For businesses that sell physical products, the invoice and the shipment are two halves of the same order. The customer pays for the goods and the delivery, and you can only ship once the payment has arrived. When invoicing and shipping happen in separate tools, the same details get typed twice, and that is how mistakes and missed shipments happen.
This guide explains what a shipping invoice should contain, the common ways to charge for shipping, and which steps you can automate.
What a shipping invoice should include
A clear invoice prevents questions and payment delays. For orders that will be shipped, include:
- Your business details: name, logo, contact information and, where required, your tax registration number.
- Customer details: name, billing information and the shipping address, which is what the label will use.
- Line items: each product with quantity, unit price and line total.
- Shipping charge: shown as its own line, so the customer sees what they pay for delivery.
- Taxes and discounts: applied clearly, so the total adds up.
- Invoice number, date and due date.
- How to pay: ideally a link to pay online.
Choosing how to charge for shipping
There is no single right way to bill shipping. The common approaches are:
- Flat rate: the same shipping charge on every order. Simple to explain, but you lose money on heavy or distant parcels.
- Tiered by order value or weight: a few bands, for example one charge up to 1 lb and a higher one above it. Fairer, and still easy to apply.
- Actual cost: charge what the label costs. Most accurate, but you need the rate before you send the invoice.
- Free shipping over a threshold: encourages larger orders; build the expected shipping cost into your prices.
Whichever you choose, apply it consistently. Inconsistent shipping charges are one of the main sources of customer questions.
Which steps you can automate
Most of the time spent on invoicing goes into repetitive steps. These are the ones worth automating first.
Creating invoice lines from orders
If you take orders through social media comments or live sales, creating invoices by hand means reading every comment and copying names and quantities. Tools that read pasted comments and build invoice lines remove most of that work, and can create invoices for many customers from one post.
Applying shipping charges in bulk
After a busy sale you might have dozens of invoices that all need the same shipping charge. Applying it to all selected invoices at once is much faster than editing each one.
Sending invoices and collecting payment
Email the invoice with a payment link so the customer can pay online right away. Payments recorded automatically against the invoice show you which orders are paid.
Following up unpaid invoices
Automatic payment reminders save you from chasing customers and keep orders from sitting unpaid.
Turning paid invoices into shipments
When an order is paid, its invoice already holds everything the shipping label needs: the customer, the address and the items. Creating labels straight from paid invoices, singly or in a batch, removes the second round of data entry. Saving the tracking number back to the invoice closes the loop.
A streamlined order-to-shipment flow
Put together, an automated flow looks like this:
- Orders become invoices, with lines created from the order or from pasted comments.
- Shipping charges are added, in bulk if needed.
- Invoices are emailed with an online payment link.
- Reminders go out automatically for unpaid invoices.
- Paid invoices go straight to label creation, singly or in a batch.
- Tracking numbers are saved on the invoices.
Doing it in SellTrac
SellTrac's shipping invoice generator covers each of these steps. Invoices can be built from pasted social media comments, including multi-customer invoices from a single post. Shipping costs and taxes can be applied to many invoices at once. Customers pay online, reminders follow up unpaid invoices, and paid invoices turn into labels through bulk shipping label printing, with tracking saved back on each invoice.