Create a delivery note for a Shopify order
What goes on a German delivery note and what the law says about it. How to make one for a Shopify order, with Shopify alone or as a numbered PDF.
German law has no list of required details for a delivery note, the Lieferschein, as it has for an invoice. The usual ones are your address, the delivery address, a number, the date, the order and every item with its quantity. It needs no prices.
Shopify prints a packing slip for any order. In the app, one click makes a delivery note PDF with its own number, free on the Free plan, in German.
What the app prints on it
The delivery note is for the parcel and for whoever opens it. The app prints:
- the delivery address from the order, in the address window
- your company name and address, and your tax number or VAT id at the foot
- your logo, if you uploaded one
- the delivery note number, the issue date, the order number and the order date
- every item with its quantity, and its variant and SKU where it has them
No price, no tax, no total and no bank details. When the order is a gift, the person who opens it does not see what it cost. Items you refunded before shipping, or removed from the order, are left off.
What the law says
The required details in § 14 Abs. 4 UStG are for invoices. There is no such list for a delivery note.
A delivery note you bill with, showing prices and an amount due, is an invoice. Under § 14 Abs. 1 UStG an invoice is any document that bills for a supply, whatever it is called. So a delivery note without prices does not replace the invoice.
On keeping it, § 147 Abs. 3 AO says: for a delivery note you sent that is not a booking record, the period ends when the invoice is sent. It does not end while the papers still matter for a tax whose assessment period is still open. If it is a booking record, you keep it for eight years. Commercial law has no such exception: if your delivery note counts as a business letter, § 257 HGB has you keep the copy for six years. What that means for your delivery notes is a question for your tax adviser.
Sources, read on 3 November 2026, in German: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/ustg_1980/__14.html, https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/ao_1977/__147.html and https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/hgb/__257.html
With Shopify alone
Shopify prints packing slips itself. Open the order and click Print, then Print packing slips. For several orders, select them in the Orders list and use the same two clicks.
According to Shopify's help, a slip lists the items in one shipment with their quantity, SKU and weight, and the shipping and billing addresses. An order with several shipments gets a slip for each. You change the template under Settings > Shipping and delivery > Documents > Packing slip template, in Liquid, HTML and CSS.
If all you need is a slip for the parcel, that is enough. The app gives each delivery note a number from your own series and makes a PDF of it, next to the invoice for the same order. Click again and the same delivery note comes back under the same number.
Source: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/orders/printing-orders/packing-slips, read on 3 November 2026
In the app
Set it up once. After that, every delivery note is one click.
Open the app's settings and enter your company name, address and tax number or VAT id. Without them the app creates no document. You can upload a logo there too.
Under Numbering, set the delivery note prefix and the next number. If you leave them alone, the app starts at LS-1.
Open the order from the app's order list. In Shopify, More actions on the order takes you straight there.
Click Create delivery note. Download the PDF, print it and put it in the parcel.
For many parcels a day, the Starter plan has bulk print: pick several orders and download their delivery notes as one ZIP file.
What the app does not do
The app turns the order into a delivery note PDF. These are not part of it:
It prints no prices on the delivery note, not even on request.
It makes one delivery note per order, not one per partial shipment.
The layout is fixed. You change your details and the logo, not the template.
It prints no shipping labels and does not mark the order as fulfilled. It changes nothing in your store.
It does not send the delivery note to your customer.
It creates no new delivery note for a cancelled order or for an order older than 60 days.
Install the app
In the app, one click turns an order into its delivery note, with no prices and with your number.
Invoices and delivery notes are free in German, one order at a time. The app reads your orders and changes nothing.
Next
The home page shows the delivery note, the invoice and the credit note of one order. Questions on numbers and bulk print are answered on the support page.