Send Invoice · Merchant handbook
Everything your store can do with Send Invoice.
Send Invoice turns your Shopify orders into clean, branded invoices, receipts and gift receipts — emailed to the customer, posted to your team's Slack, or filed in your own Google Drive, by hand or on autopilot. This guide walks through every page in plain English, with pictures and step-by-step flows.
What is Send Invoice?
A standalone app that sits alongside your Shopify store. It reads your orders and lets you create, brand, send and automate invoices and receipts — without touching your storefront.
Once installed, Send Invoice quietly imports your orders in the background. From then on, every screen is about one of four jobs: look at your orders and sales, design how your documents appear, send them to customers, or automate the whole thing so it happens without you.
The left-hand menu, at a glance
Every page in the app is reached from the icon menu down the left side. Here's what each one is for:
- Dashboard — your sales, orders and invoicing numbers at a glance.
- Orders — browse every order (and draft order); open one to send its documents.
- Vendors — set commission rules and track what each vendor is owed.
- Invoice templates — design how your invoices look; keep as many as your plan allows.
- Automatic invoices — rules that send invoices on a schedule or when something happens.
- Notifications — choose which order events trigger emails and alerts; connect Slack.
- Settings — your account hub: brand, delivery wording, plans and legal.
- Support — contact the team, take a product tour, read FAQs.
Dashboard
Updated just now
A quick look at the app shell — the icon menu on the left stays with you on every page.
New here? Start with First-time setup below — it's a two-minute wizard. After that, most people live on the Orders page.
First-time setup
A short, one-time wizard that gets your store ready to send invoices. Three steps, and you can skip and finish later.
When you first open the app you'll see a progress rail on the left (1 / 3 · 33% complete) and a live sample invoice that updates as you type. Here are the three steps:
Where account updates and copies of your invoices go.
Business name, address, phone and tax number — pre-filled from Shopify. This prints on the invoice header.
Choose how invoice numbers look — from the order number, order name, or a custom sequence — with a prefix and suffix.
The app unlocks and your orders start importing in the background.
Invoice ID format
How your invoice numbers will look
Invoice ID source
Prefix
Suffix
Preview
INV-1042-2026Step 3 — the live preview shows exactly how your invoice numbers will read.
Every choice here stays editable later under Settings. You can hit Skip for now on any step and come back — nothing you typed is lost.
Dashboard
A read-only, at-a-glance view of your sales, orders, fulfillment and how many invoices you've sent.
The dashboard never changes your data — it's purely for looking. From top to bottom you'll find:
- Total sales hero — your headline sales figure with a trend chip (▲ 12% vs last 7d) and the order count, over a faint revenue line.
- KPI tiles — Total orders and Average order value, each with an up/down trend.
- Invoicing metrics — Invoices sent (all-time), Scheduled invoices (active automations), and Invoices this month (used / limit, or "Unlimited").
- Order status cards — Fulfilled, Pending, Paid, Shipped and Returned, each with a count and a little progress meter.
- Performance overview — an interactive chart you can switch between Area / Bars / Line, over 7d / 30d / 90d, showing Revenue, Orders or Refunds.
- Total sales breakdown — a Shopify-style table from Gross sales down to Total sales (discounts, refunds, shipping, taxes…).
Your choice of chart style, date range and metrics is remembered in your browser.
Orders
The hub of the app. Browse, search and filter every order, then open one to preview or send its invoice.
- Sync buttons — Sync now pulls recent changes; Full sync re-imports every order, including older ones.
- Filters — search by name / order / email, a date range, and dropdowns for payment status and fulfillment status.
- Columns — Order, Date, Customer, Fulfill by, Channel, Total, Payment status, Fulfillment status, Items, and more. Click a header to sort.
- Row actions — a quick Preview invoice (opens a new tab) and Download PDF on each row.
- Open a row — click anywhere on it to go to the full order detail page.
Orders
Browse orders and send their documents
| Order | Customer | Total | Payment | Fulfillment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1042 | Priya Nair | $248.00 | Paid | Unfulfilled | 👁 ⬇ |
| #1041 | James Okoro | $92.50 | Paid | Fulfilled | 👁 ⬇ |
| #1040 | Sofia Rossi | $519.00 | Pending | Unfulfilled | 👁 ⬇ |
Showing 1–3 of 312 orders · Previous / Next
Each row's eye and download icons preview or save the invoice without leaving the list.
On the Free plan, only the last 30 days of orders are shown, with an Upgrade link. Every paid plan sees your full history.
Order details & documents
The full view of a single order — customer, items, totals and payments — and the main place to preview, download or send its documents.
At the top is the order with its payment and fulfillment pills. Below that is the Documents panel — the heart of this page — with four rows:
- Invoice — "a request for payment." Always available.
- Receipt — "proof this order was paid." Unlocks once the order is paid (needs a paid plan).
- Gift receipt — "itemized proof of purchase, no prices." Same unlock rules.
- Packing slip — "what to pack and where to ship it." Doesn't wait for payment, and goes to your warehouse rather than the customer. Pro See Packing slips.
Each document row has three controls: Preview (👁, opens a new tab), Download PDF (⬇), and a Send menu. Below the panel you'll see the invoice itself, the list of payments/transactions, and side cards for the customer, shipping, billing and notes.
Order #1042 Paid Unfulfilled
Priya Nair · placed 24 Jul 2026 · Online Store
The Documents panel — preview, download or send each document from one place.
Sending an invoice
Sending always happens from an order's detail page, through the Send menu on a document row.
Open the Send menu and you'll see channels grouped by who they reach:
- To customer — Email — sends to the customer's email, or type any other address in the "Send to another email" field.
- Share internally — Slack — posts the invoice into your team's Slack channel. This does not use your monthly invoice quota.
Each channel shows its destination, or the reason it's unavailable (e.g. "No customer email on this order", or "Not connected · Set up").
How it works, step by step
Find the document row (Invoice, Receipt or Gift receipt) and click Send.
Email to the customer, a typed-in address, or Slack to your team.
If your email wording isn't set up yet, the app pops over to Delivery to write it, then brings you back.
You see "Invoice sent to [email]". Slack posts a message with Preview / Download links.
Good to know: emailing customers needs a paid plan (Free is download & print only). Receipts and gift receipts can only be sent once the order is paid.
Draft orders
Draft orders are unpaid, not-yet-placed orders. You can preview and download an invoice so the customer can pay.
The Draft Orders tab has its own Sync drafts button and columns: Draft, Created, Customer, Status, Items, Subtotal, Discount and Total. Opening a draft shows a single Invoice row you can Preview or Download. Because drafts aren't paid yet, there are no Send buttons and no receipt options here — just the invoice.
Custom line items on a draft are tagged Custom item so they're easy to spot on the invoice.
Draft order invoicing is on the Elite plan.
Invoice templates
Your library of saved invoice designs. The one marked Default is used whenever an invoice is sent or downloaded.
Templates appear as cards, each showing a thumbnail, its name, the layout style (Classic, Modern, Minimal, Bold, Clean, Compact, Editorial, Ledger, Luxe or Mono) and a Default pill on the active one. Per card you can Edit, Set default, Rename, Duplicate or Delete (your last remaining template can't be deleted).
To make a new one, use the New template card, or open Start from a preset to spin one up seeded with a curated style, then fine-tune it.
Invoice templates
The default is used when invoices are sent or downloaded
Name it and Create
The template library — the "Default" pill marks the design used on all sent invoices.
How many templates you keep, and which layouts you can use, depends on your plan: Free = 1 template on the Classic layout; Plus = 3 templates across 4 layouts (Classic, Modern, Minimal, Bold); Pro and Elite = unlimited templates on all 10 layouts.
Template editor
A live editor for one template — controls on the left, a real invoice preview on the right that updates as you change things.
Controls are grouped under four headings:
- Design — style presets, base layout, accent colour, surface tone, typeface, density, header layout, and your logo (a text monogram or an uploaded image). Plus per-block formatting (font, size, weight, alignment).
- Content — every text field on the invoice (company details, bill-to, notes, bank details, terms) and a currency symbol, with checkboxes to show or hide sections and product images.
- Line items — pick which order fields become columns, drag to reorder, rename headers, and add columns.
- Layout Pro — reorder invoice sections, add custom fields near the invoice number, and add custom footer sections.
Design
Accent colour
Density
Header layout
| Item | Qty | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Ceramic mug set | 2 | $96.00 |
| Linen napkins | 4 | $152.00 |
Change a control on the left and the invoice preview on the right updates instantly. Hit Save when you're happy.
Packing slips
The warehouse document: what to pack and where to ship it, with no prices anywhere on the page. Pro
Packing slips have their own library, separate from your invoice templates — they don't count against your invoice template limit, and they don't appear in the invoice list. Two are created for you to start with: Standard A4 (the default) and Thermal 4×6.
The default template is the one used whenever you preview, print or send a packing slip from an order, so set it to whichever paper your warehouse actually uses.
The library
- New packing slip — give it a Template name and press Create.
- Start from a preset — 100 curated styles you can filter by paper size (A4, Letter, A5, A6, 4×6, 4×4) and by layout (Standard, Compact). Clicking one creates a template straight away, ready to fine-tune.
- Each card carries Edit, Set default, Rename, Duplicate and Delete, with a Default pill on the active one and a sub-line showing its layout and size — Standard · A4.
You can't delete your last packing template — the Delete button disappears when only one is left.
The editor
Four groups of controls, with a live preview beside them. Save changes commits them.
- Format — Layout is either Standard (branded, full detail) or Compact (condensed, for thermal printers). Paper size offers A4, Letter, A5, A6, 4 × 6 in, 4 × 4 in, or Custom…, which reveals width and height boxes and an in/mm unit picker. Custom sizes are held between 2 and 24 inches; margins scale down automatically on small labels.
- Columns — tick SKU, Bin, Weight and Qty; Item is always on. Quantity shown switches between To pack (unfulfilled) and Ordered, and Hide already-fulfilled items drops lines with nothing left to pack.
- Options — a Packed by signature line, an optional Gift message, and free-text Packing notes.
- From address — business name, address, phone and email. Leave it blank and your invoice branding is used instead.
Two things to expect: Bin and Weight print as empty cells on purpose — Shopify doesn't carry that data, so they're there for your team to write in. And the Compact layout prints a fixed item list, so column choices only change the Standard layout.
Thermal 4×6
Compact · 4 × 6 in
Format
Columns
Preview
PS-1042 · 24 Jul 2026 · Unfulfilled
SHIP TO
Priya Nair
18 Rose Lane, Leeds LS1 4AB
2 × Ceramic mug set · MUG-02
4 × Linen napkins · NAP-11
Packed by: __________
No prices, ever — a packing slip is for the person filling the box.
Printing or sending one
Open an order and find the Packing slip row in the Documents panel. Preview opens the print view in a new tab and Download PDF saves it — that's all most warehouses need. Unlike receipts, a packing slip doesn't wait for the order to be paid: you can pack before payment clears.
The Send menu only offers Share internally — Email warehouse and Slack. There's no option to email the customer and no free-text address box, because this document isn't for them. The address comes from Delivery → Packing slip → Send to; leave that blank and it falls back to your account email. Until one is set, the menu entry is greyed out and reads No warehouse email — add one under Delivery · Set up.
On a schedule
A schedule can send packing slips too: pick Packing slip · to warehouse under Document in the wizard. Any trigger works — unlike receipts, packing slips aren't restricted to paid orders — and you can leave the schedule's To field empty, since it falls back to the same warehouse address. See Automatic invoices.
A scheduled packing slip always uses your default packing template. The wizard's invoice-format picker lists invoice templates only, so it has no effect here.
Automatic invoices
"Set it and forget it" rules that send invoices on a schedule, or the moment something happens to an order.
The main page shows an Automation status strip (Active, Paused, Sent today, Next send), your list of schedules, and a Sent log of everything that went out. Each schedule row has an Edit button and a ⋯ menu with Send test, Pause / Resume and Remove.
Two kinds of trigger
- On a repeating schedule — Hourly, Daily, Weekly or Monthly. Invoices every order from the last completed period.
- The moment it happens — Every order placed, fulfilled or paid. Invoices each order immediately on that event.
Creating a rule
Pick a repeating schedule or an event trigger. A plain-English sentence restates your rule as you build it.
Choose the template, the document type (Invoice / Receipt / Gift receipt), and an optional nickname.
Email is always on — edit the subject and body. Optionally add a Slack alert.
The rule goes live and appears in your list, ready to pause or test anytime.
Automatic invoices
Invoices that send themselves, on your schedule
Classic Green · skips weekends · next run in 2h 14m
Send test emails a one-off invoice built from your most recent order — always to you, never a customer.
Automatic sending is a paid feature — available on Plus and up. Hourly schedules need Pro; Plus runs daily, weekly and monthly. Free plans see an upgrade prompt.
Vendor commissions
Set how much commission each vendor earns from sales, and track what's owed. Vendors appear automatically as orders sync. Elite
- Vendors tab — summary cards (total vendors, commission-enabled, sales, commission payable) and a table with each vendor's rule (Custom / Inherited / No rule) and status. You can also add a vendor by hand.
- Summary tab — payout-ready totals over a date range, with Export CSV.
- Settings tab — the default commission rule applied to every vendor without a custom one.
How commission rules work
You set one default rule for the whole shop, then optionally override it per vendor. A rule can be a percentage (on net or gross item sales) or a fixed amount (per item or per order), with options to deduct refunds and set an "effective from" date. Saving never rewrites the past — changes apply going forward.
| Vendor | Source | Sales | Rule | Commission | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northwind Goods | Shopify | $12,900 | Custom | $1,290 | Active |
| Loom & Co. | Shopify | $8,200 | Inherited | $820 | Active |
| Bright Studio | Manual | $3,100 | No rule | — | Paused |
Open any vendor to see their transaction history and set a custom rule. A printable payout sheet is available per vendor.
Notifications
Choose which order events trigger emails and alerts, and connect Slack. (The actual email wording lives on the Delivery page.)
- Email your customer — toggles for Order placed, Payment received, Order fulfilled, Refund issued, Order edited and Order updated. These are extra to Shopify's own emails.
- Alert you — the owner-facing version of those events, sent to your contact email plus Slack when connected. These don't count against your monthly invoice allowance.
- Channels — an Email card (on/off) and a Slack card (connect, choose a channel, send a test, disconnect).
Connecting Slack
In the Slack card, click Connect Slack and authorize your workspace.
Choose from the dropdown. For a private channel, invite the app first with /invite @YourApp.
Flip the Slack switch On and Save changes.
Hit Send test alert to confirm it lands in the right place.
Notifications
Active 2 / 2 channels · Email On · 4 order events
Email your customer
Posting to #orders
Toggle each event for customers and for yourself; connect Slack right from this page.
Delivery channels
Where an invoice goes when you send it — the customer's inbox, your team's Slack, a folder in your own Google Drive — and the exact wording that travels with it.
The page is a console: a Destinations rail down the left, one pane open at a time on the right. Each destination in the rail carries a coloured dot and a live status line, so you can tell at a glance what is actually switched on:
- Email — the customer's address on the order, document attached. Status reads Off, On · sending, or On · outbox only (the last one means email isn't connected on this store yet, so sends are held for review instead of going out).
- Slack — an alert to your team each time an invoice goes out; customers never see it. Status reads Not connected, Off, On · no channel or On · #your-channel.
- Google Drive — a copy of every invoice PDF filed in a folder you own. Status reads Not connected, No folder, Off or On · <folder>. Pro
Each destination has its own web address, so you can bookmark or link straight to one: /delivery#slack, /delivery#drive.
The Email pane
Four document sub-tabs — Invoice, Receipt, Gift receipt and Packing slip — each with its own Subject and Body. Leave a field blank and the built-in wording is used; you'll see it greyed out as the placeholder. Under Insert a placeholder, click a chip like {{order_name}} or {{invoice_total}} to drop it in where your cursor is, and the preview on the right fills with real values from your latest order.
Two sub-tabs add their own fields: Gift receipt has a Gift message and a Return & exchange note (printed in the footer, where prices would otherwise go), and Packing slip has a Send to address for your warehouse rather than the customer. Receipts and gift receipts need Plus; packing slips need Pro.
Changes aren't live until you press Save changes at the bottom of the pane.
Subject
Body
Preview
To · priya@example.com
Hi Priya, thanks for your order #1042. Your invoice for $248.00 is attached.
📎 invoice-1042.pdf
Placeholder chips fill with real order data — the preview shows exactly what the customer receives.
Your own sending domain
By default invoices arrive from our shared address. On Pro you can send from your own instead — customers recognise the sender, and replies come back to you. You'll find it inside the Email pane: the From row has a Use your own domain link (it reads Change once you've set one up).
There are two ways to prove the address is yours. Pick one under Verification method:
- Verify by DNS (DKIM) — Best deliverability. You add two records at your domain registrar. This is the recommended route and the only one that earns full DMARC alignment.
- Verify by email link — No DNS access needed. You confirm a single address by clicking a link we email you. Use this if you can't edit DNS, or if you send from a Gmail or Outlook mailbox (those can't be verified by DNS at all).
Verifying by DNS
Type a domain or subdomain whose DNS you can edit, such as mail.yourstore.com, and submit it.
One TXT record for DKIM, one CNAME for the Return-Path. Click a value to copy it.
Cloudflare, GoDaddy, a Shopify-managed domain — wherever your DNS lives.
DNS takes a while to propagate. If it says not yet, wait a bit and press again.
Sending domain
mail.acmeco.com · Pending DNS · DKIM
| Record | Host | Value | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| DKIM · TXT | 20240101._domainkey | k=rsa; p=MIGfMA0GCS… | ✓ found |
| Return-Path · CNAME | pm-bounces | pm.mtasv.net | waiting |
Both records must show ✓ found before the domain flips to Verified. Click a value to copy it.
The TXT record signs your emails and the CNAME routes bounces back to you — together they pass DMARC checks, so you don't need to touch your SPF record.
Verifying by email link
Fill in the Email address you want to send from and the Sender's name customers will see, optionally open Add reply-to email to point replies somewhere else, then press Verify email. Open the message we send and click the link, then come back and press I've confirmed it. Lost the email? Resend email is right there, and it's worth a look in spam.
The trade-off with email link: mail sent this way is signed by our servers, not your domain. If your domain enforces DMARC (p=quarantine or p=reject), some invoices may be filtered. Verify by DNS if you can.
Once verified, set the exact From email and Sender's name, plus an optional reply-to, and press Save sender details. The two methods differ here: DNS verifies a whole domain, so you can use any address at it — but at that domain exactly, since a subdomain needs its own verification. Email link verifies one mailbox, so the From address is fixed and shown read-only; to use a different one, remove the sender and confirm the new address. Remove sender at the bottom returns you to the default address.
Google Drive archiving
On Pro, Send Invoice can file a copy of every invoice PDF into a folder in your own Google Drive — your archive, in your account, ready to hand to an accountant. Shared drives work too. We only ever get access to the folder you pick: we can't read, list or touch anything else in your Drive.
Open the Google Drive destination and press Connect Google Drive, then approve on Google's own screen.
Pick the folder in Google's picker — including one inside a shared drive, which gets a Shared drive badge. The button reads Change folder afterwards.
Press it to file a real PDF from your latest order, then check the folder.
Nothing is filed until you pick a folder — a connected account on its own doesn't archive anything.
Manual sends are opt-in. The button under the folder toggles between Also archive manual sends and Stop archiving manual sends, and it governs only the invoices you send by hand. A schedule that delivers to Drive files its documents either way — see Automatic invoices.
Disconnecting is shop-wide, so the confirmation tells you how many schedules deliver to Drive and will stop until you reconnect and pick a folder again. If Google stops accepting the connection — you revoked it, or the grant expired — the destination shows Reconnect Google Drive and files nothing until you do.
Both Google Drive archiving and a custom sending domain need the Pro plan. Without it the destination shows a Pro badge and an Upgrade to Pro button instead of the setup.
Settings & brand
Your account hub — a snapshot of your store and plan, and the doorway to everything you can configure.
Settings itself doesn't change anything directly — it's a launchpad. It shows your store, plan, template count, active channels and install date, then links out to Brand, Delivery, Invoice templates, Notifications and Billing, plus your legal policies and uninstall info.
Brand
The Brand page is where you upload the logo and signature that print on every document. Both are optional — with no logo, your store's initials are used. Images should be PNG or JPG up to 1 MB (around 400×400 px on a transparent background works best). A logo set inside a specific template overrides this store-wide one.
Brand
Logo & signature that print on your documents
Uploads preview instantly; nothing saves until you press Save brand.
Support
Get help — message the team, take a quick tour, or find answers in the FAQ.
- Send a message — a short contact form (name, email, message). You'll hear back within one business day.
- Ways to reach us — guides, live chat, and an email link.
- Product tour — a ~20-second walkthrough of the app.
- FAQ — expandable answers on connecting Shopify, customizing templates, notification channels, how commission is calculated, and what happens after your trial.
- Trust center — links to Privacy, Terms and the Data Processing Agreement.
Tip: the FAQ answers the most common setup questions instantly — worth a look before sending a message.