A WooCommerce delivery note, unlike a PDF invoice, is not a legal necessity but a service that is appreciated by your customers. Learn how to customize and set up auto-generation for WooCommerce delivery notes via the WebToffee free and paid plugins here.
Employing WooCommerce delivery notes and other non-mandatory shipping documents, that actually add to the quality of your order fulfillment process, reflects your professionalism.
Physically delivering or automatically emailing WooCommerce delivery notes along with the shipped goods makes it easy for customers to validate the products received. If they find anything missing in the received package, they can immediately contact you with the information in the delivery notes.
In this article, we are going to take a look at customizing, auto-generating, printing, and emailing WooCommerce delivery notes. To do this, you will need to use an external WooCommerce delivery notes plugin, we will be using the plugin from WebToffee for this.
So without further ado, let’s get the party started!
What is a WooCommerce delivery note?
A delivery note in WooCommerce is a shipping document that outlines the products and the number of products that are shipped to the customers. It can be a physical document sent along with the products or an electronic document emailed prior to delivery. The delivery note makes it easy for customers to cross-check the items they received with the items they ordered.
The delivery notes for WooCommerce don’t have the leading standing that a WooCommerce invoice has. That is, it is not valid for tax purposes. It just acts as proof of delivery. The delivery notes complement the invoice. The customers are not responsible to initiate the payment for the order because they received the delivery note. Moreover, the delivery note may sometimes not even contain the amount to be paid.
Take a look at the article on why you need a delivery note to fully understand its features and requirements.
How can a delivery note help efficient shipments?
A delivery note is a document enclosed within the shipment of goods that contains information about the purchase order. Most often, it contains the information a driver needs for the delivery, including name, address, and contact information.
However, in some cases, you will find more information. You might be able to see the weight of the package or if it has any special delivery instructions. In general, the delivery note will include any details that help you successfully deliver the order.
If you choose cash on delivery as the payment method, your delivery note serves as a bill or receipt. Adding the aggregate amount to the delivery note ensures that the delivery agent collects the correct amount.
Buyers will have an overview of what they ordered and what has been sent to them since the delivery note describes if anything is missing from the original order due to lack of stock, unavailability, etc. Since a copy of the delivery note is signed and returned to the seller by the recipient, the copy serves as proof of the delivery for the seller.
Other usecases
Besides physical products or deliveries, there are other use cases:
- Sending a delivery note to a customer’s email address helps provide proof of purchase. A WooCommerce delivery note will also serve as a reference for online sales.
- This can apply to products with personalized delivery message options, such as ‘handle with care’, ‘safe place’ delivery, and others.
Therefore, the delivery note offers more than just the mere details about the shipment – it is the cornerstone of the entire delivery process.
How to enable the generation of WooCommerce delivery notes?
To create WooCommerce delivery notes, as mentioned earlier, you will need to use a third-party plugin. The WebToffee WooCommerce PDF Invoices, Packing Slips, Delivery Notes, and Shipping Labels plugin is the best in the niche and we will be using this plugin from now on.
However, this plugin has limited functionality and it doesn’t enable you to personalize the document settings or templates. But you can use the premium WooCommerce print delivery notes plugin add-on to include additional customizations to the basic plugin
We will look into the functioning of both plugins.
Issue WooCommerce delivery notes for free
You will need to install the basic version of the WooCommerce delivery notes plugin for this. To do this,
- Navigate to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress admin console.
- Search for the keyword ‘PDF Invoices and delivery notes for WooCommerce’ and identify the WebToffee plugin.
- Click on Install Now and then on Activate beside the plugin.
Activating the plugin will add an additional section named Invoice/Packing to the left navigation bar of WordPress.
- Go to Invoice/Packing > Delivery note.
- Configure the general settings available there, such as enabling or disabling the customer note, product image, and footer.
- Once done, click on Update Settings.
The delivery notes generated from here on will follow the customizations that you have made.
To receive further customizations and enjoy the automatic generation of the delivery notes document you will need to install the premium plugin. Let’s dig deeper.
Advanced WooCommerce delivery note customizations with an add-on
To install and activate the WooCommerce delivery notes premium plugin,
- Go to Plugins > Add New and upload the plugin zip file that you have received after purchasing the plugin.
- Click on Install Now and then on Activate Plugin.
- Go to Invoice/Packing > Delivery note > General and configure the available options.
- If you want to group products belonging to the same category, enable the checkbox Group products by ‘Category’.
- To sort the products in delivery notes in ascending or descending order of the name or SKU, use the option Sort products by.
- To include the variation data of each product below it, enable Show variation data below each product.
- Add additional Order meta fields, Product meta fields, and Product attributes to the document if needed.
- Use the option Attach delivery note PDF in the order email option to specify the order statuses emails to which the delivery notes are to be automatically attached.
- Check the Show print delivery note button option to add a print button to the order status emails specified just earlier.
- Click on Update Settings to save the changes.
How to customize delivery notes in WooCommerce?
To customize the template and design of the delivery notes,
- Go to Invoice/Packing > Delivery note > Customize.
- Click on Change layout and select the layout that suits your design requirements.
- Use the visual editor and the customization options on the right side of the screen to add, remove or edit the component of your delivery notes template.
- Once done, click on Save and provide a template name to save it as a template.
- Click on the button with the three horizontal lines on the right and click on Activate to activate this template.
This will activate this currently configured template. You can create new templates and activate them if you need to by going to My Templates on the same page.
Printing WooCommerce delivery notes
Since the print button is enabled in the email, the button will be embedded in the order status emails selected during configuration, in our case – the order processing email. This process will be automated and the document will be attached automatically without any need for manual intervention.
This is how the print delivery note option would look on the order status email.
However, if you want to manually generate and print delivery notes in WooCommerce, you can do so with this plugin by,
- Go to WooCommerce > Orders and click on the order that you want.
- Click on the download or print icon corresponding to delivery notes to manually initiate the document creation and download/print.
To bulk print the document for several orders at once, go to WooCommerce > Orders and select the orders that you want. Then choose the bulk action Print Delivery note and click on Apply.
Wrapping Up
In conclusion, creating delivery notes for your WooCommerce store can be a simple and efficient process with the right tools and strategies. By utilizing plugins such as WooCommerce Print Invoice & Delivery Note, you can easily customize and print your delivery notes directly from your store’s admin panel.
Additionally, using a plugin like Delivery Notes for WooCommerce can customize the document even further and make it even more convenient for your customers. By taking the time to set up and customize your delivery notes, you can improve the overall customer experience and streamline your store’s delivery process.
Hope this article was helpful. Comment your questions regarding this in the section below.