Do you want to streamline your WooCommerce invoicing process?
If so, you’ve come to the right place. This article will show you how to streamline invoicing on your WooCommerce store with PDF invoices and packing slips.
WooCommerce comes with everything you need to start an online store for your business. But to stay successful among your competitors, you should streamline your operations, improve your customer experience, and offer better value to your customers.
WooCommerce invoicing is one such area that needs your attention to improve your store’s professionalism and streamline your workflows. In this article, learn how to create PDF invoices and packing slips in WooCommerce using a free plugin.
Let’s get started.
Why Do You Need a Plugin to Create WooCommerce Invoices?
The default invoices and the whole invoicing process in WooCommerce are pretty basic. Customizing your documents or providing PDF copies to your customers requires a lot of manual work. Also, it lacks some must-have options that will simplify your invoicing process.
Let’s look at the major reasons why you need a third-party plugin for creating invoices on your WooCommerce store:
- Ability to create PDF Invoices: Default WooCommerce invoices lack the option to create PDF invoices. However, with a third-party plugin, you can easily generate PDF copies of invoices and send them to your customers.
- Lack of customization options: The default templates for WooCommerce invoices are basic and boring. It lacks customization options and does not give you much control over the fields in the invoices.
- Show tax details on invoices: A third-party plugin allows you to add custom fields on your invoices. You can add tax details such as VAT, GST, ABN, etc. on your invoices.
- Support for additional documents: WooCommerce doesn’t allow you to create additional shipping documents such as packing slips, delivery notes, shipping labels, etc. These documents can help you streamline your shipping and delivery processes.
- Create separate invoice numbers for free orders: Having separate invoice numbers for free orders can help you track regular orders efficiently. This will avoid mixing up free orders and regular orders in your records.
Now, let’s see how to create PDF invoices and packing slips on your WooCommerce store with a free plugin.
How to Create PDF Invoices in WooCommerce?
To create PDF invoices and packing slips, we will be using the free WooCommerce PDF invoices plugin by WebToffee. The plugin allows you to automatically create PDF copies of invoices, packing slips, delivery notes, and shipping labels on your WooCommerce store.
Follow the below steps to create PDF invoices in WooCommerce:
Step 1: Install WebToffee WooCommerce PDF Invoice Plugin
- Log in to your WordPress admin account.
- Navigate to Plugins and select Add New Plugin.
- Search for ‘WooCommerce PDF Invoices plugin by WebToffee’ in the search bar.
- Once you have found the plugin, click on Install Now and then Activate the plugin on your WordPress dashboard.
Step 2: Configure General Settings of WooCommerce Invoice Plugin
- After activating the plugin, go to Invoice/Packing > General Settings.
- Select the General tab to configure the general settings of this plugin.
- From here, you can add your company name, logo, address, etc.
- You also have advanced options like, choosing the PDF libraries or restricting the PDF print option to logged in users, etc.
- Configure the necessary settings and click on Update Settings to save the changes.
Step 3: Set up Invoices for WooCommerce
- Go to the Invoice tab from the sidebar menu under Invoices/Packing section.
- Make sure that the Enable Invoice button is selected.
- Choose a date for the invoices.
- Select an order status to automatically generate invoices.
- Enable the Attach invoice PDF to admin email check box to receive PDF invoices with new order emails.
- Then, choose where you want to show the Print invoice button.
Step 4: Choose Custom Invoice Numbers
- Under the Invoice number section on the same page, choose a format for the invoice numbers. You can create custom invoice numbers using your preferred date format, starting number, and number length.
- Choose the preferred invoice number format and click on Update Settings.
The plugin also offers some advanced options, but we will skip that for now.
Step 5: Customize WooCommerce PDF Invoices
- Now, go to the Customize tab.
- From here, you can customize the invoice PDF template.
- Click on each fields from the right side menu to edit the text, change color, alignment, etc.
- After making the necessary changes, you can save these changes.
- Click on Save and activate to make these changes live.
Here is a preview of the PDF invoice generated by this plugin. These invoices can be bulk printed or downloaded from the Orders page or individual Order edit pages.
The plugin will automatically attach the PDF invoices with order confirmation emails sent to customers. They can also download the PDF copies from the My Account page on your store.
Now comes the second part.
How to Create Packing Slips in WooCommerce?
You can create packing slips for your WooCommerce orders with the same plugin.
- Go to the Packing slip menu from the sidebar.
- Choose whether to include product images, customer notes, and footer on packing slips.
- Then, click on Update Settings to save the changes.
The customization options for WooCommerce packing slips are only available with the premium add-on of this plugin. We will discuss more about the premium add-on in the later part of this article.
Here is a preview of the packing slips generated by this plugin. You can download or print the packing slips in bulk from the WooCommerce Orders page.
And That’s it. You have successfully set up PDF invoices and packing slips on your WooCommerce store. Similarly, you can create delivery notes and shipping labels with this free PDF invoice plugin.
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WooCommerce PDF Invoices, Packing Slips, and Credit Notes – Premium Add-on
The WooCommerce invoice plugin we discussed in this article has a premium add-on to create PDF invoices, packing slips, and credit notes. With the premium add-on you can create professional looking PDF invoices and packing slips for WooCommerce.
This premium add-on gives you more templates for your invoices, packing slips and credit notes. You can customize these documents using visual and code editor. The plugin allows you to add custom meta fields and a “Pay Now” link to enable your customers to pay later using the invoices. This will streamline your B2B transactions as your customers can pay after reviewing the order invoice.
Key features of this plugin include:
- Generate PDF copies of invoices, packing slips, and credit notes
- Auto-attach PDF invoices to order emails
- Create a custom sequence of invoice numbers
- Add tax fields and custom data on invoices
- Add Pay Now link on invoices
- Generate invoices for free orders
- Customizable pre-built templates for invoices, packing slips, and credit notes
- Bulk export Invoices, packing slips, and credit notes using filters
Pricing:
The WooCommerce PDF Invoice premium plugin is priced at $69 for a single site license, $99 for five site licenses, and $199 for 25 site licenses for an annual subscription.
Frequently Asked Questions on WooCommerce Invoices
How to add a PDF invoice in WooCommerce?
You can create PDF invoices for your WooCommerce orders using the WebToffee WooCommerce PDF Invoices plugin. It automatically create PDF invoices, packing slips, and credit notes on your WooCommerce store. The plugin will add the PDF invoice with WooCommerce order emails sent to your customers.
What is a shipping label?
A shipping label is a document that contains information about the package, such as the destination address, sender’s address, tracking number, shipping method, and other relevant details to facilitate smooth shipping and delivery of your store orders.
What is mPDF?
mPDF is a PHP library that converts UTF-8 encoded HTML content to PDF. The WebToffee invoice plugin supports mPDF and DomPDF libraries and enables the smooth conversion of HTML invoices to PDF.
Conclusion
This article was intended to help you streamline your WooCommerce invoicing with PDF invoices and packing slips. We hope this article has helped you create PDF invoices and packing slips for your WooCommerce store.
The plugin we discussed in this article also has several add-ons to create shipping labels, address labels, proforma invoices, etc. We believe this plugin will help you streamline the shipping process with necessary documents.
Thanks for reading!
