Switching from Andrew Benbow PDF Invoices to invoice9

If you're paying $79/year for Andrew Benbow's WooCommerce PDF Invoices and you've noticed that updates stopped landing in 2024, you're not alone. The plugin has 5,000+ active installations earned honestly over years of solid PDF generation — but the public Woo Marketplace evidence is consistent: vendor responsiveness has collapsed, top-voted feature requests sit without replies since 2023, and Woo's marketplace team has been auto-refunding several recent purchases.

We're not making a personal judgment — solo developers move on, get sick, change priorities. But for stranded merchants, the question is what to switch to.

What you're missing on Benbow

• No HPOS compatibility. WC 8.2+ defaults to High-Performance Order Storage; Benbow's open ticket from December 2023 is unresolved. Your store may already be silently writing to the legacy posts table.
• No country-specific e-invoice formats. Germany's Jan 2027 ZUGFeRD mandate. France's Sep 2026 Factur-X mandate. Benbow ships PDF only. If you sell B2B in those countries, you're already non-compliant.
• No vendor support. If something breaks, you're on your own.

Why invoice9 specifically

• $50/year vs Benbow's $79/year — $29/year savings, $145 over five years.
• HPOS-native via WC CRUD API day one.
• Four EU country-specific formats: ZUGFeRD 2.x, XRechnung UBL + CII, Factur-X 1.07, PEPPOL invoice + credit note.
• Vendor reply on every Marketplace review within 48 hours — publicly committed.
• EU servers in Frankfurt. Invoice data never leaves the EU.
• 30-day money-back guarantee via Woo's standard refund policy.

The 10-minute migration

invoice9 detects Benbow on activation and shows the per-vendor guidance in the Coexistence card. Because Benbow's settings live in older option formats we don't auto-read (avoiding the risk of mis-mapping fields), the migration is manual but quick.

1. Install invoice9 from the WooCommerce Marketplace. Older Benbow installs may not have the WooCommerce Marketplace subscription tier — you can still buy invoice9 separately and keep your old Benbow license active during the transition.
2. Configure your seller info under WooCommerce → Settings → invoice9. Match the company name, address, VAT ID, IBAN, BIC from your Benbow setup.
3. Set the default e-invoice format to Auto (picks per buyer locale) — recommended unless you have a single-country buyer mix.
4. Set the invoice number template. If Benbow used RECH-2026- prefix, configure invoice9's template as RECH-{YYYY}-{NNNNN}. Set the starting counter to one higher than Benbow's last invoice number to continue cleanly.
5. Disable Benbow's email-attachment toggle under Benbow's settings page. Don't uninstall Benbow yet — old invoices remain accessible through its detail pages.
6. Generate a test invoice from a recent completed order.
7. Run side-by-side for a week. Once you're confident, you can deactivate Benbow entirely. Old PDFs stay in your media library.

What about old invoices?

Benbow stored its generated PDFs as media library attachments. They remain accessible after you disable Benbow's email attachment, and customers can still download them via My Account if Benbow is still active. invoice9 generates fresh PDFs for new orders going forward.

If you eventually fully uninstall Benbow, the old PDFs in the media library still survive — uninstalling a plugin doesn't auto-delete its attachments.

The 30-day refund safety net

Both Benbow and invoice9 are sold through the WooCommerce Marketplace, which means both come with Woo's standard 30-day refund policy. If you renewed Benbow recently, that policy may still apply — worth checking before you switch in case you can recover some of the renewal fee.

Frequently asked questions

Will my customers' My Account download links break?

No. WooCommerce stores order details (order number, customer info, products) in its own tables. The "Download invoice" link on My Account is rendered by the active invoice plugin — invoice9 takes over rendering once enabled. Old Benbow PDFs in the media library remain accessible directly.

Can I keep my Benbow numbering sequence?

Yes. invoice9's number-template supports a starting counter. Set it to one higher than Benbow's last issued number. The transition is seamless to your accountant and to GoBD audits — §14 UStG and UStAE 14.5 Abs. 10 explicitly permit small gaps anyway.

What if I have years of Benbow invoices archived?

invoice9 doesn't migrate them. Benbow's PDFs in your media library remain — your accountant pulls them from there for the historical period. invoice9 takes over for orders placed after the install. GoBD's 10-year retention rule is satisfied because the Benbow PDFs weren't deleted.

Is the switch reversible?

Yes. invoice9 doesn't modify Benbow's data. Disable invoice9, re- enable Benbow's email attachment, and you're back where you started.