Invoices are boring until they’re wrong. A missing tax identification number, an outdated bank account, a payment reference that forces the recipient to type twenty characters by hand — these are the paper cuts that delay payments and trigger compliance questions. Odoo’s latest update to Studio’s PDF report builder tackles all three with new fields that go beyond cosmetic changes and tie directly into the company’s live data.
The update is quiet in scope but loud in impact. Three new configurable elements — Tax ID, Bank Account Number, and an EPC QR Code — join the default document layout, and the way businesses preview and iterate on their invoice templates has been reworked from the ground up.
Tax ID That Stays in Sync With Your Company Record
The first addition is a Tax Identification Number field that appears on the document layout and maps directly to the company record. Whatever value sits in the company’s tax ID — whether it’s a VAT number, an EIN, or a local equivalent — shows up on every generated PDF without manual entry.
What makes this more than a static text block is the bidirectional sync. Edit the tax ID from within the document layout configuration, and the company record updates to match. Change it from the company settings, and every future invoice carries the new number automatically. The field accepts a number, a forward slash indicating no tax ID is assigned, or a blank value. No more hunting through company settings to figure out why invoices are printing the wrong identifier.
For businesses operating across multiple European jurisdictions where VAT numbers appear on every commercial document by law, this is the kind of small feature that prevents audit headaches. The number is always current, always pulled from the single source of truth, and always printed exactly where the recipient expects to find it.
Bank Account Linked to the Payment Journal
The second new field pulls the bank account number designated for invoice payments. It doesn’t just grab a stored string — it connects to the company’s main bank journal, ensuring the account printed on every invoice is the same one the accounting team is actually using to process incoming payments.
Like the tax ID, edits flow in both directions. Update the bank account in the document layout, and the underlying bank journal record reflects the change. Update the journal, and every invoice printed afterward carries the correct account number. This matters for companies that switch banking providers or open new collection accounts — the invoice template never falls out of date because it’s not a template at all. It’s a live reference to the actual financial record.
For companies that have dealt with the embarrassment of printing a thousand invoices with a closed bank account, this is a straightforward fix to a problem that shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
EPC QR Codes Turn Invoices Into One-Scan Payments
The third addition is the one with the biggest behavioral impact. In European countries that support the EPC (European Payments Council) QR code standard, businesses can now embed a scannable payment code directly on the invoice PDF. The recipient opens the invoice, points their banking app at the QR code, and the payment details — amount, IBAN, reference number — fill in automatically.
This isn’t a generic QR code linking to a payment page. It’s the standardized EPC format that European banks recognize natively, which means it works with SEPA credit transfers and instant payments without any middleware. The code appears on the invoice itself, so it travels wherever the PDF travels — email, print, download, archive.
Enabling it is a one-toggle operation from the document layout configuration panel. For businesses that prefer a centralized approach, the same setting is available through the Accounting module under Configuration, then Settings, in the Customer Payments section. Either path activates the same feature, and the QR code generates automatically on every invoice issued afterward.
A Real-Time Preview That Replaces the Old Print Workflow
Beyond the new fields, the entire preview experience inside Studio has been rethought. The document layout configuration window now shows a live preview on the right side of the screen, updating in real time as settings change. Toggle the QR code on, and it appears in the preview immediately. Change the bank account, and the preview reflects the new value before anything is saved.
Inside Studio’s report editor, a new “Preview” toggle sits at the top left of the screen, replacing the old “Print Preview” button that required generating an actual PDF to see changes. The new toggle flips between the editing view and a rendered preview without any file generation. When the layout looks right, a “Print” button in preview mode generates and downloads a sample PDF for final verification.
The difference sounds minor, but anyone who has iterated on an invoice template knows the old workflow: change a setting, click print preview, wait for the PDF to generate, open it, squint at the result, go back, change another setting, repeat. The new approach collapses that loop into something closer to a WYSIWYG editor.
Smaller Touches That Smooth the Rough Edges
The update also polishes several interaction patterns that had accumulated friction over time. Editing the company logo no longer requires clicking an explicit “Edit” button — hovering over the logo image reveals a pencil icon that opens the editor inline. Company information is now accessed through the Settings app and the “Update Info” link in the Companies section, giving a direct path to the data that feeds every document template.
Duplicating a report — a common workflow for businesses that maintain separate invoice formats for different regions or product lines — has had its toolbar icon updated to match the current interface conventions. It’s a visual consistency fix, but for users who relied on muscle memory to find the duplicate action, the old icon had become a small daily frustration.
The E-Invoicing Connection
These invoice layout improvements land alongside a broader push to simplify e-invoicing setup. The Accounting dashboard now surfaces direct configuration links on the Sales journal card, giving businesses two clearly labeled entry points: one for configuring company data and another for activating the e-invoicing system.
The specifics vary by country — each fiscal localization has its own requirements for what must appear on an electronic invoice — but the intent is consistent: reduce the number of clicks between “I need to set up e-invoicing” and “it’s done.” Combined with the new Tax ID and bank account fields that sync automatically, Odoo is building toward a state where invoice compliance is a configuration problem solved once, not a recurring manual check on every document.
For businesses drowning in EU e-invoicing mandates or simply tired of customers asking “what account should I pay into?”, these changes turn the invoice from a static document into a living payment instrument. Scan the code, verify the tax ID, send the money. Done.