How to Send an Invoice on PayPal: In 7 Steps, With Photos

PayPal allows users to send money anywhere in the world in seconds, but it’s also a useful service for businesses and freelancers. That’s due to excellent 3^rd party integration and tools like debit cards and business loans. If you need to request money for a service or sale, you’ll want to know how to send an invoice on PayPal.

Whether you’re a landscaper, run an NFT project, or sell goods online, PayPal’s invoicing system makes things simple. Business owners can set up custom invoices, take installment payments or remind users of payments. Those are just a few of the features found through PayPal’s invoices, and it’s something anyone can set up and use within 5 minutes.

PayPal Invoicing vs. Requesting Money

PayPal is known as a payment platform for shoppers and has been a way for friends and family to send money to each other in seconds. Sending money is one of the most popular features of the service, but you can also request money from anyone. Sending a PayPal request for money is different than invoicing, however.

When you request money through PayPal, you can search through your contacts or for a PayPal username. You can also request money from a person’s email address, but your options are limited and the search feature is far from intuitive.

The ability to send people a personal QR code or set up a tip jar is nifty, but not something all businesses would use. When you need to take a more professional approach, PayPal invoicing is the only option. Their invoice system allows users to customize invoices, set up templates, and bill clients on a regular basis.

Outside of transaction features, PayPal invoicing is free to use and a feature that’s often overlooked by users. It also allows customers to pay for services through a variety of means, including their PayPal account, credit card, or debit card.

How to Send an Invoice on PayPal’s Website

The easiest way for the average user to send an invoice is by using the PayPal website. While the app provides some limited invoicing features, you can only send one through the PayPal Business app. The process is essentially the same through both methods, although the web allows anyone to send an invoice out within minutes.

Step 1: Log in to PayPal

Go to PayPal and click on the Sign In button at the right-hand side of the screen. Enter your credentials in the new window that pops up to proceed.

Step 2: Choose Invoice

When you’re logged into the site, there are a few ways you can access the invoice section. You can choose the “Create an invoice” icon on the screen or choose Send and Request to access the invoicing section on PayPal.

Step 3: Create Invoice

From the invoicing section, you’ll have the option to create a batch invoice or a regular invoice. You can also view any invoices sent or received through your PayPal account. To send an invoice on PayPal, click on Create Invoice.

Step 4: Set a Recipient

This is where you’ll enter information for the invoice, or set it to bill single or multiple clients. Enter the email address you want to send the invoice to in the “Bill to” field, and then scroll down until you see the field for items and services.

Step 5: Set Pricing and Details

Whether you’re selling an item or service, you can add that into the Item name and put a description below that for reference. As you set a quantity and price, you can see the amount adjusted on the right-hand side of the screen. For multiple items, choose to add an item or service.

Step 6: Additional Options

Before sending the invoice, you can customize things to a degree. The Customize tab allows you to adjust the visible fields, but you can also set an option to allow partial payments or a tip. Other options include an area where you can leave a note or add terms and conditions for a sale.

Step 7: Preview and Send the Invoice

When you’re satisfied with the invoice, you can preview it to see how it looks before clicking Send. There’s also an option to save the invoice as a draft or template, which comes in handy for multiple sales.

You can preview the invoice with the icon next to send button or choose Send when you’re ready to send the invoice out.

PayPal Invoice Settings

PayPal invoices may seem a little barebones compared to other services. There are a number of options you can adjust beforehand, however, and you can access them through Invoicing Settings.

To find this area, go to the main invoicing screen in PayPal and click on the Gear Icon to bring up a drop-down menu of options as shown.

The Customers section allows you to search and edit any customers you’ve sent invoices to. This is also where you can set up a new customer for frequent billing by choosing the Add Customer tab.

The pop-up allows you to enter details on a customer or client. That includes their name, billing address, shipping address, business name, and language. It’s a quick way to add information on people or businesses you plan to bill frequently.

Alternatively, Business Information is where you’ll enter information about yourself or your business. Your Tax ID information goes here and you can add a logo, but two areas are incredibly important if you’re concerned about privacy.

You can set invoices to keep your phone number and address private, something casual sellers will want to keep hidden.

The items section is where you can set up items to add to invoices while the tax information section is self-explanatory. It allows you to set up to 200 sales tax rates, which will save global sellers a lot of headaches. The template section is also incredibly useful if you plan to send a lot of invoices through PayPal.

While PayPal does make sending an invoice easy, it can also help you get your money if a client is forgetful. The automatic reminders section is something we highly recommend setting up, as they can politely remind people when a payment date is approaching. It can let them know if a payment is overdue until the invoice is paid.

The Wrap-Up

PayPal has seen plenty of competition from Cash, Venmo, and other payment platforms, but remains one of the best options for small businesses and freelancers to use for invoices.

There’s enough customization to suit most people’s needs once you dig into the settings, and it’s a great perk for users that frequent the platform. PayPal invoices can make life easy when tax time rolls around. If you want to know how to send, not receive, money through PayPal, we have that covered as well.

To see exactly how these steps work check out the video below which walks you through the process.

The image featured at the top of this post is ©sdx15/Shutterstock.com.