Question for invoice/receipt

[Kalle75]

Hi there,

the Simple Membership Plugin is really really great.
I realice, that people get a payment-receipt e.g. by paypal (with transcation-code, amount and so on).
Unfortunately these payment-receipts/invoices are not accepted by German tax offices, because they don`t have an official invoice number.

So my question is: Is there a way to create “official” invoices/payment-receipts with “Simple Membership” (maybe in combination with another plugin?)?

Thank you very much, Kai

[admin]

We don’t currently have a built-in receipt feature. However, do you know if Stripe or PayPal provides legally compliant payment receipts for Germany?

I’m asking because Stripe, for example, allows merchants to configure country-specific invoice or receipt templates that can be automatically emailed to customers after purchase. If that option meets German legal requirements, it might be a suitable solution for your case.

[The Assurer]

To ensure that we are all using the same terminology, please see this post; to learn the differences between an invoice, receipt, and a bill.
https://simple-membership-plugin.com/forums/topic/membership-billing/#post-28131

TL;DR
• INVOICE — Provided BEFORE goods or services are delivered and paid for.
• RECEIPT — Provided AFTER goods or services are paid for.
• BILL — Provided AFTER goods or services are delivered but not yet paid for.

• This reply was modified 1 day, 6 hours ago by The Assurer.
• This reply was modified 1 day, 6 hours ago by The Assurer.
• This reply was modified 1 day, 6 hours ago by The Assurer.

[Kalle75]

Thank you for your answers. Stripe might provide legally compliant payment receipts, Paypal unfortunately does not. With Paypal it is possible to send an invoice (that is legally accepted) BEFORE someone sends a payment. But AFTERWARDS it`s unfortunetaly not possible. The typical Afterwards-payment receipt is not accepted (I made a couple of times that experience with the German tax institutions, they are horrible and totally strict).

The terminologies and the differences are well known.

In the German tax office it is like that:
They want to have an official Invoice-document (no matter it that one is provided BEFORE or AFTER services are delivered and paid).
If one goes to a tax concultant (ot the tax office) one has, at the end of the year, boxes with loads of invoices. The “invoices” are the base to get money back from the tax-office. No official “invoices”, no money back…

So people neet “invoices” that are sended BEFORE OR AFTER Paying the invoice-amount. Both is accepted by the German law.

I send you a typical invoice, that one get after (or before) buying a service or an article.
Please be aware: Invoices in Germany are in the most time the same, no matter I one has alreary paid or not paid.
Sometime (if one has already paid) one gets a remark on the incoice, like “customer has already paid”. Most time, one does not get. What I mean: In Germany there is no real difference of a invoice in terms of “paying before” or “paying afterwards”.

https://charta-thesauri.de/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/rechnung_example.png

On that document the following dates MUST be written:

Sellername, Selleradress, Seller Tax-number
Date
Invoice-number

If possible: Name, Adresse of person, that bought the services

Price (if so: Included taxes)

I`m thinking of using the payment-data of Simple Membership to generate somehow official invoices whith the needed data.
Maybe I will buy the “export data plugin” to generate automatically invoices on the base of excel or csv-files..

• This reply was modified 1 day, 1 hour ago by Kalle75.

[Kalle75]

It is a problem, we have often contact with. Even a big platform like “Etsy” has no sultion for customers for that (the “invoices”/payment receipts are not accepted by tax offices). But very big plaforms or software solutions like Woocommerce, Ebay, Amazon of course have. Maybe I find a solution to create invoices manually.

[Author]

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