Cancel and Correct: When an Invoice Was Wrong

It happens: the invoice has gone out, and then you notice that the hours are wrong, the trip was calculated incorrectly, or simply the wrong Abrechnungsmodell (calculation model) was applied.

Once an invoice has been issued, you cannot simply edit it, nor delete it — not even if no one has seen it yet. The GoBD (Germany's principles for proper bookkeeping) require this, and it's the reason your invoice number sequence stays gapless. Instead, there's a fixed, three-part path: cancel, correct, reissue.

Three documents, one story — nothing gets deleted, everything stays traceable

The Process

Cancel

Open the faulty invoice and click Stornieren (Cancel).

Stornieren is red because it creates a document

1. Stornieren, after a confirmation prompt, creates a Stornorechnung (cancellation invoice) — a separate document with its own number from your cancellation number range, which reverses the amount of the original invoice. The color follows the Red Means Money rule.

The Stornorechnung mirrors the original invoice exactly: the same line items, the same amounts, the same Abrechnungsmodell — just with the sign reversed. After all, it's meant to reverse exactly what was actually billed.

At the same time, DolmiDesk™ releases the associated jobs again: they're no longer read-only and appear again as Abrechenbar (Billable) in the list.

Correct

Now you fix the cause — in the job, not in the invoice. Depending on what went wrong:

• Correct the times, addresses, kilometers and have the trip recalculated.
• Change the Kostenträger (cost bearer) if the invoice went to the wrong place.
• Change the Abrechnungsmodell (calculation model) if it was calculated using the wrong rule set.

This is exactly what the correction is for

The most common case is "I calculated the wrong amount." That's why the Korrekturrechnung (correction invoice) is calculated using the Abrechnungsmodell that is currently set on the job — not the one from the original invoice. Whatever you change here will appear on the new document.

Create the Correction Invoice

Open the cancelled invoice and click Korrekturrechnung erstellen (Create Correction Invoice). Just like with normal billing, you first get the preview: the finished document, without anything actually being created yet.

The correction, too, is shown first and only then created

1. Korrektur jetzt erstellen (Create Correction Now) finalizes the document — with its own number from the correction number range. Up until then, you can cancel without any consequences.

Check the preview to see whether the amount is now correct. If it isn't, cancel and go back into the job — nothing has happened yet.

What the Correction Is Calculated From

A Korrekturrechnung is not a copy of the old invoice with a new number. It is recalculated from scratch, as if you were billing the released jobs fresh. In detail:

Component	Where it comes from
Line items and amounts	From the jobs as they are now — using the Abrechnungsmodell that is currently set on the job.
Texts and labels	From the current invoice template, from its correction texts.
Addresses	From your master data, as it is now.
Reference to the original	Hard-wired: the correction names the invoice it replaces, and the Storno (cancellation) through which it was released.

The Stornorechnung is the exception: it deliberately mirrors the original — model version, line items, and amounts — because it has to reverse exactly the amount that was actually billed.

One model for all jobs in a correction

One document replaces one document — so a correction can't be split across multiple invoices the way a normal billing run would. If the corrected jobs of a combined invoice carry different Abrechnungsmodelle, DolmiDesk™ will tell you so and create nothing. Give them the same model — or cancel and bill them separately again.

The Document Chain

In the end there are three documents, and all three are kept. Each of them shows, under Verknüpfte Belege (Linked Documents), where it belongs.

The Korrekturrechnung names the original and the Storno through which it came about

1. Verknüpfte Belege — from here you can jump to every document in the chain.

For a tax audit, this makes what happened fully traceable: nothing was deleted and nothing was overwritten — instead, it was reversed and corrected.

Rules That Apply

• Only cancelled invoices can be corrected. Only the cancellation releases the jobs.
• An invoice is replaced once. If the correction itself is wrong, cancel and correct the correction — the chain can continue any number of times.
• Separate number ranges: Stornorechnungen and Korrekturrechnungen are counted separately from normal invoices. You set the formats under Settings.
• Amounts already paid: An invoice that has already been paid can also be cancelled — you then settle the payment (refund or offsetting) outside of DolmiDesk™, directly with the Kostenträger.
• Reminders stay in place. If the invoice already had a reminder sent, the reminder history remains visible on the cancelled document — as part of the audit trail, but without further reminder stages.

Multiple at once

In the invoice list, you can select multiple invoices and cancel or correct them together. In that case, the preview is skipped — it always shows exactly one document.

Next Step

How an invoice is created in the first place is covered under Creating Invoices; everything about status, payments, and reminders is under Invoices.