Shopify does not issue invoices. This does.
An order confirmation is not an invoice, and in most of the EU that difference has a date on it now. InvoiceAnvil turns every paid order into a legal document: sequentially numbered, with the structured XML your accountant and the tax authority expect, emailed to the buyer in their own language.
Free plan up to 15 invoices a month. Paid plans from $9/month with a 14-day trial. Read-only towards your store, no theme edits.
Why this matters in 2026
Three countries, three deadlines, one document format.
The EU is converting invoices from documents people read into data machines read. The formats are already fixed; what changes country by country is the date.
France
From 1 September 2026, every VAT-registered business must be able to receive e-invoices, and large and mid-size companies must issue them. Small businesses follow on 1 September 2027. Format: Factur-X, UBL or CII.
Germany
Receiving structured B2B e-invoices has been mandatory since 1 January 2025. Issuing is being phased in through 2027 and 2028 by company size. Format: ZUGFeRD or XRechnung, both EN 16931.
Belgium
Structured B2B e-invoicing over PEPPOL has been mandatory since 1 January 2026. Format: PEPPOL BIS, which is UBL.
The honest version, because it decides whether you need this at all. These mandates cover B2B invoices between businesses established in the country. If you only ever sell to consumers, e-invoicing is not what applies to you — e-reporting is, and that is aggregated sales data, not a document per order.
Most Shopify stores are somewhere in between: mostly consumers, plus a stream of business buyers who ask for a proper invoice with their VAT number on it. Those invoices are in scope, and they are the ones this app is built for. There is a longer explanation in the France 2026 guide.
How InvoiceAnvil works
Fill in your company once. Then it runs on its own.
Set the seller block
Legal name, address, country and VAT number, printed on every document. You pick your numbering series here too — INV- for invoices, CN- for credit notes.
An order gets paid
Within seconds it becomes an invoice with the next number in the series. No gaps, no reuse: a legal series has to be continuous, so the prefix locks once the first document is issued.
The buyer gets a real document
A PDF with the structured XML embedded inside it, emailed in their language. They see an invoice; their accounting software sees EN 16931 data.
What it does not do, stated plainly. InvoiceAnvil produces compliant documents. It does not transmit them to a tax authority: in France that goes through an approved platform (plateforme agréée), and in Belgium through a PEPPOL access point. Network transmission is a separate, clearly-labelled feature, not something quietly implied here.
What you get
Gapless, sequential numbering
The single requirement every tax authority shares, and the one an order number cannot satisfy. Your own prefix, one continuous series, no holes.
Factur-X and ZUGFeRD inside the PDF
One hybrid file: readable as a PDF, machine-readable as EN 16931 XML attached inside it. The French and German formats are the same standard under two names.
UBL for PEPPOL
The Belgian mandate's format, exported per document, ready to hand to an access point.
Buyer VAT numbers without Shopify Plus
Collected from a standard cart attribute, checked against the EU VIES service, with reverse charge applied to the invoice when it qualifies.
Credit notes on refunds
A full or partial refund produces a credit note in its own series, referencing the invoice it corrects. You never edit an issued invoice, because you are not allowed to.
One archive for your accountant
Every document for a period in a single ZIP, PDFs and XML together, so the monthly handover is one file instead of a folder trawl.
Pricing
Start free. Pay when the volume justifies it.
Prices in USD, billed through Shopify on your regular store invoice. Paid tiers include a 14-day free trial, and you can uninstall at any time.
Free
$0 / month
- 15 invoices a month
- PDF with Factur-X inside
- Credit notes on refunds
- Documents in the buyer's language
- Discreet InvoiceAnvil footer mark
Starter
$9 / month
- Unlimited invoices
- No footer mark
- Documents emailed to your buyers
- Everything in Free
Growth
$19 / month
- UBL / PEPPOL export
- Automatic VIES validation
- Accounting export as one ZIP
- 10-year archive
- Everything in Starter
Questions merchants actually ask
Isn't the Shopify order confirmation already an invoice?
No, and this is the misunderstanding the whole app exists around. The confirmation email is a receipt of a transaction. An invoice is a legal document with mandatory content: your legal identity and VAT number, the buyer's, a sequential number from a continuous series, the tax breakdown per rate, and the legal mentions that apply to the case.
Shopify's order number is not a valid invoice number either — it is not guaranteed gapless, and it is shared with drafts and test orders. The detail is in the numbering guide.
Does it send anything to the tax authorities?
No. It produces compliant documents (Factur-X, ZUGFeRD, UBL). Transmission over a network — an approved platform in France, a PEPPOL access point in Belgium — is a separate feature and is not part of the app today.
Does it modify my orders, my theme or my storefront?
No. The app is read-only towards your store and adds nothing to your theme. The buyer VAT number is collected through a standard cart attribute, which is a field you add to your own theme if you want the B2B flow; the in-app Help page has the snippet.
What happens to my invoices if I uninstall?
Download them first. Everything is deleted 48 hours after uninstall, as the privacy policy states. That is a deliberate choice — holding your buyers' data after you have left is the wrong default — but it does mean the export is on you.
Why can't I change the number prefix later?
Because a legal series has to stay continuous. Changing the prefix mid-series creates a break that an auditor reads as a missing invoice. It locks at the first issued document of that series; before that, change it as often as you like.
Who is behind it?
Anvil Apps, a one-person software studio in Lyon, France. Support goes to a human at support@shipanvil.com, usually the same day.
September 2026 is not far away.
Set your company details once, and every paid order after that is a document you can hand to an accountant without apologising for it.