How to Customize Your Invoice Printing Template?

Invoice outputs are often the last touchpoint most customers have with your brand. Your website, packaging, and presentations might be meticulously crafted, but if the document they hold is plain and anonymous, that impression falls apart right there.

Moreover, fixing this takes a lot less work than you might think.

Two design paths

In Qolay.App, you can design templates in two ways:

• Visual designer: You drag and drop fields. You add a logo, change the layout, and determine where each piece of information appears. No technical knowledge required.
• HTML designer: Full control through code. This path is more suitable if you have corporate identity guidelines or require a very specific layout.

For most businesses, the visual designer is more than enough. You only need the HTML side if you are working with an agency.

Not just invoices

Template design is not limited to sales invoices alone. Separate templates can also be defined for order documents, collection and payment receipts, transfer documents, and expense slips.

Collection receipts are particularly useful: giving a proper document instead of a handwritten note when you receive money from a customer both looks professional and puts an end to any later "I already paid" debates.

List outputs

Besides individual documents, you can also generate PDFs with a single click from list screens. Invoice lists, current account statements, or collection lists turn directly into output.

This is most commonly used when sending period data to your financial advisor or reconciling with customers.

What to watch out for in design

• Do not remove mandatory fields. If tax information or document numbers are omitted for aesthetic reasons, the document may become invalid.
• Keep the logo a reasonable size. A logo taking up a third of the page causes line items to spill over to the second page.
• Print and check. A design that looks great on screen can look different on paper; especially grey tones tend to disappear on weaker printers.
• Test long line item lists. A template that looks neat with a three-line invoice might break on a thirty-line invoice.

Templates and explanatory text are two different things

A commonly confused topic: a print template determines the appearance of the document, while the fixed texts added to the document are a separate setting.

If you want to add an IBAN, due date warning, or current balance line, what you are looking for is e-document description templates.

Frequently asked questions

Does it also change the appearance of the e-Invoice?

The appearance of the e-Invoice on the recipient's end is determined by XSLT and is a separate setting. The print template affects the output you generate. We explained the difference between document types in our e-invoice and e-archive article.

Can I keep multiple templates?

You can define separate templates according to document types. If you use multi-company, each company gets its own design.

Can I print from mobile?

You can share the document as a PDF. The template design itself is done on the web — we covered this distinction in our article on issuing e-invoices on mobile.

Can I revert if I break it?

Default templates remain intact; you can revert to them whenever you want. Still, taking a copy of the current design before experimenting is a good habit.

You design it once, and then every document goes out with that identity. Half an hour of work scales across thousands of documents.

Open a free account on Qolay.App and get started by adding your logo to your template.