Commercial-invoice redaction is the removal of customer and bank PII from the copy you share. Art. 226 of the VAT Directive (2006/112/EC) makes the customer's VAT identification number a required particular. Art. 244 then makes you store the invoice, and Art. 247 leaves the period to each member state.
When this applies
An invoice names the buyer, a contact, and the remit-to bank, plus the VAT number Art. 226 puts there. For a sole trader that number points at a person. So you clean the copy that goes for spend or tax review, never the stored original.
How anonym.plus handles it
- Load the bill into anonym.plus on your device.
- The tool flags buyer name and contact fields.
- It catches the billing address and bank details.
- Confirm the flags and keep the amounts.
- Swap or black out the IDs.
- Save the clean bill on your machine.
What you need to provide
- The invoice (PDF, DOCX, CSV, or scan).
- A field map for known ID columns.
- An operator (Replace keeps the amounts readable).
PII entity types detected
| Category | anonym.plus entity type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Names | PERSON | customer contact → [CUSTOMER] |
| Company | ORGANIZATION | bill-to firm → [COMPANY] |
| Location | LOCATION | billing address → [ADDRESS] |
| Banking | IBAN_CODE | remit-to acct → [IBAN] |
| Identifiers | NATIONAL_ID | VAT no. → [TAX_ID] |
| Contact | EMAIL_ADDRESS | ap@buyer.com → [EMAIL] |
Compliance achieved
- Flags the customer VAT number Art. 226 of Directive 2006/112/EC puts on the face of a bill.
- Leaves the stored original untouched, as Art. 244 and Art. 247 expect.
- Clears bank and contact fields from the shared copy.
- On-device AES-256-GCM guards the working files.
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Limitations & cautions
A VAT number plus a rare amount can trace back to a small buyer. Review such lines. Scanned invoices lean on OCR, so check the fields the tool found before you export.
Frequently asked questions
Why is a VAT number personal data?
For a sole trader it identifies one person, and it can be checked against a public register. Art. 226 puts it on the face of the bill, so redaction has to deal with it.
Can I redact the invoice I must store?
No. Art. 244 makes you store the invoice, and Art. 247 leaves the period to each member state. Redact only the copy you share.
Does it read a scanned invoice?
Yes. Local OCR reads scanned pages, so printed fields are caught before the swap.