Sales records at the cash register in a foreign currency

Increasingly, entrepreneurs who recognize sales on the cash register face the willingness of customers to pay other than domestic. Do the regulations allow for such a possibility? How to register such events? What should the sales record on the cash register in foreign currency look like?

Obligation to print receipts

Pursuant to Art. 111 sec. 3a of the VAT Act, taxpayers registering sales to natural persons and flat-rate farmers on a cash register are required to print a receipt or prepare a sales invoice, which they are then required to hand over to the buyer.

What data should the receipt contain?

The regulation on cash registers in § 8 sec. 1 specifies what elements should be included in the receipt:

1. name and surname or name of the taxpayer, address of the point of sale, and for non-permanent sales - the address of the taxpayer's seat or place of residence,
2. taxpayer's tax identification number (NIP),
3. sequential number of the printout,
4. date and time and minute of sale,
5. indication of "fiscal receipt",
6. name of the product or service allowing for their unequivocal identification,
7. unit price of a good or service,
8. the quantity and total value of sales of a given good or service with the letter marking of the assigned tax rate,
9. value of rebates or surcharges, if any,
10. gross sales value and tax amounts according to individual tax rates after taking into account discounts or surcharges,
11. sales value exempt from tax,
12. the total amount of tax,
13. total gross sales amount,
14. indication of the currency in which the sale is recorded, at least for the total gross sale amount,
15. the next number of the fiscal receipt,
16. cash register number and cashier's designation - for more than one cash desk,
17. the buyer's tax identification number (NIP of the buyer) - at the request of the buyer,
18. fiscal logo and the unique number of the cash register.

As is clear from point 14, the receipt must contain the currency in which the sale is recorded (at least for the total gross sales amount).

Criteria for technical conditions

In § 14 sec. 1 of the Regulation of the Minister of Finance of 27 August 2013 on the criteria and technical conditions that must be met by cash registers, it clearly indicates what functions the cash register program must have. The most important functions include:

1. enabling the user of the cash register to change the name of the currency in which the sale is recorded or its abbreviation and program this change in advance by specifying the date, hour and minute of the change;
2. saving the date, hour and minute of starting the recording of sales in the changed currency in the fiscal memory;
3. converting the total gross sales amount into other currencies, while the result of the conversion along with the exchange rate and settlement of receivables should be presented on the fiscal receipt after the fiscal logo with the indication of the currencies used, and the conversion should be made with an accuracy of not less than 6 decimal places and the result conversion should be rounded to 2 decimal places.

Importantly, in accordance with § 14 para. 4 of the Regulation, the entrepreneur must use the symbols of currency abbreviations used by the National Bank of Poland to mark currency abbreviations.

Sales records on the cash register in foreign currency - when?

As it results from the above-mentioned legal regulations, sales records in a cash register in a foreign currency may be kept by an entrepreneur. However, they should not forget that they are obliged to fulfill several essential conditions. First of all - the cash register must meet the relevant technical requirements allowing for the conversion of the transaction into Polish zlotys and the receipt must contain information about the selling currency used (at least for the gross amount of the sale).