This guide is designed to provide you all the necessary information about sending invoices. Simple Invoice offers two methods for invoice delivery.
Automated PDF Download Links (Free, Pro, and Premium Plans)
You can create direct download links for your invoices, packing slips, return forms, and credit notes and insert it to your Shopify order email notifications. In this way, your customers can directly download their documents from the emails sent by your Shopify store.
Send Invoices with Simple Invoice (Pro and Premium Plans)
Simple Invoice is also capable of sending invoices automatically or manually. If you activate this option, you can send separate invoice emails to your customers according to the conditions below:
Auto on Order: Your customers will receive an invoice as soon as they place an order on your site.
Auto on Payment: Your customers will receive an invoice as soon as they make a payment or you approve the payment.
Auto on Fulfillment: Your customers will receive an invoice as soon as you fulfill your order.
It is possible to send invoice emails in different languages without using a third-party app.
Sending invoices with Automated PDF Download Links
Step 1: Click to the “Apps” section of your Shopify store and click on Simple Invoice. Simple Invoice will automatically redirect you to the orders page.
Step 2: Click on the “Dashboard” from the upper left corner.
Step 3: Now you should see the dashboard of Simple Invoice. Click on the “Settings” section.
Step 4: Navigate to the Automated PDF Download Links section and select the document type from the “Template Type” dropdown. After you select the document type, click on the “Click to copy” button, and the download code will be copied to your clipboard automatically.
According to our example, a download code will be used for invoices. Because of this reason, we need to paste it into the Shopify order notification template.
Step 5: Click on the “Settings” navigation item from your Shopify dashboard.
Step 6: Click on the “Notifications” section.
Step 7: Click on the “Order confirmation” template.
Step 8: Locate the {% endif %} and {% endcapture %} lines, click at the end of {% endif %} tag with your mouse, and hit the “Enter” button on your keyboard to open a blank line between these tags.
Step 9: Paste the code you have copied from the “Settings” page according to the screenshot below and save your template.
After you save your notification template, you can also send test email to see how it looks. Alternatively, you can place a test order in your Shopify store and check the order notification email.
Important information about download links
If you see a blank page when you click on the download link, in most cases, it is due to your Shopify store’s password protection (showing a Coming Soon page).
When you remove the password protection on your Shopify store, download link will work and you’ll be able to download the PDF file.
Please check this link to see how you can remove the password protection: Shopify Password Page
Step 10: If you would like to send the order notification email to your user again, you can do it from the Shopify order details page.
Sending invoices with Simple Invoice
Step 1: Click to the “Apps” section of your Shopify store and click on Simple Invoice. Simple Invoice will automatically redirect you to the orders page.
Step 2: Click on the “Dashboard” from the upper left corner.
Step 3: Now you should see the dashboard of Simple Invoice. Click on the “Settings” section.
Step 4: Navigate to the “Send Invoices with Simple Invoice” section and select one of the options below.
Off: Automatic invoice sending is disabled. You can only send invoices manually.
Auto on Order: Your customers will receive an invoice as soon as they place an order on your site.
Auto on Payment: Your customers will receive an invoice as soon as they make a payment or you approve the payment.
Auto on Fulfillment: Your customers will receive an invoice as soon as you fulfill your order.
Please do not forget to save your selection.
Step 5: After you decide how to process invoices, now may need to change the sender information and the default content of the invoice email. Navigate to the “Sending Options” section and make the necessary changes according to your requirements.
Sender Name: Sender name (also known as from name) is the name displayed in your customer’s inboxes.
Sender Email Address: Sender email address is also known as from address or from an email which includes an @ and a domain name. Your customers will see this email address as a sender.
Important information about sender address
It is better to use a TLD email address like example@your-company-domain.com instead of using a sender address like Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo.
Email service providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo sometimes doesn’t allow to send emails from third-party apps like Simple Invoice or your invoice emails may land in the spam folder of your customers.
Blind Carbon Copy: Blind Carbon Copy is also known as the BCC field is used to send a copy of a message (such as an invoice email) without the knowledge of your customers. You can add your own email address or your accountant’s email address to receive a copy of your invoices.
Mail Subject: An email subject line is the first text recipients see after your sender’s name when an email reaches their inbox. It is important to keep an email subject line informative, catchy, and brief.
Send As Attachment: It is possible to send your invoices as PDF attachments to your customers. If your domain name reputation is low, we may suggest turning off email attachments for the first couple of months. After sending invoices for a couple of months, you can try to turn it on and test the functionality again. Some email providers can detect attachments as spam from time to time. It is better to start with download links first.
Mail Content: The main content area is a freeform field where you insert as much text as you want. You can also add supporting links and small images. When you send an invoice email, you’re not limited in terms of how much text you can use but it is better to use short and informative content as you can see from the screenshot.
Important information about mail content
You can use 3 “variables” and 1 “if condition” in your email content area. These variables and conditions are already added to your default email content and you can remove the ones that you don’t wish to use. These are:
{{ order.customer.first_name }} : Prints your customer name.
{{ order.customer.last_name }} : Prints your customer last name.
{{order.name}} : Prints your Shopify order ID on your content. For example: #1234
{% if order.is_draft %}If you would like to make a payment please click here.{% endif %} : The sentence visible between the start and end of the “if condition” is used only for draft orders. It won’t be visible in your regular invoice emails sent for your Shopify orders placed by your customers. If you send a draft order to your customer, this sentence will be visible in the email sent to your customers alongside the other content. If your customers click on the link, they will be redirected to your Shopify store to make a payment.
After you finish setup for your invoice emails, you can send your invoices from the “Orders” section of your Shopify store or from the “Orders” section of your Simple Invoice account.
Sending invoices from the “Orders” page of your Shopify dashboard.
Step 6: Click on the “Orders” section from the left menu and select one or more orders at the same time and click on the “More Actions” button and click on send.
Step 7: It is also possible to send invoices from the order details page of your Shopify store.
Sending invoices from the “Orders” page of your Simple Invoice account
Step 8: Click to the “Apps” section of your Shopify store and click on Simple Invoice. Simple Invoice will automatically redirect you to the orders page.
Step 9: Select one or more orders at the same time and click on the “Send” button.
