Purchase invoices
Record supplier bills in Arvello: categorise costs, capture deductible input VAT for line 5 of the Estonian KMD return, and track unpaid amounts and due dates.
A purchase invoice is a bill your company receives from a supplier. In Arvello these are recorded as expenses (you'll find them under Expenses in the sidebar), and recording one does three jobs at once: it books the cost into the right category, captures the input VAT you can deduct, and tracks what you still owe and when.
If your company is VAT-registered, this is also where your VAT return is quietly being assembled — every tax code you pick on an expense line determines what lands on the KMD, the monthly VAT return filed with EMTA (the Estonian Tax and Customs Board).
Recording a purchase invoice
Choose the supplier
Go to Expenses and click New Expense, then pick the supplier. If they're new, you can add them without leaving the form — for Estonian companies, entering the 8-digit registry code looks up and auto-fills the official details. A supplier can have a default expense category, which pre-fills the category on every future bill from them.
Enter the invoice details
Record the supplier's invoice or reference number, the invoice date and the due date — leave the due date blank if the bill is already paid. Invoices in a foreign currency are supported; Arvello shows the EUR equivalent, since your books are kept in euros.
Add the line items
Each line takes a description, the amount excluding VAT, an expense category (an account from your chart of accounts) and a tax code. Arvello calculates the VAT per line and totals everything up — subtotal, VAT total and total including VAT. For most domestic purchases in 2026 the tax code is the standard rate (24%); see VAT rates & tax codes for the full list.
Attach the document
Drag and drop the invoice or receipt onto the Receipts area — JPG, PNG, HEIC and PDF are accepted. The expenses dashboard keeps a running count of expenses still missing a receipt; see Receipts & documents.
Save, then finalise
A saved expense starts as a draft you can still edit or delete. Clicking Finalize posts the journal entry and includes the expense in VAT calculations — after that it can no longer be edited, only credit-noted, which is the standard accounting treatment for posted documents.
Input VAT and the KMD
The deductible VAT on your purchases (input VAT) flows to line 5 of the KMD, offsetting the VAT you've charged on sales. Two things worth knowing:
- Only finalised expenses count. Draft expenses are excluded from the return, and the KMD checklist warns you when drafts with VAT are sitting unfinalised.
- Reverse-charge purchases are handled for you. For EU services and intra-Community acquisitions, no VAT appears on the supplier's invoice — Arvello self-assesses it, declaring the output VAT and the matching deduction on the same return.
See Preparing a KMD return for how the full return comes together.
Tracking payment
Each expense carries a status: Draft, Unpaid, Paid, Reconciled or Cancelled. You don't mark bills paid by hand — when the payment appears in your bank feed, reconcile the transaction against the expense and Arvello records the payment (date, amount, method) and updates the status. See Reconciling transactions. Every payment is listed on the expense's Payments tab and collectively under Supplier Payments.
Receiving e-invoices as purchase invoices
If a supplier sends e-invoices over the Peppol network, their invoices arrive in Received E-Invoices and Arvello creates a draft expense from each one automatically — supplier, lines, VAT and all. Review it, click Approve & Post, and it joins your books like any other finalised expense. See E-invoices & Peppol.
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