Invoice checking in hospitality: process, mandatory details and checklist

At the end of the month, 30 invoices are waiting on the desk, half of them sent by email. Each one gets skimmed, forwarded to accounting and paid. Nobody notices that the drinks supplier suddenly charges 1.80 euros more per bottle of gin, or that four bottles of tonic were billed that never arrived. This is exactly where invoice checking comes in: it makes sure you only pay for what you ordered, received and agreed at that price.

In this guide, you'll learn how invoice checking works in hospitality, which mandatory details a supplier invoice needs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, what to look out for with quantities and prices, and what e-invoicing changes. At the end, you'll find a checklist for your day-to-day work.

1. What is invoice checking?

When you check invoices, you review every supplier invoice before you pay it and pass it on to accounting. In practice, there are three levels:

• Formal check: Does the invoice contain all the mandatory details required for you to reclaim input VAT?
• Factual check: Were the items charged really ordered and delivered in this quantity and quality, and are the agreed prices correct?
• Arithmetic check: Are unit prices, totals, discounts and tax amounts calculated correctly?

Invoice checking is the last step in a chain. Before it comes the goods receiving inspection, where you check the delivery at the door, and the delivery note, on which you record quantities and discrepancies. The invoice brings both together: whatever was signed off on the delivery note should appear on the invoice, at the agreed price.

2. Invoice checking in hospitality: why it pays off

A typical restaurant or bar receives dozens of invoices every month: drinks wholesaler, brewery, wine merchant, fruit and vegetables, meat, dairy, bakery, cleaning supplies. Each invoice only takes a moment to look through. That's exactly why errors slip through, and they add up.

There are three good reasons to check invoices consistently:

• Protect your input VAT: According to IHK Region Stuttgart, the details on an invoice must be complete and correct for you to be entitled to deduct input VAT. The recipient therefore has to check them for completeness and accuracy.
• Keep cost of goods under control: Every euro you are overcharged goes straight into your cost of goods. Unnoticed price increases also shift your costing without you realising it.
• A clean supplier relationship: If you report discrepancies promptly and objectively, they are usually resolved quickly. If you only complain months later, you're in a weaker position, because nobody remembers the delivery any more.

3. How to check invoices in 4 steps

To stop invoice checking from becoming an extra shift, it needs a fixed routine. This order has proven itself:

1. Collect: Gather all supplier invoices in one place, whether they arrive on paper, as a PDF by email or as an e-invoice. Decide who receives them.
2. Match: Compare every line item with the delivery note and, if available, with your order. Matching order, delivery note and invoice is often called a three-way match.
3. Resolve: Report any discrepancies to the supplier with the invoice number, line item and amount, and ask for a corrected invoice.
4. Approve: Only when everything is correct do you approve the invoice for payment and file it for accounting.

What matters is that goods receiving and invoice checking don't depend on the same person's memory. If the delivery note was properly signed off and recorded on delivery, matching it against the invoice only takes a few minutes.

4. Formal check: mandatory details on supplier invoices

The formal check is about the mandatory VAT details. They differ between Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Germany

Under Section 14(4) of the German VAT Act (UStG), an invoice must, according to IHK Region Stuttgart, contain the following details, among others:

• full name and address of the supplier and the recipient
• the supplier's tax number or VAT identification number
• date of issue and a sequential invoice number
• quantity and customary trade description of the goods delivered
• date of delivery
• the net amount broken down by tax rate, plus any reductions agreed in advance, such as bonuses
• tax rate, net amount and tax amount, or a note on a tax exemption

Small-value invoices up to 250 euros gross need fewer details: name and address of the issuer, date of issue, type and quantity of the goods, net amount and tax as a total, and the tax rate. If your wholesaler delivers mixed goods, such as food and drinks, the amounts must be shown separately by tax rate. You'll find more on the rates in our guide to VAT in hospitality.

Once checked, keep invoices as accounting records. Since the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act, the retention period for these is eight instead of ten years, according to IHK Karlsruhe.

Austria

In Austria, separate invoice requirements apply. According to the Austrian business service portal (USP), simplified rules apply to small-value invoices up to 400 euros: the recipient's name and address, the sequential invoice number and the VAT ID can be omitted, and stating the gross amount and the tax rate is sufficient. If the total exceeds 10,000 euros, the recipient's VAT ID must also be shown.

Switzerland

In Switzerland, Art. 26 of the Swiss VAT Act (MWSTG) lists the invoice elements. According to WEKA Switzerland, these include the supplier's name and location with their VAT number, the recipient's name and address, the date or period of supply, the type and scope of the supply, the consideration, and the tax rate and tax amount. Different tax rates must be shown separately.

5. Factual and arithmetic check: what to look out for

Formal errors can cost you your input VAT. In day-to-day work, however, errors mostly show up in the factual and arithmetic check. Check these points on every invoice:

• Quantities: Does the quantity charged match what was signed off on the delivery note? Shortfalls you noted on delivery must not be charged.
• Items and pack sizes: Was the item you ordered charged, or a substitute? Is the pack size right, for example 0.7 l instead of 1.0 l, or 24 instead of 20 bottles per crate?
• Prices: Does the unit price match your agreed purchase price? You should know about price increases before you pay them.
• Discounts and bonuses: Have volume discounts, promotional prices or agreed bonuses been deducted correctly?
• Deposits and empties: Have deposits and returned empties been credited correctly?
• Arithmetic: Are quantity times price, subtotals, tax amounts and the final total correct?
• Duplicate invoices: Has the same delivery already been invoiced, for example on paper and again by email?
• Bank details: If a familiar supplier's bank details suddenly change, call them on a number you already know before you transfer any money.

6. Worked example: what an unchecked drinks invoice costs

An example from everyday bar life: a cocktail bar receives an invoice with three line items from its drinks supplier. The agreed price for a bottle of London dry gin is 18.00 euros net. On delivery, only 44 instead of 48 bottles of tonic water arrived, which was noted on the delivery note.

• London dry gin 0.7 l: 12 bottles at 19.80 euros instead of 18.00 euros. That's 12 × 1.80 euros = 21.60 euros too much.
• Tonic water 0.2 l: 48 bottles charged at 0.85 euros, 44 delivered. That's 4 × 0.85 euros = 3.40 euros too much.
• Aperitif liqueur 1.0 l: 6 bottles at 15.00 euros, correct.

The invoice totals 368.40 euros net; the correct amount would have been 343.40 euros. So this one invoice overcharges by 25.00 euros net. That doesn't sound like much. But if it happens just twice a month, that's 25 euros × 2 × 12 months = 600 euros a year leaving the business for nothing.

There's also a second, less visible effect: the 10 percent price increase on the gin isn't limited to this one delivery. If nobody notices it, you keep calculating with the old purchase price, and your costing is no longer accurate.

7. Price increases: what a new purchase price means for your costing

Let's stay with the gin. At 18.00 euros per 0.7-litre bottle, 4 cl of gin costs 1.03 euros. With tonic water at 0.85 euros and lime and garnish at 0.20 euros, a gin and tonic has a cost of goods of 2.08 euros. If the gin goes up to 19.80 euros, 4 cl costs 1.13 euros and the drink 2.18 euros.

At a selling price of 12.00 euros gross, 10.08 euros net remain after 19 percent VAT. The cost of goods percentage therefore rises from around 21 to around 22 percent. That's about 0.10 euros less gross profit per drink. At 400 gin and tonics a month, you lose around 40 euros, and that's just one drink.

Invoice checking is therefore the right moment to update purchase prices. If you carry new prices straight into your recipes, you immediately see which drinks and dishes need to be recosted. We show how this works with BarBrain's recipe management further below.

8. E-invoicing: what changes for hospitality businesses

Since 1 January 2025, businesses in Germany have been required to be able to receive e-invoices, according to IHK Berlin. Hospitality businesses are not exempt. An e-invoice is a structured electronic data format based on the EN 16931 standard. A PDF doesn't count; it is considered an "other invoice".

There are transition periods for issuing invoices. According to IHK Berlin, the current plan is that suppliers may continue to send paper and PDF invoices in the B2B sector until the end of 2026, provided you agree. For suppliers with a prior-year turnover of no more than 800,000 euros, this is set to apply until the end of 2027. Larger suppliers will therefore issue e-invoices from 2027. Small-value invoices are exempt from the e-invoicing requirement.

For your invoice checking, this means that over the next few years invoices will arrive in several formats at the same time. That makes a fixed inbound channel, where all invoices land, and a routine that stays the same for every format all the more important.

9. Invoice checking checklist

You can tick off these points for every supplier invoice:

• The invoice is addressed to your business and contains all mandatory details.
• Invoice number and date are present, and the invoice isn't a duplicate.
• Every line item matches the signed delivery note.
• Items and pack sizes match your order.
• Unit prices match the agreed purchase prices.
• Discounts, bonuses, deposits and empties are credited correctly.
• Tax rates are shown separately, totals and tax amounts are correct.
• Discrepancies have been raised with the supplier and the corrected invoice has arrived.
• New purchase prices have been updated in items and recipes.
• The invoice is approved for payment and filed for accounting.

10. Invoice checking with BarBrain

The most time-consuming part of the factual check is matching line items and prices. This is exactly where BarBrain's AI delivery note and invoice scanner saves you work. More than 1,000 venues already use BarBrain. You photograph the delivery note with your smartphone when the goods arrive, or upload an invoice as a PDF. The AI reads items, quantities, pack sizes and purchase prices and matches your supplier's item names to your own items.

BarBrain shows changed purchase prices directly in the list when you scan, including the percentage change. So you see the gin price increase from the worked example before you approve the invoice. You check the line items, confirm them and book the entire goods receipt in one click. Your stock is up to date immediately, and your next stocktake starts with correct figures.

The new purchase price flows automatically into your items and into your recipe costing. Ingredient costs and cost of goods per recipe then reflect the latest delivery you scanned. A target-vs-actual comparison then shows you whether the goods you bought were actually sold.

Without digital capture, you type line items into a spreadsheet, only spot price changes by chance while leafing through, update stock separately after each delivery and adjust prices in your costing by hand. The comparison shows the difference:

Want to see how this would look in your business? Book a demo and try the scanner with your own delivery notes and invoices.

11. Frequently asked questions