memberarea writes the invoice for each paid order itself, numbers it in an unbroken sequence and sends it to the buyer as a PDF. You decide whether this happens automatically, which prefix the numbers carry and how the document looks. This article explains when an invoice is issued, how the number is built and what you can change afterwards.
Before you start
If Payments is off in your workspace, switch it on under Settings > Features first. Opening the payments area needs View Payments, and saving changes to your documents needs Update Orders / Customers. Of the built-in roles, Owner and Admin have both.
The invoice settings live under Payments > Settings > Documents. The Invoice tab holds everything on this page; the Design tab holds the layout, colors and logo that every document shares.
When an invoice is issued
With Auto-issue invoices on paid orders switched on, memberarea issues an invoice:
- once an order is paid,
- for every subscription or installment payment after the first,
- right away for an order paid by invoice.
The switch is on in a new workspace. If a payment is still on its way, the invoice waits until the money has arrived.
Orders paid by invoice get their invoice even when the switch is off. Their invoice also shows your bank details, if you have entered them, and the order number as the payment reference, and its due date is the payment due date of the order. Every other invoice is due 14 days after it is issued.
The buyer receives the PDF attached to the Order Confirmation email, or to the Subscription Renewed email for a renewal, as long as that email is switched on under Settings > Notifications. An order paid by invoice gets it with the email that contains the payment instructions. Buyers can also download their invoices in their billing area.
Orders you create by hand get their tax from Stripe Tax when it is switched on, and their invoice shows it.
How invoice numbers are built
Every number has the form PREFIX-YEAR-00001, for example INV-2026-00001.
The sequence belongs to your workspace, has no gaps and starts again at
00001 each calendar year. Two invoices issued at the same moment still get
two different numbers. Test orders get numbers starting with TEST- from a
sequence of their own, for example TEST-INV-2026-00001, so your live
sequence has no gaps from testing. An order with an invoice cannot be deleted,
so the sequence stays unbroken.
You set the prefix in the Numbering section with Invoice number prefix.
It is INV until you change it, and it accepts letters, numbers, underscore
and dash, up to 20 characters. Letters are turned into capitals. The line
below the field previews the format.
A new prefix applies to invoices issued from then on. Invoices already issued keep their number, because a number is never reused or changed.
What an issued invoice contains
The invoice takes your seller details from Payments > Settings > Business information and the look from the Design tab. On the Invoice tab you can also set the Title, a Note and the Footer text of the document. Preview PDF opens a sample invoice with your saved title, note, footer and design.
memberarea stores a copy of your details and design with each invoice when it is issued. Later changes to your business information or design only affect new invoices, so an old invoice always looks the way it did when your buyer received it.
Downloading an invoice
Open the order under Payments > Sales > Orders. As soon as the order has an invoice, or once it is Paid, it shows Invoice (PDF), which downloads the newest invoice of the order, also after a full refund and for an order paid by invoice that is still open. The Invoices box lists every invoice of the order, renewals included. If no invoice exists yet, for example because automatic issuing was off when the order was paid, memberarea issues it the moment you download it, as long as the switch is on now.
Correcting an invoice
An issued invoice cannot be edited. When a Stripe or PayPal payment is refunded, the refund creates a credit note, as long as credit notes are issued automatically, which they are by default. It refers to the invoice of the refunded payment, for a subscription the invoice of that renewal, and lists its items. Credit notes have their own numbering, set on the Credit note tab.
For an order paid by invoice, bank transfer or cash that has an invoice, setting the status to Refunded or Cancelled creates the credit note.
Fill in Business information before your first sale. Its details are copied onto each invoice when it is issued and are not updated later.