Bizonylat

Bizonylat is a document that substantiates a financial or economic event and serves as the basis for bookkeeping entries. In Hungarian accounting practice, a bizonylat can be any document that records a transaction and provides evidence for the books. It may be issued by suppliers, customers, or others involved in the transaction, and it can exist in paper or electronic form. The term covers a range of documents, among them invoices (számla), receipts (nyugta), cash-receipt documents (készpénz-bizonylat), and delivery notes (szállítólevél).

Purpose and use: Bizonylatok create an auditable trail of transactions and support tax declarations, financial statements, and value-added tax (VAT) calculations where applicable. They are used to post bookkeeping entries and to prove the occurrence, description, timing, and amount of economic events.

Content and requirements: A bizonylat should contain essential data such as the date, a unique document number, identities of the involved parties, a description of goods or services, quantity and price, tax base and tax amount if relevant, and the total amount. It should be legible, accurate, and tamper-resistant; corrections require a new or amended bizonylat. For electronic documents, integrity and authenticity mechanisms (such as digital signatures or time stamps) may be used.

Retention and scope: Businesses are generally required to retain bizonylatok for a prescribed period (commonly eight years) to enable audit and tax verification. Not every bizonylat is a számla, but every számla is a bizonylat.