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Because the easy fix is to edit or delete the invoice. Then the numbering has a gap in it, the tax return disagrees with the ledger, and an auditor asks a question nobody can answer.
A credit note reverses value on an issued invoice — one line, a proportion, or the whole document — and leaves the original intact.
The credit references the invoice and reverses specific lines, with tax reversed at the rate that applied then rather than now. It can offset an outstanding balance or become a refund.
A customer disputes one line of five. Credit that line, the rest stays payable, and the aging report shows the reduced balance instead of the whole invoice sitting overdue.
It will not un-send the invoice. The original stands, as it should — the credit is the correction, and both appear in the history.
It posts to the ledger, adjusts the customer balance and the aging report, and returns stock where the credit is for goods. GST reports pick it up in the period it was raised.
No. It is bounded by what the invoice carried, which is what stops accidental over-crediting.
No. It can sit as an unapplied credit on the customer and settle a later invoice.
Only if you say so. A service credit and a goods return are different decisions.
Fourteen days, every module, no card. Or half an hour with someone who will run it on your own records and tell you where it does not help.