Orders and Invoices
In Pabbly Subscription Billing, we have recently introduced Sequential Invoicing because of tax compliance as it is required in many countries. So, for the sake of this we have introduced new terminology 'Order'.
Orders are automatically generated upon customer subscription to any plan through either the checkout page or API. Presently, if a customer purchases a plan via the checkout page, an invoice is generated regardless of whether the payment is successful or not.
Generally, when sequential invoicing is not enabled in Pabbly Subscription Billing, for every transaction via checkout page whether successful or not, the system automatically generates both order and invoice and due to this we cannot ensure the invoice sequence.
How does it work?
In Pabbly Subscription Billing for the sake of differentiating between Paid invoices and Unpaid invoices, we use “Order” along with Invoice.
"Status: Sequential Invoicing Disabled"
When the sequential invoicing feature is not enabled, the system will automatically generate both the Order Number and Invoice Number by default. This means that for all customer transactions, whether successful or unsuccessful, both Order and Invoice Numbers will be generated within the system.
- Customer A: If Customer A purchases a product and their payment is successful, they will receive Invoice (INV-1).
- Customer B: In the case of Customer B, even if their payment fails, the customer will still receive Invoice (INV-2).
- Customer C: If customer C purchases the product successfully, customer will be issued Invoice (INV-3).
"Status: Sequential Invoicing Enabled"
When the sequential invoicing feature is enabled, the system will automatically generate both the Order Number and Invoice Number by default.
But in this case the Invoice will be generated only for the successful transactions.
- Customers A and C: will receive invoices, numbered sequentially as INV-1 for Customer A and INV-2 for Customer C.
- Customer B: For Customer B as the transaction got failed, it will be recorded with an Order Number (ORD-1), and no invoice will be generated for that particular transaction.
Thus Enabling the sequential invoicing system, provides a more accurate and organized record of successful transactions while maintaining clarity for any unsuccessful payment instances.
Various Scenarios involving Orders/Invoices
Scenario 1: When Customer A purchases a Product/Service through the checkout page and successfully completes the payment, an Order Number and Invoice Number will be automatically generated, as depicted in the screenshot below.
Scenario 2: When Customer B purchases a Product/Service through the checkout page but unfortunately cannot complete the payment or it got failed, for this scenario
only Order Number will generated and NOT THE INVOICE NUMBER, as depicted in the screenshot below.
Scenario 3: Now, the Sequential Invoicing comes in picture. When a third Customer C comes and purchases a Product/Service through the checkout page and successfully completes the payment, an Order Number and Invoice Number will be automatically generated, the important thing to notice here is that this Invoice will be in sequence with respect to Customer A's Invoice, as depicted in the screenshot below.
Pabbly Subscription Billing Team•Updated Jul 25, 2026•2 min read
