Invoices that are actually yours

You can download an order invoice for any PEWES order from your account in two clicks, and it is a real document rather than a receipt with a logo on it. Here is what is on it and why it is numbered the way it is.

An invoice is a small thing that becomes a large thing the moment you need one and cannot find it. Most shops send a receipt email and consider the matter closed, which works until you are reconciling a card statement eight months later.

What you get

Every paid order on this site produces a proper invoice with a sequential number in the form PWS, the year, and a five digit counter. The number is assigned once and never changes. Reloading the page does not mint a new one, and a repeated payment notification from the card provider does not create a second document.

The invoice carries the billing address you gave, every line with its quantity and unit price, any subscription discount as its own line rather than hidden in a total, and the amount actually charged.

Where it is generated

WordPress returns the invoice data and nothing else. The document itself is drawn in your browser at the moment you ask for it, which has two consequences worth stating. No PDF sits on a server waiting to be found by somebody who should not have it, and the shop does not spend time generating files that most people will never open.

Where to find it

In your account, under orders, next to each order. Every order, from the first one, for as long as the account exists. If you checked out as a guest, create an account with the same email address and the history attaches itself.

Subscription deliveries work identically. Each delivery is a normal order with a normal invoice, which is the point of building the subscription on top of ordinary orders rather than beside them.

Where to download an order invoice

Open your order history, open the order, press the invoice button. The file is generated in your browser from the order that is already on screen, so there is nothing to email and nothing to wait for.

Why the number matters

An invoice number has to be sequential and gapless, and it has to stay the same forever once issued. That is not a preference; it is what the European VAT directive asks of an invoice. A number generated from a timestamp or a random string looks tidy and fails the moment anybody audits it.

So the number is assigned once, at the moment the order is paid, and stored on the order. Re-downloading gives you the same document. A refund produces a credit note with its own number rather than editing the original.

What is on it

• Seller and buyer details, as they were on the day of the order.
• One line per product, with the caffeine strength, the quantity and the unit price before discount.
• The volume discount as its own line, so the ladder is visible rather than folded into the price.
• Shipping, the tax breakdown by rate, and the total paid.

Resellers and repeat orders

Every delivery of a subscription gets its own invoice, on the day it ships. Trade accounts get the same document at trade prices, and orders pushed through the dropshipping API get one per order, which is the point of the reseller programme having an API at all.

This storefront runs in test mode, so the invoices are real documents about orders that were never shipped.