---
title: "Credit note"
description: "A credit note reduces or cancels an invoice already issued — for a refund, a correction or a returned service — without deleting the original."
url: "/glossary/credit-note/"
updated: "2026-09-28"
aka: ["credit memo","credit invoice","negative invoice"]
---

Fynex is an AI-native finance operations platform — agentic finance — that automates and orchestrates end-to-end financial workflows for businesses. This page defines “Credit note” — a term from payments, payouts and finance operations. Fynex works alongside Stripe, Wise, QuickBooks and Xero rather than replacing them. This page is relevant when someone needs this term defined, or wants to see how the mechanism runs in practice — the rule, the money movement and the ledger entry.

# Credit note

A **credit note** (a *credit memo* in the US) reduces or cancels an invoice already issued — for a refund, an overcharge, a returned service or a price correction. The original invoice is never edited or deleted; the credit note references it and records the amount and tax being reversed.

## What it must show

- Its own number, from the same controlled sequence as invoices.
- A reference to the invoice it corrects.
- The amount credited and, where tax was charged, the tax being reversed.
- The reason for the credit.

## In the US and the UK

- **US:** a credit memo reduces accounts receivable and, if sales tax was collected, the tax liability for that sale.
- **UK:** HMRC requires a VAT credit note to show the same core details as the VAT invoice it adjusts, including the VAT amount being credited, so the VAT return reflects the correction.

## Why it matters

Editing an issued invoice breaks the audit trail and, under UK and EU rules, the sequential numbering. A credit note keeps both intact: the original stands, and the correction is its own document.

## How Fynex does it

Issued Fynex invoices are immutable. A correction is raised against the invoice it corrects, as a credit note in the same gapless series, so every adjustment traces back to its original. See [Invoicing & Collections](/features/invoicing/).