An invoice is a tax document, and different parts of the world expect different things on it. Get the tax presentation wrong and your customers’ accountants bounce it back — or worse, your own filing doesn’t reconcile. Here is what WooCommerce needs to put on the invoice PDF for the three big tax systems, and the fields that matter wherever you sell.
VAT, GST and sales tax are not the same document
- VAT (EU, UK, and much of the world): the invoice must show your VAT registration number, the net amount, the VAT rate and amount, and the gross total. For B2B sales across EU borders, it usually must also show the customer’s VAT number and a reverse-charge note.
- GST (Australia, India, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore): many of these require the document to be labelled a “Tax Invoice”, show your GST/ABN/GSTIN number, and break out the GST amount. India’s GST in particular is strict about the seller and buyer identifiers.
- US sales tax: simpler on the invoice itself — typically the tax line and total — but which rate applies depends on nexus and the ship-to location.
What has to be on the PDF wherever you are
Regardless of system, a defensible invoice shows: your business name, address and tax number; the customer’s details; a unique sequential invoice number (see why order numbers aren’t enough); the invoice date; a per-line breakdown; and the tax shown as its own line with the rate, not baked silently into the price.
Getting it out of WooCommerce
WooCommerce already calculates the tax per line and per order and stores it. The job of the invoice plugin is to render that breakdown faithfully on the PDF — the net, the rate, the tax amount and the gross — and to place your tax registration number and (for B2B) a field for the customer’s. Watch for two things: the currency symbol must render correctly for international buyers (a surprising number of plugins mangle non-dollar symbols), and the tax breakdown must survive multiple tax rates on one order.
Tax rules change and vary by jurisdiction — confirm your local requirements with an accountant. The plugin’s job is to make WooCommerce’s numbers show up correctly and completely on a document you can hand to one.
An invoice plugin that gets the details right
Invoices, Packing Slips & Delivery Notes for WooCommerce puts your tax breakdown, tax ID and totals on a clean PDF, assigns stable sequential invoice numbers stored on the order, renders every language, and attaches to your order emails automatically. Free, with bulk printing and custom templates in Pro.
Related reading: sequential invoice numbering for tax compliance and attaching the invoice to order emails.