Summary
CDON now issues receipts to customers on behalf of merchants. One receipt is issued per merchant per order, sent automatically when the order is fulfilled. The receipt is issued in your name under a self-billing arrangement, with CDON acting as your agent. No action is required from you.
What has changed
Before 17 August 2026, customers who bought on CDON received an order confirmation — a summary of what they had ordered, sent immediately after checkout. An order confirmation is not a receipt: it does not document a completed purchase and does not meet the requirements for a VAT receipt.
Customers need a valid receipt for returns, warranty claims, and business expense reporting. Merchants who run their own accounting and ERP systems need a receipt reference they can reconcile against.
CDON now issues a receipt for every fulfilled order, in addition to the order confirmation.
Self-billing: why CDON issues the receipt in your name
On CDON, you are the seller of the goods. The receipt therefore has to be issued in your name — not CDON's.
Rather than requiring every merchant to build their own customer-facing receipt flow, CDON issues the receipt on your behalf, as your agent. This is known as self-billing, in practice:
- The receipt identifies your company as the seller
- The VAT shown is your VAT, at the rates applying to your items
- The receipt states that it was issued by CDON AB on behalf of your company
- Your accounting obligations are unchanged — the receipt documents your sale, not CDON's
Shipping fees and CDON-funded discount codes are handled separately, with CDON AB as the issuing party, since these are CDON's own charges and adjustments rather than yours.
When the receipt is sent
The receipt is sent when the order is fulfilled — when you mark it as ready to be shipped from your warehouse.
This means:
- The receipt is not sent at the moment of purchase
- A customer who asks about a receipt shortly after ordering will receive it once you ship
- An order cancelled before you fulfil it never generates a receipt
Because fulfilment triggers the receipt, a delayed fulfilment status also delays the customer's receipt.
One receipt per merchant
A receipt covers your part of the order only.
If a customer orders items from three different merchants in a single order, they receive three separate receipts — one from each merchant. These do not arrive at the same time; each receipt is sent when that merchant fulfils their part, which may be several days apart.
The total on a single receipt will therefore not match the total the customer paid for the whole order. That is expected.
What the receipt contains
- Receipt number
- Order number and order date
- Your full company details as the selling merchant: legal company name, registration number, VAT registration number, address and contact email
- The items from your part of the order, with quantities and prices
- VAT, grouped per VAT rate
- Total for your part of the order
- Consumer rights information for the customer's market
- A statement that the receipt was issued by CDON AB on your behalf
The receipt is a snapshot of the purchase at the time it was issued. It is never changed retroactively.
Receipt numbers
The receipt number comes from you. You submit your own receipt number as part of fulfilling the order, and that number is what appears on the receipt the customer receives.
This is deliberate. It means the receipt the customer holds carries a number from your own numbering series, so it reconciles directly against your accounting and ERP systems without any mapping between CDON references and your own.
Two things worth being aware of:
- If you don't send a receipt number, CDON generates one. The customer always receives a receipt — a missing receipt number never blocks the flow — but the number will come from CDON's series rather than yours, which means it won't reconcile against your own records.
- A receipt number is never reused or replaced. If a receipt is re-sent to a customer — for example because the original email bounced — it keeps its original number. A customer never receives two different numbers for the same purchase. This applies whether the number came from you or was generated by CDON.
Language and market
There is a separate receipt flow per market. Receipts are sent in the language of the customer's market — Swedish, Norwegian, Danish or Finnish — with the consumer rights wording required in that country.
You do not need to provide translations of anything.
What you need to do
Nothing is required to activate the flow. Three things are worth reviewing:
| Check | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Your company details are correct and up to date | Your legal name, registration number, VAT number and address appear on every receipt issued in your name |
| Orders are marked as fulfilled promptly and accurately | Fulfilment is what triggers the receipt |
| Your receipt number is included when you fulfil | The receipt cannot be issued to the customer without it |
| You are not also issuing your own receipts | Two receipts for one purchase confuses customers and complicates returns |
FAQ
Do I need to do anything to enable receipts? No. Receipts are issued automatically for all fulfilled orders unless your account is excluded from the flow.
Can I see the receipts sent to my customers?
Yes. Receipts issued in your name can be downloaded as PDFs via the API, so you can pull them into your own accounting or ERP system. See the API documentation for the endpoint and authentication details: link.
A customer says they haven't received their receipt. What should they do? Ask them to contact CDON Customer Service. Receipts can be re-sent, and Customer Service has a verification routine for cases where the customer entered the wrong email address at checkout.
Can a receipt be corrected if the customer's name or address is wrong? No. A receipt is a locked snapshot of the purchase and cannot be edited after it has been issued.
Does this change my accounting or VAT obligations? No. You remain the seller and remain responsible for reporting your own VAT. The receipt documents a sale you have already made.
Need help?
Contact Merchant Support at seller@cdon.com.
Notes for reviewers — remove before publishing
- Add the direct link to the self-billing clause in the new merchant agreement (AGREEMENT_LINK placeholder in the self-billing section). A link to the specific clause is stronger than a link to the agreement as a whole, since self-billing requires a prior agreement and acceptance procedure between the parties (Art. 224 of the VAT Directive).