Donation Receipts

4172 February 17, 2025

WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips is a free and open source WordPress plugin you can use to send out your tax deductible receipts & thank you certificates.

⚠️ Warning: It is currently not possible to use invoices, packing slips, donation receipts, and thank-you certificates simultaneously. Additionally, using donation receipts and thank-you certificates in web stores that also sell regular products is neither recommended nor supported.

In many countries, you have to issue donation receipts for donations to your organization. For this reason, Donation Platform for WooCommerce integrates with the free plugin WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips. This makes it quick and easy to automatically generate donation receipts and send them to donors as PDFs.
The supplied template for a donation receipt looks like this: https://wc-donation.wcdp.jonh.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2021/04/Example-Charity_105_2021-04-17.pdf

Note: Donation Platform for WooCommerse does not provide legal or accounting advice. Please consult with your legal or tax advisor to ensure that your donation receipts comply with the relevant provisions that apply to you.

Getting started

  1. Please install & activate WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips: https://wordpress.org/plugins/woocommerce-pdf-invoices-packing-slips/
  2. Navigate to the WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips settings page
  3. Under “Choose a template” select “donation-receipt”. Now when you issue an invoice / donation receipt it will use the template of a tax deductible receipt shipped with Donation Platform for WooCommerce.
  4. In order to comply with the legal provisions that apply to you, you will probably have to adapt this template. You can adapt the template by using tools like Loco Translate or using a custom template.

Loco Translate

By using the free plugin Loco Translate you can adapt the strings in the tax deductible receipt and thank you certificate. This is an easy and comfortable way to customize the text in the templates although it does not allow you to change the basic structure of the templates.

Custom Template (Advanced Users Only)

⚠️ Warning: This process requires advanced knowledge of HTML, PHP, and CSS. If you’re unfamiliar with these technologies, we strongly recommend using the default templates instead.

To create a custom template, follow these steps carefully:

  1. Copy the Template Folder:
    • Navigate to:
      wp-content/plugins/wc-donation-platform/includes/integrations/woocommerce-pdf-invoices-packing-slips/templates/donation-receipt
    • Copy the entire donation-receipt folder to:
      wp-content/themes/yourtheme/woocommerce/pdf/your-template
    • Replace your-template with a unique name for your custom template.
  2. Select Your Template:
    • In WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips settings, go to “Choose a template” and select your newly created template.
  3. Edit the Template (Proceed with Caution!)
    • Open invoice.php and thank-you-certificate.php in your IDE.
    • Modify the template as needed.
    • Be aware: The plugin relies on dompdf to generate PDFs, which has limited support for certain CSS and HTML features.
  4. Test Frequently:
    • Errors can occur easily, so test your changes regularly.
    • Expect some frustration—certain styles and elements may not render as expected due to dompdf limitations.

Troubleshooting & Support
❗ If you’re struggling to create a custom template, it may be due to a lack of the required technical skills.
Custom templates require advanced PHP, HTML, and CSS knowledge. If you experience issues, we recommend reaching out to the support team of WooCommerce PDF Invoices & Packing Slips rather than Donation Platform for WooCommerce.
🔗 Official documentation for advanced template customization:
Creating a Custom PDF Template