Definition
You make jewellery and sell it online, and by December you are sitting on a shoebox full of invoices for beads, wire and padded envelopes.
Nobody has ever asked you to deduct them, because the micro scheme deducts nothing at all. So what are they for?
They fill in a document the French commercial code requires from you, and whose existence many sellers only discover on the day of an audit.
The purchase ledger, the registre des achats, is a yearly summary of the detail of what you paid your suppliers.
It sits alongside the Income ledger, which every micro-entrepreneur keeps without exception.
This one applies only to activities whose main trade is selling goods, objects, supplies and food to take away or eat on the premises, or providing accommodation, in the words of article L123-28 of the code de commerce.
In plain terms: a shopkeeper, an online seller, a caterer, a hotelier or a tradesperson who resells materials keeps one.
A developer, a consultant or a designer, whose work is pure services, whether BIC (industrial and commercial profits) or liberal, has nothing to keep on that side.
What goes in, line by line
The ledger is not bookkeeping: it is a list, kept in the order of payments. Four pieces of information are enough, and all four are required.
| Column | What you enter |
|---|---|
| Date | The date of payment, not of the order and not of the invoice |
| Payment method | How you paid, keeping cash payments separate from every other method |
| Supporting document | The reference of the proof: invoice number, receipt, delivery note |
| Amount | The sum that left your account |
The amount goes in inclusive of VAT for as long as you are under the VAT exemption scheme: you reclaim no VAT on your purchases, so the VAT you pay your suppliers is part of your cost, exactly like the goods themselves.
The ledger may be kept on paper or on a computer, provided it is identified and dated when each entry is made, by means offering full evidential guarantees.
It is then filed with your invoices, for the period detailed in the Document retention entry.
The ledger does not replace your purchase invoices, it points to them.
A line with no document behind it is a line nobody can check, and that is precisely what an inspector comes looking for.
Throwing away the receipts once the line is typed empties the ledger of its value: it no longer proves anything, for you or against you.
€9,000 of purchases that reduce nothing
Léa sells her jewellery online. In 2026 she collects €30,000 and pays €9,000 for metal, beads and packaging. Her purchase ledger therefore shows €9,000, spread over a hundred or so lines.
Here is what those €9,000 change in what she owes.
Her Social contributions are calculated at the full rate of 12.3% in 2026, the one for the sale of goods in mainland France, applied to the €30,000 collected, so €3,690.
That rate is reduced at the start for anyone entitled to ACRE, and it does not cover everything owed to Urssaf: the vocational training contribution (CFP) and the chamber of commerce levy are added on top.
On the tax side, the Standard allowance of 71% in 2026, the sale-of-goods one as well, removes €21,300 and leaves €8,700 of taxable profit.
The €9,000 appear in neither calculation. The flat-rate allowance is deemed to cover them, whatever they really amount to.
So the purchase ledger is not there to reduce what you pay: it is there so the administration can cross-check what comes in against what goes out.
Stock bought that never reappears as revenue is the question the ledger asks on the inspector's behalf.
Two ledgers, two logics
The most common confusion is to treat this ledger as the expense journal of ordinary accounts.
It is nothing of the sort: a micro-enterprise files no annual accounts, no balance sheet and no profit statement, and absolutely nothing in the ledger is deductible.
You record spending for the record, not to subtract it.
The second confusion is about dates.
The income ledger follows money received, never invoices issued: an invoice sent in December and paid in January counts towards the following year, and it is that collected amount which is compared with the scheme's ceiling.
The purchase ledger follows the same rule, mirrored: it records the day you pay, not the day you order.
Frequently asked questions
I am a consultant, do I need a purchase ledger?
No, unless you also sell goods. Pure service work only triggers the income ledger requirement.
With a mixed activity, however, the sales side brings you back within the scope of the purchase ledger: what triggers the duty is the act of selling goods, not the social category of your business.
Is a simple spreadsheet enough?
Yes, an electronic format is accepted. The condition concerns evidence: every line must be identified and dated at the moment it is created, by means offering full guarantees.
A file that can be freely rewritten months later does not meet that condition and loses its value the day you have to produce it.
What happens if I keep no ledger at all?
The penalty is not where you expect it. With no ledger you have nothing to set against the tax office reconstructing your revenue for you, and it is then the one setting the figure.
Rebuilding the ledger the night before an audit and dating it as though it had been kept as you went along is forgery, and a stack of invoices that all arrive on the same day shows.
A few minutes a month beat an argument with no documents in hand.