An employee purchased goods with his own cash for a repair he was working to the value of R500. Once he got back to the office he was the refunded the R500 from petty cash. The management person then saw on the invoice that our company details .i.e. VAT no, company name, address etc where not on the invoice. Up until now putting our company details on invoices from petty cash purchase has never existed so my questions are:

• Is it mandatory to put company details on all invoices resulting from petty cash purchases?
• Is there a certain amount that warrants company information for SARS/ Accounting purposes?
• Does it affect SARS in any way?

As far as I understand petty cash is just that – used for petty/ little/ insignificant/ trivial purchases and as far as I can tell as long as there is an invoice and it is written up on the petty cash sheet - there should be no problem.

I ask this question as the management person is now saying how will they explain this to our accountant and SARS which I think is a bit dramatic as I don’t think there is a problem… or am I wrong and there is some law about petty cash I don’t know about? Or is it just a matter of company preference? Because now myself & this employee have been have been issued with a ‘breach’ letter but as far as I know there was no harm done, no loss of business or any other kind of damage done.