Hoping someone will know.... do businesses in Spain have to provide customers with a detailed receipt for all payments made for products/services? I pay sums by direct debit/standing order & obviously know how much has gone out, but the company doesn't provide paper evidence of what I'm paying for.

I would have thought so, but it doesn't always seem to be the case.
For instance I insure my car with Linea Directa who tell me my bank,(one of the main ones),will send me a receipt.
However that is not the case, unless I go to a fair bit of trouble to prise one out of them every year,by which time I've already been on the road for quite a while with no receipt at all.
The only thing showing in my bank statement is a debit marked insurance,which could apply to anything.
A bit of a nuisance really as until recently at least a clearly documented receipt was always compulsory if stopped by the police.

I have 'paper free' billing for a few things, my mobile phone for example. If I want the factura I have to go online and print it.

I'm not sure what type of company you are referring to, but perhaps you are down for the paper free billing?

As for my car insurance, I also never get the recibos sent to me in the post. Again, I have to go online to my bank and click the pdf icon next to the transaction. Then I can print the recibo.

Ditto (though insurance isn't what I'm talking about in this instance) I got them to send me an email proving I'd paid up - then read on BE it was no longer necessary!
Still wondering about the legality of this, though - surely you should be shown what you're paying for by the company taking the money rather than the bank? How would the bank know anything but the most cursory detail?

veleta - - it's education. Various products & services, all different amounts and different dates etc., have no doubt it's all kosher but I just think it's wrong to have no proper invoicing.

They actually know far more than you imagine.

For example, we pay our water charges by direct debit. We get no water bill from the company but get one, instead, from the bank. I queried this once as I had missed it in amongst the normal monthly statement and was told this was quite normal. Once I did find it, the detail was just as one would expect - rental charge, usage charge, IVA, other taxes etc. etc.

Mmm. Not nice, but no surprise in today's big brother world. Surely though it's not the bank's responsibility to provide details of what a company is taking your money for? That's the essence of my query - in Spanish law, can a business take money from your bank without providing corroborating paperwork to show what the withdrawal was for? I mean proactively, of course - without the customer having to seek the information. Which raises another issue. If you ask to be shown paperwork evidence of why(for what) they've debited you, is there any legal requirement to do it within a certain period of time?