Filling out the hospitality receipt – now simply digital

A business meal is often the right occasion to get to know new business partners or to welcome new customers. Whether it's the long-planned dinner at an upscale restaurant or a spontaneous lunch at the bistro next door – occasions like these are ideal for strengthening business relationships. And after the meal comes the payment – and with it, the receipt. After paying, self-employed professionals and business owners like to take the hospitality receipt (Bewirtungsbeleg) with them so they can deduct the business meal from their taxes. Today, this hospitality receipt is still printed out and, because of the additional information it contains, longer than a standard receipt. But with anybill, the hospitality receipt can now be issued digitally with ease. We explain how it works and when you actually need a hospitality receipt. When do you need a hospitality receipt? To deduct the costs of a business lunch from your taxes, a hospitality receipt must be filled out correctly. A distinction is made between business-related and internal hospitality expenses. Business-related hospitality expenses cover the entertainment of business partners and are 70% tax-deductible. If only employees are entertained, without external partners, this counts as internal hospitality expenses, which are 100% deductible. A simple paper receipt is not enough to claim the restaurant bill for tax purposes – a hospitality receipt must be issued, filled out, and signed. Next level: the digital hospitality receipt. Filling out a hospitality receipt is often not that easy: sometimes there is a template on the back of the paper receipt, sometimes you have to ask the restaurant staff for one. The digital hospitality receipt from anybill simplifies this process: it can be filled out with the anybill receipt app – or entirely without an app – directly after you receive it. Restaurant staff simply select in the POS system that they want to issue a hospitality receipt. As a customer, you scan the QR code on the customer display as usual, and the digital hospitality receipt opens on your smartphone. This saves both waiters and guests the manual paperwork. The only requirement is that the restaurant has embedded anybill's technology into its existing POS system. Filling out the hospitality receipt – here's how! Whether digital or on thermal paper – the hospitality receipt has to be filled out correctly. With anybill's digital hospitality receipt, all fields are shown to you one after the other, so you cannot miss any. Particularly convenient: the restaurant's name and address, the date and time, and all details of the food and drinks and the resulting costs are already stored in the receipt. All you have to add yourself is: information about the invoice recipient, the name of the host and of the people entertained, the occasion of the business meal, and a signature. If a digital receipt – and with it a digital hospitality receipt – is not yet offered, you need to fill in the same details as in the digital version. Take particular care that your hospitality receipt is complete: the name and address of the restaurant, the date on which the meal took place, all food and drinks including their prices, and the tip.