VAT on South African till slips: what to capture

A Checkers or Clicks slip is not decoration. If you ever need to show what VAT was charged, the till slip (or a proper tax invoice) is the document. This guide follows SARS’s tax-invoice page and the VAT Act’s three value bands. Capture vendor, date, VAT, and total while the thermal print is still readable. Not tax advice.

Why a till slip is a VAT document at all

South Africa’s VAT system lets registered vendors deduct input tax on business expenses from output tax collected on supplies. SARS’s Tax Invoices page is explicit: without a proper tax invoice, a business cannot deduct input tax. The VAT Act (89 of 1991) section 20 sets what must appear and that a tax invoice must generally be issued within 21 days of the supply.

Consumers who are not VAT vendors still benefit from the same fields. A faded slip cannot prove a return, a warranty, or a query like “how much VAT did I pay at this store this month?” AI Insights can only answer from what you actually stored.

Three bands: full invoice, abridged invoice, till slip

SARS (as at the 8 January 2016 particulars listed on that page) uses the consideration for the supply — the VAT-inclusive price — to decide how heavy the document must be:

• More than R5 000: a full tax invoice is required.
• R5 000 or less: an abridged tax invoice is allowed.
• R50 or less: a tax invoice is not required. SARS still wants a document such as a till slip or sales docket indicating the VAT charged if input tax will be deducted.

That last band is why “I only kept the bank notification” is weak. A card statement rarely shows the supplier VAT number or that VAT was charged on that line. The till slip is the small-value document SARS names.

What a valid tax invoice must show (full)

From SARS’s list (in force from 8 January 2016 on that page), a tax invoice must include:

• The words “Tax Invoice”, “VAT Invoice” or “Invoice”
• Name, address and VAT registration number of the supplier
• Name, address and, where the recipient is a vendor, the recipient’s VAT registration number
• Serial number and date of issue
• Accurate description of goods and/or services (and second-hand goods where applicable)
• Quantity or volume
• Value of the supply, the amount of tax charged, and the consideration (value plus tax)

A supermarket till slip often covers abridged or small-value needs and may omit the recipient’s VAT number. If you are a vendor buying more than R5 000 of goods for the business, do not assume the till slip is a full tax invoice — ask the supplier for one. SARS publishes a checklist on the same invoices page.

What to capture on an everyday till slip

For personal archives and for small-value VAT evidence, photograph or upload the whole slip and make sure these survive in the extract:

• Vendor: trading name as printed (Checkers, Woolworths, a garage brand). Address and VAT number if they are on the slip.
• Date: the issue date on the slip, not the day you remembered to scan it.
• VAT: the VAT amount or a clear statement that the price includes VAT at the applicable rate. SARS’s VAT overview currently describes the standard rate as 15% (the 2025/26 increase path was reversed in legislation; always re-check SARS if you are filing a return).
• Total / consideration: the amount you actually paid, which should match value plus tax when both are shown.

Line items help you later: zero-rated food next to standard-rated items on one slip is a common South African mix. A total-only capture cannot explain that mix. Ai Receipt Scanner is built to store merchant, date, VAT, line items, and total with the original image. We do not claim every thermal slip will read perfectly — verify the extract against the photo.

Zero-rated and exempt: the slip still matters

Some supplies are zero-rated or exempt (SARS’s VAT page lists the idea; the detailed lists live in the VAT Act and SARS guides). A till slip that shows “VAT R0.00” or mixed rates is still worth keeping. If you only store the card total, you cannot tell groceries from a standard-rated add-on. For a vendor, claiming input tax on the wrong rate is how assessments start. For a household, it is how budgets lie.

How this fits scanning and SARS retention

Capturing fields is step one. Keeping the record for the period SARS requires is step two. Electronic records have extra rules (integrity, access, South African location unless authorised). Read Can I throw away receipts after scanning? before you shred a VAT file. Five years from the relevant TAA date is the usual tax-record horizon on SARS’s record-keeping page — longer if you are in an audit.

Thermal paper is a bad VAT archive. Scan the same day. If the slip has already faded, see how to scan faded thermal receipts and do not pretend a blank image is a tax invoice.

What the scanner should keep vs what you must still check

Software can read a vendor name, a date, a VAT line, and a total. It cannot invent a VAT registration number that was never printed. It cannot turn a R6 000 business purchase into a full tax invoice if the till only spat out an abridged slip. Your job is to look at the image: if the extract dropped VAT, type it from the photo. If the photo missed the footer where the VAT number sits, scan again. Ai Receipt Scanner stores the image on purpose so that check is possible.

Testers in closed testing should treat every extract as a draft until they have glanced at merchant, date, VAT, and total. That is slower than a fantasy of perfect OCR. It is faster than typing the whole slip, and it leaves you with a file SARS’s invoice rules can still recognise.

Asking the archive later

Once vendor, date, VAT, and total are in the system, a question such as “How much did I spend at Checkers this month?” is a retrieval problem, not a shoebox problem. That is what AI Insights is for. The answer should still drill into the original slip. A chart without the image is a spreadsheet with extra steps.

Checklist before you leave the till

1. Is the vendor name readable?
2. Is the date today’s date on the slip?
3. Is VAT shown (amount or included-at-rate)?
4. Does the total match what you paid?
5. If this is a business purchase over R5 000, do you need a full tax invoice instead of relying on the till slip?
6. Scan now. Gallery or PDF is fine for emailed slips — the privacy policy covers those taps.

Related: ask your receipts vs spreadsheets, receipt scanner apps 2026.

General information only. Confirm current rates, invoice wording, and your vendor status on SARS Tax Invoices and with a practitioner. This page describes closed-testing software, not a SARS-approved e-invoicing system.