Finalising and cancelling

Finalising draws the next consecutive number and makes the document immutable. That is the point of no return — after it, you correct rather than delete.

The three states in the archive

State	Meaning	Deletable
Draft	filed via “Save to archive”, no number drawn	yes
Finalised	number drawn, document immutable	no — cancellation only
Cancelled	reversed by a cancellation credit note	no

Cancelling instead of deleting

A finalised invoice is protected against deletion. Correction goes through “Cancel (credit note)” in the archive’s detail view:

1. A credit note with its own number is produced from the range of the same invoice issuer.
2. The credit note carries a reference to the original invoice.
3. The original invoice is marked as cancelled — it does not disappear.

Why not simply delete

A number issued under section 14 of the German VAT Act is issued. If the invoice vanished, the sequence would have a gap — and that is exactly what it must not have. Cancellation keeps both documents visible and explains the connection.

When cancellation is not possible

It needs two things: the retained form data of the original invoice and a target format capable of representing a credit note. If one is missing, the page reports “Cancellation not possible (format or source data missing).”

The guards that apply beforehand

Two automatic checks prevent the same number from being produced twice — when the reset mode changes, and when an invoice issuer leaves the shared range. Both are described under Number ranges, because that is where they are triggered.

What consumes the quota

The invoice quota is consumed by every successful creation — regardless of whether you archive or finalise. That is why the monthly counter regularly shows more invoices than the archive contains.

Conversely a unit is refunded if a run fails after the booking; an attempt rejected at the format gate consumes nothing at all.