Change Client details for paid invoices

Hi all,

I have a client who I originally invoiced directly through his own limited company while the founders setup the new company. The most recent invoices have been sent to the new company but they’ve now asked me to change historic invoices to be address to the new co (for grant purposes).

The only way I can this is possible is through credit notes for both companies… but surely that will leave a paper trail date-wise which would be picked up by any organisations providing grants. How about merging clients?

Many thanks in advance.

PS: It’s worth mentioning that I’m not VAT registered.

Hi @dayglow

I think merging the clients would be the most sensible approach here. Once merged you’d then need to go into each of the originally issued invoices and click save, the save will then update the invoice with the new client details.

The other option is to rename the original client to the new company name and again resave the invoices you want updating. With this option you would however need to choose a unique company name, but you could do this by have an LTD / LIMITED in each of the client names.

Hope that makes sense!

Thanks @QFMathew

Yes I had noticed that functionality in New client and supplier merge tool and when I last checked it I was worried it’s a one step process I can’t revert.

I guess my question is where I stand legally with regards to modifying invoices that have been paid. I seems like that with this approach it could be down to the client to download the old invoices again.

We can’t offer much in the way of legal guidance. However by modifying the name of an LTD company on a previously issued invoice you may end up invoicing a non-existent company, for example if the company was incorporated after the invoice issue date. That’s something you’d need to be mindful of.

There are circumstances where an invoice name can be changed, but that’s usually to correct an admin error and would often happen before any payment is made.

I appreciate you can’t provide offer legal advise but the above is a very good point and will help me.

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