When the customer comes back

Lesson 5 of 5 in E-invoices at the till · about 8 minutes · for the counter — you serve customers and cash up.

Play this lesson as slides — one slide per step, with the same narration. The full text of every step is on this page.

This lesson is for you when somebody walks back in with a bag and a receipt and says something went wrong. In about eight minutes you will know which of those situations you can settle yourself in a minute, which one has quietly stopped being yours the moment the Inland Revenue Board, LHDN, accepted the e-invoice, and what to write down so the person who can fix it does not have to come and find you. It asks you to tell three situations apart, and to know where your own authority stops.

Step 1 — Work out which of three things they want

After this step you will have picked the right route before you touch anything. There are three, and they are genuinely different. The whole bill was a mistake, it is the same day and you are still at the till: that is a void. The goods are coming back but the paperwork was otherwise fine: that is a sales return. The customer wants their money and the goods are coming back too: that is a refund note. A void is the till’s own action, if you hold the permission for it; many counters do not, and on those it is the person you call over. The other two are documents your shop raises, and both still show on the day’s Z report, so a return taken at your counter still balances your shift.

Reference: Core Concepts — 4. How a wrong bill is reversed

Step 2 — Void a bill at the till

After this step you will know exactly what a void does, including the part nobody mentions. Voiding a finalised cash bill reverses everything that finalising it started — the sale, the money, the stock — and records the reason you give. It is counted on the Z report, so the shift still adds up. And the part that matters for this course: voiding also takes the bill out of the e-invoice submission queue. A bill voided before the queue reached it never goes to LHDN at all, and that is why the same-day void is clean. Later it is not. The button still works, but the e-invoice has gone and voiding the bill does not take it back, so if the bill is not from this shift, hand it over instead of voiding it. If there is no Void button on a finalised bill, that is your answer, not a fault.

Reference: POS General — Lifecycle and posting

Step 3 — Know the line you cannot cross

After this step you will recognise the moment a problem stops being yours. Once LHDN has looked at an e-invoice and answered Valid, it is a filed tax record. BigLedger will not let anyone submit over the top of it, and from there the only two corrections in existence are a cancellation at LHDN or a credit note — neither of which happens at a till. You may meet this as a refusal: a sales return that has already gone to LHDN cannot be voided, and the message you get back names the e-invoice state as the reason. On a finalised sales refund note the Void button is gone entirely, because the company is registered for e-invoicing, and only the Cancellation tab can undo it. None of that is a fault and none of it is worth retrying. It is a handover.

Reference: Validation and clearance — How it behaves in BigLedger

Reference: Sales Refund Note Applet (Internal) — E-Invoice tab

Step 4 — Hand it over with everything they need

After this step the person who can fix it will not have to come back to you. Write down four things: the bill number, the date and time of the sale, what the customer actually wants changed, and whether the customer is holding a validated e-invoice with a QR code on it. If they are, say so loudly: a clock started the moment LHDN validated it, and a validated e-invoice can only be cancelled within seventy-two hours of that moment. Only the office can read that time off the record, so do not try to work it out yourself — it is not counted from the sale and it is not counted from when the customer noticed.

Reference: Cancelling and Correcting a Validated E-Invoice — The one rule that decides everything

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Work out which of three things they want"]
  s2["Step 2 — Void a bill at the till"]
  s3["Step 3 — Know the line you cannot cross"]
  s4["Step 4 — Hand it over with everything they need"]
  s1 --> s2
  s2 --> s3
  s3 --> s4

Check yourself

Three to five questions on what you just heard. Every correct answer links to the page that makes it correct, so you can check the source, not just the mark.

1. You ring up a bill on the wrong customer and spot it two minutes later, same shift, and you hold the void permission. What is the cleanest fix? Void the cash bill; it reverses everything and takes the bill out of the e-invoice submission queue
Raise a refund note and ring the sale up again
Leave it and tell the office at the end of the month

2. LHDN has already answered Valid on an e-invoice. What corrections still exist? Editing the original and resubmitting it
A cancellation at LHDN, or a credit note — and neither is done at the till
Voiding the bill, which reverses the e-invoice with it

3. A void on a sales return is refused with a message about the e-invoice. What does that mean? The return has already been submitted to LHDN, so the e-invoice side has to be dealt with first
Your login is missing the void permission
The return was raised on the wrong branch

4. A finalised sales refund note has no Void button at all. Why? Someone has hidden it for your role
The company is registered for e-invoicing, which withdraws Void entirely; the Cancellation tab replaces it
The note has not been finalised yet

5. You are handing a problem to the finance team. Which fact matters most for the clock? The date the customer bought the goods
The date the customer noticed the mistake
The seventy-two hours run from the validation time on the e-invoice record, which only the office can read

Answer key

Void the cash bill; it reverses everything and takes the bill out of the e-invoice submission queue — POS General — Lifecycle and posting
A cancellation at LHDN, or a credit note — and neither is done at the till — Validation and clearance — How it behaves in BigLedger
The return has already been submitted to LHDN, so the e-invoice side has to be dealt with first — Sales Return (Internal) — Troubleshooting
The company is registered for e-invoicing, which withdraws Void entirely; the Cancellation tab replaces it — Sales Refund Note Applet (Internal) — Troubleshooting
The seventy-two hours run from the validation time on the e-invoice record, which only the office can read — Cancelling and Correcting a Validated E-Invoice — The one rule that decides everything

This is a self-check. Your answers are marked in your browser and stay there — nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is recorded, and the marking is readable in the page source, so it is not a credential. Open the answer key at any time.

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Last updated on September 16, 2026

The sale that is too big for the monthly batch — slides When the customer comes back — slides