If you’re like a lot of us WordPress enthusiasts, you make your living using the CMS in some way. For me, it’s writing blog posts (hey, like this one!) that pays my bills. For others, it’s building themes and plugins. Still others earn a living wage by creating custom sites for individual clients. No matter how you interact with WordPress in your day-to-day life, if you bring in money using it, there’s going to be some money management involved.
Yes, you might have some favorite accounting software that you use, but wouldn’t it be nice if you could deal with all of your client side interactions within WordPress itself? Well, you can. At least from the invoicing side of things.
Instead of manually having to create an invoice template, which you then have to customize for each client and email to them individually, with the right tools you can perform these tasks within your WordPress dashboard. This means you can see at a glance who has paid you, who hasn’t, and where your business stands as a whole.
Since this is a solution that’s in demand from a lot of WordPress-based business owners, you best believe there are plenty of plugins and tools out there that make integrating the ability to create, manage, and send invoices into your dashboard a snap. I did some digging (so you don’t have to) and turned up a few popular choices to give you a nice starting point.
Good luck to you and happy invoicing!
Sprout Invoices
Sprout Invoices was created by Sprout Apps and is actually a part of a larger suite of apps designed to help businesses streamline operations. It comes in a free and a premium version.
The free version of this plugin includes a ton of features. For instance, it has a highly intuitive estimate and invoice workflow and a really convenient payment interface for clients. They can pay through a variety of gateways including check and PayPal. You can make as many estimates and invoices for as many clients as you want/need. It also comes with customizable templates and notifications and plenty of management options for payments and clients.
Other features include importing from other invoicing software like Freshbooks and Harvest and reporting features.
The premium version of Sprout Invoices includes advanced reporting, the ability to accept deposit payments and Stripe payments, integration with Gravity Forms and Ninja forms, and more. The “Freelance” version will set you back $34.95 and the “Business” version is $59.95. This price applies for the first month of usage. After that, you can expect to pay $5 and $9 per month, respectively.
Invoice King Pro
Another plugin option you’re definitely going to want to check out is Invoice King Pro. This plugin makes it simple to create invoices to suit your specific needs. You can select from a variety of themes to change how your invoices look, not just in terms of color palette, but also in terms of layout and overall style.
It also comes with plenty of settings you can tinker with. For instance, you can establish some pre-defined fields that will appear on all of your invoices so you can skip manually inputting them every time. Set the number of columns you want, change the content, and insert calculations to your specifications. You can save your clients’ information as well so you can select them again from a drop down menu.
Once you’ve created an invoice, you can save it as a PDF to send via email. Or you can save it to your desktop for your records, print it out, or whatever else you want to do. If you want to skip sending a manual email with a PDF attachment, you can send your email from within the WordPress dashboard. Just input the client’s address and voila! Off your email goes. You can change the subject line and body of the message for each client and each invoice you send, too.
Once your invoice has been paid, you just need to select this option within the dashboard and he’ll be sent another email that indicates the balance has been paid in full. It’s an undeniably convenient system that you can expand even further thanks to some premium add-ons that cost about $26 each.
First is Recurring Invoices, which lets you setup invoices that are automatically sent each month or after a time period you specify for recurring services. Second is Attachments, which lets you attach more files to invoices. And finally, there’s Client Sync, which lets you sync your WordPress users into your client list.
sprInvoice
If you want a simple, straightforward invoice solution that foregoes all the bells and whistles, you might find sprInvoice useful. Create invoices on the fly from within your dashboard. It might not offer a million features but if you want to skip having to open up a secondary app to send invoices to your clients, this is a good choice.
WP-Invoice
A really popular invoicing plugin option is called WP-Invoice. Create an invoice within your site’s admin and then you can send an email to your client with a description of the invoice. This email also contains a link to the invoice, which is hosted on your site. From there, your client can pay the invoice however she wants, using PayPal or a credit card. Then you’re sent a notification that the bill has been paid.
WP-Invoice is actually a collection of several features that you can purchase individually or on their own. First, there’s Single Page Checkout, which makes it easy to create a one-page checkout form that accepts payments through a variety of payment gateways. It costs $75. Then there’s the PDF feature, that lets you create PDFs of invoices, receipts, and quotes. You can send these PDFs via email or as links. It comes with three layouts and costs $50.
Another feature is called Quotes, which lets you create quotes for clients and field their questions on your website. With just one click, you can turn a quote into an invoice. It costs $75. Finally, there’s the Power Tools feature, which lets you export invoices in XML and JSON and import data from other WordPress sites, if you wish. It costs $50.
If you anticipate needing all of these features, it’s a good idea to buy the bundle, which will save you some money at $200.
WP PRO Invoicing System
The WP PRO Invoicing System is another plugin option that makes it possible to create invoices from within WordPress. In fact, you can create, edit, manage, send, track, export, and report invoices from the dashboard. That means you can manage payments while performing regular site maintenance.
Clients who just so happen to be WordPress users will also be able to view and track the invoices they need to pay online. It works with PayPal and WooCommerce, so you can generate invoices automatically following a sale, for instance. A regular license will cost you $28, while the extended license costs $140.
WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips
If you use WooCommerce to make your sales in WordPress then you can definitely make use of the WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips plugin. It syncs seamlessly with WooCommerce so once an order is placed, it attaches a PDF invoice to the confirmation email that’s typically sent to your customers or clients.
It comes with a basic template or you can create your own template, if you wish. You can also download the created PDF invoice and/or packing slip from your WooCommerce order admin page, create bulk invoices, and give users the option to download invoices from their “My Account.” page. Other features include sequential invoice numbering, custom HTML and CSS, and plenty of language options.
Invoice WordPress Plugin by AppThemes
The Invoice WordPress Plugin was developed by AppThemes and lets you create invoices for your customers that can be easily downloaded or printed. Customers can be viewed online as well. This plugin is secure and is compatible with multisite and several other pieces of software like JobRoller, HireBee, and Taskerr. It’s translation ready and completely compliant with all UK tax rules, should you so happen to be a resident there. This premium plugin will cost you $29.
WP-Client
WP-Client is an incredibly robust plugin that offers a lot of features. At its foundation, this plugin consists of the Web Portal CORE WordPress plugin, which can then be expanded upon thanks to several included extensions. It works by fully integrating into whatever theme you’re currently using and relies on short codes to make it all happen.
You can toggle features on and off, control permissions, and change the layout and design of your invoices and emails simply and easily. Each client gets her own private login and portal, making it so each client’s files are only accessible by that client. Send your completed invoices via email as a PDF attachment or let your clients view them online—it’s up to you.
Other features include advanced file sharing, the ability to assign a client manager, and more. The license for this one varies widely in price, with “Basic” costing $59 and “White Label” priced at $349.
Shaken Invoice
There are a few themes on the market that offer an invoicing system as well. Plugins aren’t the only way to get this feature! A good example of this is Shaken Invoice. This theme lets you create invoices and quotes in a matter of minutes. But its feature set doesn’t stop there. You can also accept payments through your website via PayPal with this theme and configure it so invoices are marked as “Paid” automatically once resolved.
You can create quotes within this theme, too. Once a client approves a quote and the project is completed, you can change it to an invoice and send it out. Shaken Invoice also lets you store client information so you can easily reuse it time and time again. Invoice URLs are secure and you have the option of adding password protection to them.
Other features include numerous color schemes, CSV exporting, stats graphs, acceptance of multiple payment gateways, and a robust theme options panel. Add your own custom logo and more.
This theme isn’t exactly a blogger’s delight, however. In fact, it’s designed solely for making invoices and quotes. You can create pages, too, but it’s not built for blogging, so that’s bound to turn a lot of people off, especially for its $40 price tag.
Invo WordPress Theme
Another theme you might want to check out is the Invo WordPress Theme, which is actually pretty feature-rich and includes everything you need for running a small online business from your WordPress dashboard. It comes with a client area and lets you send out invoices easily.
It works with PayPal and 2Checkout and includes a custom admin interface, PSD files for easy customization, a “Get a Quote” form and a contact form. It’s also translation ready, includes Font Awesome Icons, and shortcodes to make your life easier. Plenty of support is included as well so you won’t be flying in the dark here. The standard license for the Invo theme costs $48.
Wrapping Up
WordPress is a multi-functional platform. The more time you spend with it, the more you’ll realize this fact, too. And the ability to send invoices from your dashboard can certainly come in handy. Just think, you could start and end your workday without ever having to leave your site admin area. This is bound to be really helpful for productivity. I mean, I know the less I’m required to click away from the dashboard, the more likely it is I stay on task and not get distracted by something shiny on the Internet.
Hopefully, this WordPress invoicing plugin roundup is useful to you. And hey, I threw a few themes in there too just for fun. Is your favorite plugin listed here? Did I miss one? How do you manage client invoices and payments? I’d love to hear your thoughts below!
Article thumbnail image by Monkik / shutterstock.com
Thanks a lot for the post. Instead of the boring WooCommerce invoice, would love to try the one’s you have listed. This would certainly bring a good look to the invoices.
Hi Brenda,
We’ve just released a new invoice plugin into the WordPress plugin repository. You can find it here – https://wordpress.org/plugins/sliced-invoices/
Would love you to check it out.
Cheers