill
A credit note in eBill is a separate document linked to the original invoice. Your eBill service provider or accounting software creates it as a new document with a negative amount — or, more precisely, with the document type flagged as a credit note in the eBill XML structure. You reference the original invoice number so the payer's system can match the credit against the original.
The credit note travels through the eBill network in the same way as an invoice: it appears in the payer's e-banking, they see it alongside any unpaid invoices, and they can confirm receipt. Depending on how the payer's bank has implemented eBill, the credit may offset automatically against a pending invoice from the same biller, or it may appear as a separate item requiring acknowledgement.
A few points to check with your service provider:
What fields are required on a credit note. The reference to the original invoice number is standard. Some eBill implementations also require the original invoice date. Your service provider will tell you the exact requirements for their implementation.
How the timing works. If you send a credit note while the original invoice is still pending approval, the payer may see both in their queue simultaneously. If the original has already been approved and payment is in progress, the credit note is a separate transaction — the payer will need to reconcile it against the payment manually or wait for the credit to appear in their account.
VAT. Credit notes need to reflect the correct VAT treatment. If the original invoice carried VAT at the standard rate, the credit note must carry the same VAT category code and the corresponding negative VAT amount. Your accounting software should handle this automatically if the credit note is created by reversing or copying the original invoice.
Cancelling an invoice in eBill
If an invoice was sent in error and the payer has not yet approved it, you can request a cancellation through your eBill service provider. The cancelled invoice is withdrawn from the payer's queue.
The key constraint is timing. Once the payer has approved an invoice for payment, cancellation is no longer possible — the payment is in progress. At that point, you need a credit note to reverse the financial effect, and any refund has to happen through a separate payment.
Not all eBill service providers expose cancellation as a direct self-service function. Some require you to contact their support team. Before you are in a situation where you need to cancel urgently, check with your provider what the cancellation process looks like and how quickly it can be completed.
If the invoice was sent to the wrong recipient — a routing error — contact your service provider immediately. Depending on whether the recipient has already viewed the invoice, the resolution may involve their bank as well.
How the payer sees corrective documents
From the payer's perspective, a credit note and a cancellation look different in their e-banking. A credit note appears as a new line item with a negative value — it reduces the amount they owe. A cancellation removes the original invoice from their pending queue entirely.
Most payers prefer cancellations for errors caught quickly, because it keeps their pending invoice list clean. A credit note requires them to take an action (confirm the credit), whereas a cancellation simply removes something they may not have looked at yet.
For the eBill approval workflow from the payer's perspective, the interaction with credits and cancellations varies slightly by bank implementation — but the general pattern is consistent across the main Swiss banks.
Archiving credit notes and cancellations
For compliance purposes, credit notes need to be archived with the same retention standards as the original invoices — ten years under Swiss law. The credit note should be stored alongside the original invoice it relates to, with the reference linkage preserved.
Cancellations are trickier from an audit trail perspective. Even a cancelled invoice existed briefly and was delivered to a recipient. Your internal records should reflect that the document was sent and then cancelled, with a reason. An archive that shows only the invoices that were ultimately paid, with no trace of cancelled documents, is a gap that could cause questions during a VAT audit. The invoice archiving rules post covers the broader retention requirements.