What a cash receipt must contain in Latvia: the fields the rules require

A receipt looks like a small thing until a customer brings it back and says their accountant will not take it. Then it turns out one line is missing — and a sale that already happened is left without a valid supporting document.

What a receipt must contain is not each shop's decision. It is set by Cabinet of Ministers regulation No. 265486 on the technical requirements for cash registers, point 23.

What the rules require on the receipt

The core fields set by point 23:

• The user's name (for a natural person — given name and surname) and taxpayer registration code
• The document name "čeks", its serial number, the fiscal memory module's unique identification code, and the date and time it was created
• The name of the goods (service) or its department, and the VAT mark
• The VAT rates applied
• The sum of the registered goods excluding VAT — separately for each rate applied
• The VAT amount — also separately by rate
• The total sum of the registered goods
• The register's full chassis number and a Hash SHA-1 checksum

This is not all of point 23 — it also has sub-points on the payment method and other data. The full list is in the regulation itself, and it is worth opening before you change anything in your system.

What goes missing most often

Three things disappear more often than the rest, and all three are in point 23.

First, the name of the goods. "Item" or "Service" is not a name; the receipt has to say what was bought. Second, the VAT mark on each line. Third, the sums separated by rate: if one receipt carries both 21% and exempt lines, they cannot be added together into one figure.

A fourth, less obvious one: a copy of a receipt is not the same as a duplicate. If a customer needs another copy, it has to be marked as one, not printed as a second original.

When a numbered receipt may be used instead

In certain cases a VID-registered numbered receipt may be used instead of a cash register. Its content is set by point 71 of regulation No. 265487, with its own list: series and number, registration date, issue date, the details of the issuer and the recipient, a description of the goods or services, discounts, the VAT rate and amount, the total, and a signature.

One important nuance: if a registered receipt does not carry every field required of a supporting document, then at the transaction partner's request you must issue a properly drawn-up supporting document that also states the date and number of that receipt.

Why there is a checksum on the receipt

The checksum on a receipt is not decoration. It lets anyone check whether the document was altered after it was printed. Change a figure or a line in some system afterwards and the checksum no longer matches — which is exactly why it is there.

How this works in ReactDesk

Every sale lands in a fiscal journal where the entries are chained with SHA-256: each entry carries the hash of the one before it. A single entry cannot be quietly changed — the whole chain after it would change too, and that is visible.

And honestly: whether your particular trade needs a registered cash register or till system at all is decided by the tax authority and your accountant, not by software. This article is about what the document must contain, not permission to skip one.

Rules change. Before you touch your receipt template, open regulations No. 265486 and No. 265487 or ask VID — five minutes there saves an argument later.