e-Archive Invoice Inquiry and Finding Lost Invoices

A customer calls: "I can't find last month's invoice, could you send it again?" Or your CPA asks: "I need the PDF for that invoice from March."

A simple request. But if your documents are scattered, this simple request will eat up half an hour of your time.

The document doesn't get lost, you do

First, the reassuring part: the e-archive invoice you issued goes nowhere. It has been reported to the Revenue Administration (GİB) and is on record. If you use an integrator, it also sits in their system.

What gets lost isn't the document, but your way of reaching it. If you don't remember through which channel you issued the invoice or if you misspelled the customer's name, the search drags on.

Where to query?

Order matters. If you can find it in your software, stay there — because there the document doesn't stand alone; it appears together with which customer it belongs to and whether it has been collected.

What information should you start with when searching?

From most reliable to weakest:

• Document number (ETTN or invoice no.). Yields a single result. The customer can read it from the printout they have.
• Tax number + date range. Works almost every time. Independent of title spelling.
• Amount + date range. If there are close amounts, multiple results come up, but it narrows down the list quickly.
• Customer title. The weakest. Whether you type "Ltd. Şti." or "LTD ŞTİ" changes the result.

When you're on the phone with a customer, the most practical question is: "Could you read the number on the top right of the printout you have?" This cuts search time down to seconds.

If the customer hasn't received the invoice

e-Archive invoices are usually delivered via email, and it's common for emails to get lost: spam folder, full mailbox, misspelled address.

The order of action:

• Check the email address on the contact card — the mistake is usually here.
• Ask them to check their spam folder.
• Resend the document; the document isn't re-issued, the exact same document is delivered again.
• If necessary, forward the PDF printout directly yourself.

Important: resending is not issuing a new invoice. Saying "It didn't arrive, let me issue it again" creates a duplicate invoice and requires cancellation. We covered this trap in our cancellation period article.

The organization that makes searching unnecessary

In a good archiving system, there is no such task as "finding the invoice"; you click on the customer, and all their documents are right in front of you.

Three habits that ensure this:

• Every document must be linked to a contact. Collective cards like "Miscellaneous customer" make searching afterwards impossible.
• Documents should stay in one place. If part of them are in the integrator, part in the email, and part on the desktop, you are forced to remember which one to search in.
• Have a backup. Integrator changes or contract expiration may affect your access to past documents. Meanwhile, your obligation to retain them continues — we covered the periods in our retention article.

In Qolay.App, documents stay linked to the contact card and can be backed up together with File Management; every new company comes with 512 MB of free storage space. We covered this organization in our file management article.

When your CPA asks

The most frequently heard sentence at the end of the month: "Could you send copies of these three invoices?"

The repetition of this request is usually a sign: it means your CPA cannot access your documents. The permanent solution, instead of sending documents one by one every month, is to establish a system where you can deliver the period report and document list together. This way, requests don't multiply from once a month to three times.

Frequently asked questions

How many years back can I query invoices?

You need to be able to access documents throughout the retention obligation period. The channel's own archiving period may be shorter than this; that's why keeping your own backup is important.

How do I verify that the customer has seen the invoice?

There is no acceptance-rejection flow in e-archive like there is in e-invoices. Apart from email delivery records and transmission logs, there is no system-generated read receipt.

I can't find the invoice, could it be that it wasn't issued?

It's possible. If there is a sales record but no document, it means you are facing an unbilled transaction. Close this gap before the period closes.

What is the QR code on the printout for?

It enables the verification of the document. The customer can check the validity of the printout they hold this way.

In summary: documents don't get lost, organization does. If you link every invoice to a contact and keep them in a single place, the chore of "finding invoices" will be gone from your life.

By opening a free account on Qolay.App, you can search your documents on a contact basis, resend them, and back them up.

This article is for general informational purposes. Consult your CPA for retention periods and access obligations; the official source is GİB.