Note: This product is no longer sold on WooCommerce.com. Active subscriptions will receive support from its vendor. This document is left available to you for help with configuration and troubleshooting, but is no longer updated.

The WooCommerce FreshBooks extension allows you to automatically create your customers in WooCommerce as Clients in FreshBooks, and to optionally create drafts or send invoices for orders. Payments can be synced between invoices and orders, and FreshBooks items can also be linked to WooCommerce products for better reporting.

By having all your data entered into FreshBooks automatically upon order, your customers will have immediate access to download PDF invoices, and you can even send invoices by “snail mail” automatically.

Not using FreshBooks yet? Sign up for a free trial to get started with easy invoicing! (Don’t forget to select FreshBooks Classic when signing up!)

Requirements

If you use the new FreshBooks (it looks different than our screenshots), please reach out to FreshBooks’s customer service to change your account. This is best to do as early as possible, so if you’re new to FreshBooks, please do this before configuring your account.

Installation

1. Download the extension from your dashboard
2. Go to Plugins > Add New > Upload and select the ZIP file you just downloaded
3. Click Install Now, and then Activate
4. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > FreshBooks and read the next section to learn how to setup and configure the plugin.

Setup and Configuration

Setup

1. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > FreshBooks to get to settings.
2. Enter your API URL. You can get this information by logging in to FreshBooks and navigating to My Account > FreshBooks API.
3. Enter your API token. You can get this information by logging in to FreshBooks and navigating to My Account > FreshBooks API.

Save this information to pull in your FreshBooks data and continue reading if you’d like to change the plugin configuration.

Extension Settings:

• API URL – This is the URL provided to you in your FreshBooks account. Follow the steps above to get this.
• Authentication Token – This is the token provided to you in your FreshBooks account. Follow the steps above to get this.
• Debug Mode – Enable this is you are experiencing issues. All debugging messages are cleaned of sensitive information before display, but as a best practice, please do not enable this unless you are having issues with the plugin.
• Default Client – Select a client to create all invoices under. If you want to create a new client for each customer, select “None”.
• Default Language – Choose the default language used for your invoices. Defaults to your site’s language.
• Send Invoices By – Select whether to send invoices via Email or Snail Mail. If you select “Snail Mail”, you must have enough stamps in your FreshBooks account.
• Use Order Number as Invoice Number – Enable this to use the WooCommerce order number as the invoice number. Disable to allow FreshBooks to auto-generate the invoice number.
• Invoice Number Prefix – Enter a prefix for the generated FreshBooks invoices, or leave blank if you don’t want to use a prefix. Please note that the total number of characters sent to FreshBooks (prefix order number) cannot exceed 10 characters.
• Display Link in Recent Orders – Enable this to display a “View Invoice” action in the “My Orders” list for customers.
• Automatically Create Invoices – Enable this to automatically create invoices for new orders. If disabled, invoices must be created manually in FreshBooks.
• Automatically Send Invoices – Enable this to automatically send invoices after creation. Disable to leave created invoices as drafts.
• Automatically Apply Payments – Enable this to automatically apply invoice payments for orders that have received payment. Disable if you want to mark these manually in FreshBooks.
• Payment Type Settings – For each WooCommerce payment method, select how this should be recorded in FreshBooks as the payment type.

Usage

Tying FreshBooks Items to Products

If you have items created in FreshBooks, you can tie them to your WooCommerce products. Each time that product is purchased, it will be documented in FreshBooks for better reporting on item sales.

Under a Product Data for the product you’d like to tie to you FreshBooks item, look at the bottom of the “General Tab”. A new “FreshBooks item” setting has been created. Select the FreshBooks item this product represents, then save your product. Any time this product is purchased, it will be recorded as a sale of that FreshBooks item.

Order and Invoice Numbers

If you’ve opted to have your WooCommerce order numbers reflected as FreshBooks invoice numbers, each invoice number will be the same as the corresponding WooCommerce order number (plus any prefixes you’ve added).

FreshBooks is also compatible with the Sequential Order Numbers Pro extension, so modified order numbers will also be reflected as FreshBooks invoice numbers. For example, let’s say that my Sequential Order Numbers Pro settings create order numbers that have prefixes and suffixes like this: WT-1001-{YY} where {YY} is the year. My FreshBooks invoices will use the same format. If you’ve added a prefix (for example, WOO-), then this prefix will be added into the invoice number: WOO-WT-1001-{YY}.

Syncing Orders and Invoices

If you’d like invoices to be created automatically, then each time an order is placed, a new invoice will be created (you can opt to create invoices manually instead). If you’ve set a default client (i.e., “WooCommerce Shop”), then all invoices will be assigned to that client. If you’ve selected no default client, each new customer will be created as a client in FreshBooks.

New orders can have invoices set as “Draft” or “Sent”. If you opt to immediately send invoices when orders are created, your order page will show that invoices have been sent to the customer:

Invoices can also be saved as drafts when new orders are created:

If invoices have been created as drafts, you can send them via the Edit Order screen with the new FreshBooks order options:

Orders will also have a link to the corresponding invoices in FreshBooks for easy viewing and management.

If you end up changing any order details, you can then send these changes back to the FreshBooks invoice to ensure that the order and invoice data is completely synchronized. Edit the order, and send the changes for the invoice: