plugins
Sliced Invoices WordPress Plugin Review
Sliced Invoices claims to be a feature packed, flexible invoicing system that lets you create and manage quotes and invoices from within the WordPress admin area. Let’s see if these claims are true.
Price
The base version of this plugin is available for free. We go over the features it offers throughout this review, but just know that it comes jam-packed with features right out of the box, such as the ability to quote or invoice clients and accept payments via bank, check, money order, or PayPal.
This plugin also comes with optional free and premium extensions. As of January 2020, you have the option of paying per extension (between $15 and $35 each) or choosing one of four bundles:
Priority support and the ability to hire their team for custom work can also be purchased separately at different prices.
Setup Process
The setup process for this plugin is easy and straightforward. All you need to do is install it and configure a few settings to match your business’ individual needs. The developers have even included a helpful little hint with each individual setting to give you a better understanding of how to configure it. You can also read their Getting Started documentation if you need a little more clarification.
The fiscal year settings in the General Settings tab are important for reporting purposes as the Reports section is where the plugin tallies all of the invoices and quotes you’ve issued and displays them in a way that’s easier for the eye to decipher what’s what.
If you perform a service that can be quantified and you offer it at the same price for each client, you can enter it in the PreDefined Line Items box. We’ll go over why this is useful in the Quotes & Invoices section. This plugin also creates a Payment page when you install it. This is the page clients will land on when they want to pay your invoices. You can change the footer of this page in the General Settings section.
The settings for the Quotes and Invoices Settings sections are more or less identical. You just need to edit each one to suit your preferences for quotes and invoices. The most important settings in these sections are the ability to choose a default number of days a quote or invoice is valid for as well as the ability to insert the terms and conditions that will appear with every quote and invoice. You can also add custom CSS in these sections.
The Payment Methods section of the Payment Settings section is where you can add your bank account and PayPal information. The helpful hints here tell you where you can find your PayPal API username and password. You can also include Stripe as a payment method if you purchase the Stripe Payment Gateway extension or purchase a bundle that includes it.
The Email Settings section allows you to customize the email address and business name that appear in the email notifications you send and receive while the Translate Settings section lets you change the way “quote” and “invoice” appear in your plugin and on actual quotes and invoices. This means you can change “quote” to “estimate” if you wish.
Adding Clients
Adding clients takes less than a minute to do. The plugin uses the Add New User page to add new clients. You still need to enter a username and email address for your client, but the plugin adds new fields at the bottom of the screen where you can enter your client’s business name, address and any additional details you feel are relevant.
Quotes & Invoices
Let’s go over the reason you’re interested in this plugin creating quotes and invoices. Both are fairly straightforward, and both follow the same basic process.
The New Quote and New Invoice pages are identical to the New Post page in WordPress. You’ll select a client from the menu on the righthand side of the page. You can also select a different Valid Until date if you’d like to choose one that’s shorter or longer than the one you set in the Settings section.
You then scroll down to the bottom to select one of the items you added in the General Settings section or add a new item if one doesn’t exist. If you set up your tax settings in the Payment Settings section, it’ll tally that in automatically. It’ll also add your terms and conditions.
Once you hit Publish, the quote or invoice will be live on your site. You view the quote or invoice as you would a blog post and email the client the URL for the quote or invoice so they can view it as well. After you send the quote, you can open it and change the status to Sent. Once you’ve completed your work for the client, you can open the quote again and click the Convert to Invoice button.
The Add New Invoice screen is fairly identical to the Add New Quote screen, except you can select which payment methods you accept. Extensions can also be purchased to enhance the functionality of these sections, as previously stated. This includes adding buttons on the Quotes and Invoices screens that allow you to save/print PDF versions of quotes or invoices and email quotes and invoices to clients.
The free Better URL’s extension allows you to create custom URLs for quotes and invoices. The default URL for every quote is yourdomain.com/sliced_quote while the extension allows you to simplify it in any way you wish, such as simply “quote.” Additional extensions allow you to demand deposits before you begin work, create secure links for quotes and invoices, and add new settings to the Translate page.
Final Thoughts
This plugin is very easy to set up and a pleasure to use. With banking options and PayPal functionality built right into the free version, it’s a great option for businesses with WordPress sites. You can even use it with the Gravity Forms plugin to have potential clients request quotes directly through your site.
