Commercial-invoice redaction is the removal of customer and bank PII from the copy you share. Reg. 14 of the VAT Regulations 1995 fixes the particulars a tax invoice must show, including the customer's name and address. Those records must be preserved under VAT Act 1994 Sch. 11, in practice for six years, so the stored original is not something you edit. anonym.plus cleans the shared copy only.
When this applies
An invoice names the buyer, a contact, and the remit-to bank, alongside the VAT number reg. 14 puts there. For a sole trader that number points at one person, and HMRC's online checker is open to anyone. So you redact the copy that goes for spend or tax review and leave the six-year record intact.
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.co.uk → [EMAIL] |
Compliance achieved
- Flags the customer particulars reg. 14 of the VAT Regulations 1995 puts on the face of an invoice.
- Leaves the stored original untouched, since VAT Act 1994 Sch. 11 requires records to be preserved.
- Clears bank and contact fields from the shared copy.
- Supports UK GDPR Recital 26 anonymisation for bills sent onward.
- 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 HMRC's online checker lets anyone confirm it. Reg. 14 of the VAT Regulations 1995 puts it on the face of the invoice, so any redaction pass has to deal with it.
Can I redact the invoice I have to keep?
No. VAT Act 1994 Sch. 11 requires records to be preserved, in practice for six years, and an edited record is not the record. Redact only the copy you circulate for spend or tax review.
Does it read a scanned invoice?
Yes. Local OCR reads scanned pages, so printed fields are caught before the swap. Check the detected fields on poor scans, since OCR can miss faint print.