Financial credit note
A commercial credit note that settles a scheme or rebate without adjusting GST — the dealer keeps full input tax credit and the note never appears in GSTR-2B. Contrast with a tax credit note under Section 34, which requires proportionate ITC reversal.
A financial (or commercial) credit note settles money between a brand and a dealer without touching GST: no reduction in the original taxable value, no change to the dealer's input tax credit, and no entry in GSTR-2B. Most dealer scheme settlements — QPS rebates, price protection, post-sale discounts — arrive this way.
A tax credit note, issued under Section 34, is the opposite: it reduces the original GST, requires the dealer to reverse proportionate ITC, and flows into GSTR-2B. Which type a brand issues changes the dealer's true cost reduction, so classification is the first step before trusting any credit-note amount.
The reconciliation consequence: tax credit notes can be tracked through GSTR-2B, but financial credit notes only exist on the brand's statement of account — miss the statement tie-out and a financial credit note can go missing with no tax-side trace at all.