How To Generate Automatic Invoices With WooCommerce

WooCommerce truly simplifies your e-commerce journey with a complete system and flexible customization options. If you cannot do a particular task with the default features of WooCommerce, chances are there are multiple tools to achieve it. 

There are lots of free and premium plugins to help you customize your shop and enhance your workflow. Generating WooCommerce PDF invoices does not come as a default feature of WooCommerce. Still, there are several options that you can choose to create automatic PDF invoices from your WooCommerce shop. 

We are going to introduce you to one of the best WooCommerce PDF invoice generation plugins.

The importance of PDF invoices:

PDF invoices are equivalent to the physical invoices that we get by purchasing from a physical store. Invoices are essential to show your professionalism, and they also have multiple benefits associated with them.

A PDF invoice can work as proof when a dispute is claimed. Additionally, customers may need PDF invoices as proof of their purchase and claim bills. Moreover, a PDF invoice can be necessary for auditing and VAT processing. 

On top of that, a PDF invoice will also help you show your professionalism to your customers and build trust.

Your competitors may already have added the PDF invoicing feature in their arsenal. So they will have more satisfied customers compared to you. Because customers expect PDF invoices and some of them may ask you for one if you don’t provide. 

So, if you do not have an existing system, you may have to deal with this manually. As a result, your regular workflow will be interrupted. 

We have compiled several blogs on PDF invoices and packing slips. You can learn about the importance of the WooCommerce PDF invoice in 2021 by following the linked content.

We are assuming that you have understood the importance of PDF invoices and their impacts on your online store. PDF invoices and packing slips can also help increase your sales. Get insights on how a PDF invoice and packing Slip can improve your sales from this resource.

Well, now you should have a complete understanding of the impacts of PDF invoices. Let’s learn how you can automatically generate PDF invoices for your WooCommerce store. Automatic generation of WooCommerce PDF invoices is not very difficult if you have the right tool and follow a few simple steps.

Let’s get to know Challan, one of the best PDF Invoice and Packing Slip plugins for WooCommerce.

Challan – PDF Invoice & Packing Slip for WooCommerce

Challan is an excellent plugin when it comes to automatic PDF invoice and packing slip generation. The plugin offers very easy-to-follow options to configure and create automatic invoices for your WooCommerce store’s orders. You will love the way it will generate PDF invoices and packing slips for you.

To enjoy the excellent features of Challan and generate automatic PDF invoices, first of all, you will have to install the plugin. Installation is pretty simple like most WordPress plugins. If you still need help, we have an installation guide ready for you. 

Please follow this installation guide to install the plugin on your site. Once you have installed Challan, you can now enjoy WooCommerce PDF invoice generation with just some simple steps.

We hope that you have successfully installed the plugin. On your dashboard, you should find a new menu item called Challan. If you click on Challan, then it will take you to the Challan dashboard. 

The settings option of Challan is the first item of the Challan dashboard, and it opens as the default on your new PDF invoice and packing slips dashboard.

Configuring Challan to generate WooCommerce PDF invoice

Before you start, you will need to take care of the settings section to create excellent and instant PDF invoices and packing slips. By default, the plugin comes with some options already enabled, but you should make a quick revise and customize everything as you wish.

Let’s have a quick walk on the items in the settings section to make things clear for you.

First of all, you will have to enable invoicing, and you can either enable or disable it. Secondly, you will have to choose if you want the invoice to be downloaded from my account section. 

It also gives you two choices to enable or disable this. If you enable the download option, your customers will find the PDF invoice in their account section and download it. 

Most importantly, you will have to select the option to show the invoice in the my account section of your customer. There are multiple options, and you can either select all or a few of them. The available options are:

• Processing Order
• Complete Order
• After Payment Complete
• Always Allow

Next comes the option to attach the invoice to Email. If you enable this option, then you will also have to set the suitable options that you want the PDF invoice to add in an email. There are multiple options, and you have the flexibility to select all of them or a few of them. 

The options to attach a PDF invoice with the order are listed below:

• New Order
• Completed Order
• Processing Order
• Refunded Order
• Customer Invoice

Now comes the option to select the document type for your PDF invoice. By default, it will generate a PDF invoice, but you can also select the document type to be HTML.

After you take care of the document type, you will have to take care of the template. When you click on the Select Template button, a pop-up will show all the available options for you. 

There are six different templates, and the first two templates are bundled as free. Also, there are four premium templates. To access the premium templates, you will need the premium version of Challan called Challan PRO.

Apart from four additional templates, Challan PRO also includes some powerful options to generate WooCommerce PDF invoices.

Next comes the paper size. You can select between three different sizes A4, A5, and letter. After that, you will find the option to set the following invoice number. 

You can also add the invoice number prefix and invoice number suffix. You are almost done with the basic setup, so we will leave the rest of the options to you as they are straightforward to follow. 

For example, the date format will allow you to choose the desired date format you want to include in your PDF invoice. Once you have made your desired configuration, click on Save Changes to save the settings.

Under the buyer and seller tab, you will find an option to include details about your store. First of all, you will find an option to upload your company logo that will be added to the PDF. After uploading the logo, you will find the logo preview on the right side of your screen. The next option allows you to control the size of the logo.

You can select the logo size in terms of values entered as percentages. Apart from that, you can select a Seller Title, Company Name, and Company Details. 

You will love the fact that Challan will fill up some of the fields from your store installation details.

Additionally, you can upload a custom font to customize your PDF invoice and vigorously promote your brand with your customers. We hope that you were able to follow us and completed all the steps successfully. 

You have done a lot, and next time an order is placed, you will have an automatically generated PDF invoice ready for you. If you have selected the Email attachment option, it will also send the PDF attached with an order email.

We are confident that you did not find this very difficult. You must be waiting for the next order to be placed and the magic to happen.

Final words

When a new order is placed on your webshop, you will find that a PDF invoice, a packing slip, and a shipping label is automatically created for you. You will find them at the right top of the order details section.

Clicking on the PDF invoice, packing slip, or the shipping label should open in a new tab, and you can save it locally or print it. Apart from that, you will also find the PDF invoice attached to the email. 

The WooCommerce PDF invoice will be attached to the email based on the option you have selected earlier. If you have set the Completed Order’s attachment, then your customers will find the attached PDF invoice in their completed order email.

We hope you have found the automatic PDF invoice generation reasonably easy with our plugin. Challan aims to reduce your hardship and equip you with the best professional tool to easily create PDF invoices, packing slips, and shipping labels. 

We are confident that you will love our solution. If you have any suggestions to personalize Challan, please let us know. 

Note: you may not need the premium version, but you can always have a quick look to learn about Challan PRO’s features.