Quotes, proformas and delivery notes: what is NOT an invoice under the SIF

Quotes, proformas and delivery notes: what is NOT an invoice under the SIF

With Spain's invoicing systems regulation (Royal Decree 1007/2023) in force — companies since 1 January 2026, the self-employed since 1 July 2026 — many businesses wonder whether everything their software produces must now carry a QR code and generate a record. It must not, and knowing where the line runs is essential: a SIF creates invoicing records only for invoices (full, simplified and corrective). Every other commercial document lives outside that chain. Blurring the line creates two opposite risks: under-invoicing (failing to issue an invoice when the obligation exists) or polluting the system with records that should never exist.

Documents that create NO invoicing record

These documents are legitimate and useful, but they are not invoices, so they produce no SIF record and carry no tax QR code:

• Quote (presupuesto): an offer. It documents no completed transaction.
• Proforma invoice: an informational draft, common in international trade or to arrange payments. It has no tax validity.
• Delivery note (albarán): proves goods were delivered; the invoice comes later, sometimes grouping several delivery notes.
• Purchase order: a commercial commitment, not a documented taxable event.
• Advance payment receipt... with a critical caveat, next.

Careful: a collected advance payment MUST be invoiced

This is where many businesses slip. If a customer pays you a deposit or advance, Spanish VAT becomes chargeable at the moment of collection on the amount received. That means the advance requires a proper invoice — with its SIF record and QR code — not a homemade "receipt". When you later deliver the goods or finish the service, the final invoice deducts the advance already invoiced. An advance documented only by an informal receipt is an unrecorded sale: precisely what the regulation is designed to catch.

The classic trap: the proforma circulating as an invoice

The proforma is the most dangerous document of the lot because it looks like an invoice: same fields, same amounts. The typical failures:

• The customer pays it and nobody ever issues the real invoice. Result: money collected with no invoicing record behind it.
• The proforma carries a number that looks like a fiscal series and ends up booked as an invoice by the recipient.
• A proforma is sent to postpone VAT. It does not work: once goods are delivered, a service is rendered or an advance is collected, the invoicing obligation has already arisen, whatever the document is called.

Practical rule: every proforma should carry a visible statement such as "proforma — no tax validity", and you need a control ensuring every paid proforma is followed by a real invoice.

Separate numbering, always

Quotes, proformas and delivery notes must use their own numbering series, clearly distinct from invoice series (QUO-2026-001, PRO-2026-001, DEL-2026-001...). Never let a proforma share a series with invoices: invoice series must be sequential and gap-free, and mixing non-fiscal documents into them creates unexplainable holes. In a well-designed SIF this separation is built in, and the system simply refuses to issue a non-fiscal document inside an invoicing series.

Quote-to-invoice conversion without duplicates

The healthy flow inside your software is: accepted quote → (optionally) delivery note → invoice generated by conversion, inheriting lines, amounts and customer data. The benefits:

• The sale is invoiced exactly once: the quote is flagged as invoiced and cannot be converted again.
• No retyping — which is where discrepancies between what was offered and what was invoiced are born.
• The commercial trail (quote → delivery note → invoice) stays linked, even though only the invoice generates a SIF record.

What must never happen: converting the same quote twice, or "editing" an issued invoice to align it with the quote. Issued invoices are never edited or deleted; errors are fixed with a corrective invoice, which creates its own chained record.

When the invoicing obligation is born

The obligation to invoice — and with it the invoicing record — arises upon delivery of the goods or completion of the service, or earlier if there is an advance payment. An accepted quote does not trigger it; a delivery note does not either; a collected payment does. That is the switch to keep in mind: the moment a transaction is completed or money is collected, your SIF must issue the invoice with its QR and chained record — and in VeriFactu mode, transmit it to the AEAT right then. Everything else is commercial paperwork: useful for selling, irrelevant to the tax agency.