On "Bookkeeping under audit", a panel the Israel Tax Advisors Association put on YouTube on October 26, 2026, sat Idan Ben Elul, a senior bookkeeping and assessment coordinator at the Israel Tax Authority, Moshe Melamed, the Tel Aviv 4 assessing officer, and CPA Ariel Akua. At minute 26 came a question anyone who sells to businesses will recognize.
Akua described something that happens every day. A business customer transfers money. The receipt has to be produced close to the payment, and the tax invoice has 14 days. Bookkeeping auditors arrive three or five days later and find six or seven payments that were not recorded. On the other side of each payment stands a dealer who will demand an invoice, and today an allocation number too, so the income will be reported either way. He asked whether the Authority shows flexibility in such a case.
The bookkeeping unit's answer
Ben Elul answered that a payment must be recorded close to when it is received. The fact that the money can be traced through a third party, the card company or the bank, does not release the business from recording it itself. The Authority weighs all the circumstances, and checks back to see whether the defect is systematic. But in his words, the claim that a payment with a trail at a third party does not count as an unrecorded payment "is absolutely not so".
In the same segment Akua cited a ruling in which the judge found that failing to record a card payment differs from failing to record cash, because the Authority can easily find it at the card companies. Ben Elul replied that the ruling is one of the considerations, and no more. It also came up that when the card terminal is not connected to the cash register, a receipt or invoice has to be produced for every card payment.
In practice you produce a receipt on the day the money reaches the account, and leave the tax invoice for the 14 days the law allows. Anyone who prefers a single document produces a tax invoice receipt right away, which is the receipt and the invoice on one page.
The line on the receipt that costs money
The receipt itself has to state how the customer paid. In May 2025 Tamar Bracha, head of the bookkeeping department at the Israel Tax Authority, explained this in a webinar for the Tax Advisors Association. Section 29 of the cash law requires documenting the payment method, and it applies to any amount.
According to her, a business that recorded income of a million shekels and paid income tax, bituach leumi and VAT on it, but did not record on the receipt how the money came in, faces a monetary sanction. The sanction depends on the size of the breach: 15% up to 25,000 shekels, 20% up to 50,000 and 30% above that. The rate applies to the whole amount, with no brackets. If the other party is known, they are sanctioned too.
The Authority set no special format for this record. A complete receipt is enough, and so is an entry in the journal or in a receipts and payments book, as long as it can be shown in an audit. On a receipt, it is enough to fill in the payment method: cash, transfer, card, or a check with its number and bank. The digital receipt guide lists what else must appear on it.