How to create Woo­Com­merce invoices with plugins

Woo­Com­merce users can create and send invoices right in the Woo­Com­merce backend. If you have the right plugin, you can even do away with external invoicing software. So how do you install an invoicing plugin and which ex­ten­sions should you invest in? Keep reading to find out.

Why create invoices in Woo­Com­merce?

In its default settings, Woo­Com­merce only allows you to create order con­firm­a­tions, not pro­fes­sion­al invoices. For creating proper invoices, you’ll need some external help, either in the form of invoicing software or a Woo­Com­merce plugin. With a plugin, you can create invoices right in the Woo­Com­merce backend, which comes with the following pros:

• All data stays within the system.
• You won’t need the in­ter­faces necessary for invoicing software.
• Plugins are usually cheaper than external programs, helping you keep your Woo­Com­merce costs to a minimum.
• Menu nav­ig­a­tion is easy and well-in­teg­rated in Woo­Com­merce, meaning the learning curve will be less steep.

A step-by-step tutorial on how to create an invoice in Woo­Com­merce

Below we will show you step by step how to create and send invoices in Woo­Com­merce. We use the plugin ‘Woo­Com­merce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips’ by WP Overnight, which offers a large number of features in its free version.

Step 1: Install plugin

The first step is to log in, navigate to the Woo­Com­merce backend, and install the plugin of your choice. To do this, go to the menu on the left and select ‘Plugins’ and then ‘Add New’.

You can click on ‘Upload plugin’ if you’ve already saved the in­stall­a­tion file for the plugin on your device. Otherwise, use the search tool: Enter the name of the plugin you want to download, then once you’ve found the plugin click ‘Install now’. After the in­stall­a­tion is finished, click on ‘Activate’ to turn the plugin on.

Step 2: Choose settings for Woo­Com­merce invoice plugin

After you’ve installed the plugin, you can open it in the Woo­Com­merce backend. Click on ‘Woo­Com­merce’ in the menu on the left and choose ‘PDF Invoices’.

That will take you to the menu for general settings. The first setting to decide on is whether PDF invoices will be down­loaded or opened in a new tab. You can also choose from different invoice templates, decide on a paper size, activate support for other currency symbols, and enable font subgroups in order to reduce the file size. You’ll want to activate test mode so that the latest settings are always used to create invoices.

Step 3: Design the store header for your Woo­Com­merce invoices

The next step is to design the store header for your Woo­Com­merce invoices. You’ll first want to insert your company’s logo using the ‘Set image’ button. Then enter the height of your logo in inches, cm or mm.

After you’ve uploaded your logo, enter the name and address of your store. Under ‘Footer’, you can enter any ad­di­tion­al in­form­a­tion like con­di­tions of sale. The three ad­di­tion­al optional fields are only available for premium users. They can be used to add ad­di­tion­al columns to the footer. Once you’ve edited all the settings, click on ‘Save changes’.

In the preview on the right next to the menu, you can see how your changes look on the page.

Step 4: Configure automated invoicing

The next step is to configure your settings so that your Woo­Com­merce invoices are auto­mat­ic­ally created and sent. To do this, click on the ‘Documents’ tab and decide when the invoice should be sent (for example, right after the order is placed or when the order status changes to “completed”). You can also define what in­form­a­tion appears on the invoice, including:

• Delivery address
• Email address
• Phone number
• Other in­form­a­tion entered by the customer
• Invoice date
• Invoice number

Then, in the second part of the ‘Documents’ tab, you can define how the invoices are stored in your system, i.e. the invoice format. If you haven’t created a filter for your own format, you can create a prefix or suffix for the invoices. Then, if you want to restart the numbering for your Woo­Com­merce invoices at the beginning of the year, put a check in the cor­res­pond­ing box.

Step 5: Manually create a Woo­Com­merce invoice

Don’t want to auto­mat­ic­ally create and/or send your invoices? If you want to create invoices manually, follow these steps:

1. In the WordPress backend, click on ‘Woo­Com­merce’ in the menu on the left.
2. Click on ‘Orders’.
3. Choose the order that you want to create an invoice for.
4. Check the address and then in the ‘Create PDF’ menu click on ‘PDF invoice’.
5. The invoice will open, and you can save and send the PDF.

The best Woo­Com­merce invoice plugins

There are a variety of Woo­Com­merce invoice plugins each offering a different range of features. Below we sum up four of the best options.

Which features should a Woo­Com­merce invoice plugin have?

The most important factors in deciding on a Woo­Com­merce invoice plugin will be cost and range of features. To make writing invoices for your business as easy as possible, you should look out for the following features:

• Cus­tom­is­able invoice designs (including logo, header, footer)
• Auto­mat­ic­ally creating and sending invoices
• Gen­er­at­ing con­sec­ut­ive invoice numbers
• Support for different cur­ren­cies and languages
• Preview feature
• In­di­vidu­al­ised naming

A quick guide to the four Woo­Com­merce invoice plugins

What sets each of these plugins apart? Below we sum up the main features of each plugin and discuss their pros and cons.

Woo­Com­merce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips

The plugin Woo­Com­merce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips is available in a basic free version and in a paid premium version. The paid version includes features like export func­tion­al­ity and com­pat­ib­il­ity with Dropbox. The main features of this plugin include:

• Auto­mat­ic­ally add PDF invoices to Woo­Com­merce emails
• Fully cus­tom­is­able invoices (PDF or HTML)
• Invoices can be down­loaded and sent manually
• Cus­tom­is­able invoice numbering
• Available in over 18 languages

Invoices for Woo­Com­merce

The open-source plugin Invoices for Woo­Com­merce has two standard templates (‘micro’ and ‘minimal’) for Woo­Com­merce invoices. After upgrading to the paid premium version, you can customise your invoices by, for example, changing the font and column format. Other features of this plugin include:

• Auto­mat­ic­ally adding PDF invoices to Woo­Com­merce emails
• Down­load­ing invoices
• Cloud storage option (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, or Egnyte)
• Cus­tom­is­able invoice numbering
• In­teg­rated error search

Woo­Com­merce PDF Invoices, Packing Slips, Delivery Notes and Shipping Labels

The Woo­Com­merce plugin Woo­Com­merce PDF Invoices, Packing Slips, Delivery Notes and Shipping Labels is the perfect solution if you also need to make packing slips, shipping labels, and delivery notes. The premium version offers numerous features including invoices with signature. Other features include:

• Auto­mat­ic­ally add PDF invoices at any point in the payment process
• Fully cus­tom­is­able invoices (PDF)
• Cus­tom­is­able invoice numbering
• Barcode feature
• Available in over 10 languages

YITH Woo­Com­merce PDF Invoice and Shipping List

The plugin YITH Woo­Com­merce PDF Invoice and Shipping List is known for its user friend­li­ness and straight­for­ward setup. The biggest downside to this plugin is that it doesn’t offer a free version, and the paid version is re­l­at­ively expensive. It offers a wide variety of features, including:

• Auto­mat­ic­ally adding PDF invoices to Woo­Com­merce emails
• Customers can download invoices anytime
• Cus­tom­is­able invoices
• Cus­tom­is­able invoice numbering
• Print invoices and packing slips sim­ul­tan­eously