Since October 2022, the QR invoice has been the standard in Swiss payments; the old red and orange payment slips are history. For trade businesses, that’s good news: send QR invoices and you get paid faster, because the customer only has to scan and confirm. This guide explains the components and shows how to create correct QR invoices without any fiddling.
If you need a single QR invoice right now: the free QR invoice generator produces a compliant payment slip straight in the browser, with no sign-up and nothing to install.
The parts of a QR invoice
A QR invoice is a normal invoice with a standardised payment slip (210 x 105 mm, at the bottom of the page or on a separate sheet). The payment slip contains:
- Swiss QR Code: the square with the Swiss cross in the middle. It holds all payment information in a machine-readable form.
- Account: your IBAN or QR-IBAN.
- Payable to: your business’s name and address.
- Reference: optionally a QR reference (27 digits), which lets payments be matched automatically to the right invoice.
- Amount and currency, payable by (your customer), and optionally additional information such as the invoice number.
All the details must also appear in plain text next to the QR code, so the invoice stays readable without a smartphone.
Is it a payment slip or an Einzahlungsschein?
In everyday Swiss usage almost everyone still says Einzahlungsschein, and that is not wrong: the payment slip is the direct successor to the red and orange slips. Anyone searching for “Einzahlungsschein mit QR-Code” means exactly this document. The official Swiss Payment Standard terms are:
| Before | Today | What it became |
|---|---|---|
| Red Einzahlungsschein | Payment slip with IBAN, no reference | Free-text message, manual matching |
| Orange Einzahlungsschein (ESR) | Payment slip with QR-IBAN and QR reference | Automatic matching as before |
| ESR number | QR reference (27 digits) | Same logic, new length |
| Receipt on the left | Receipt on the left | Kept, in the new layout |
There is nothing left to order. The payment slip is printed, not supplied by the bank, and that is exactly where most businesses get stuck.
IBAN or QR-IBAN: what do you need?
There are two variants, and this is where most mistakes happen:
- IBAN (normal): works without a reference, or with the international Creditor Reference (RF reference). Entirely sufficient for small businesses with few invoices.
- QR-IBAN: a special IBAN that your bank issues in addition (recognisable by the QR-IID, digits 30000 to 31999 in positions five to nine). It only works together with a QR reference, and enables every payment to be matched automatically to the right invoice, just like the old orange payment slip used to.
Rule of thumb: if you want incoming payments matched automatically (and you do, once more than a handful of invoices go out per month), use a QR-IBAN plus a QR reference. Your bank issues the QR-IBAN for free.
What has to appear on the invoice itself
The payment slip doesn’t replace the invoice content. What details belong on the invoice, from the UID with the VAT suffix to the description of work, are covered in the guide How to write an invoice as a tradesperson.
Printing: the details that trip people up
The payment slip is standardised, and the standard is unforgiving. These are the points that get a slip rejected by the bank or unread by the scanners in banking apps:
- Format: the payment slip is exactly 210 x 105 mm and sits at the bottom of the last page, separated by a solid line or a perforation. The receipt on the left is 62 mm wide.
- QR code: 46 x 46 mm, with the 7 mm Swiss cross in the middle. Do not scale it and do not force it into another aspect ratio.
- Type: a legible sans-serif, titles bold, values regular. The smallest permitted size is 6 pt on the receipt and 8 pt on the payment slip.
- Black and white: no colour printing, no background image, no watermark behind the payment slip. Plain white paper.
- Print quality: 300 dpi at least. A QR code rescaled from a 72 dpi screenshot is no longer reliably readable.
- Nothing added: no extra logos, stamps or handwritten notes inside the payment slip.
Sending by email removes the paper and perforation problem entirely: the PDF is enough, and banking apps scan the code straight off the screen.
Four ways to create a QR invoice
- Free online generator: our QR invoice generator builds the payment slip from IBAN, address and amount, validated against the same library the product itself uses. Ideal for one-off invoices.
- E-banking generator: most banks offer a form for creating individual QR invoices by hand. Fine in a pinch, tedious from the second invoice onward, and with no link to your quote or bookkeeping.
- Word/Excel templates with a QR generator: it works, but it’s error-prone (a checked invoice template is available for free). The standard is strict: wrong font sizes, missing plain-text details, or a QR-IBAN without a reference will get the payment slip rejected by banks.
- Trade software: the invoice is generated directly from the accepted quote, the payment slip is created automatically to spec, a QR reference is assigned per invoice, and the incoming payment is matched automatically.
In MeisterOffice, the QR invoice is built in: have the quote accepted, click “create invoice”, send the PDF with a correct payment slip. Once it’s paid, the software matches the payment; otherwise it sends a friendly, AI-drafted reminder. See pricing here.
Why banks reject a payment slip
Five causes account for nearly every rejection in practice:
- QR-IBAN without a QR reference. By far the most common. A QR-IBAN works only with a QR reference; without one the payment slip is invalid.
- A normal IBAN with a QR reference. The reverse case, equally invalid. A normal IBAN takes either no reference or an RF reference.
- A wrong check digit in the reference. The QR reference ends in a check digit using recursive modulo 10. Hand-typed references fail this regularly.
- Missing plain text. Everything in the QR code must also appear legibly beside it. A payment slip that is only the code is not permitted.
- An incomplete address. Payable to needs name, street, number, postcode, town and country. A PO box alone is not enough.
Software that builds the payment slip from validated master data prevents all five. Our QR invoice generator applies the same rules and tells you which field is wrong.
Frequently asked questions
Can I create a QR invoice free of charge? Yes. The QR invoice generator is free, needs no account and returns the finished payment slip as SVG or PDF. That is enough for one-off invoices; once you invoice regularly the software route pays off, because reference, incoming payment and reminder are connected there.
Can I still send invoices without a QR payment slip? Yes, an invoice is valid without a payment slip too, and nobody is required to send QR invoices. But your customers can no longer use the old payment slips, and invoices without a QR payment slip tend to get paid more slowly.
Does the QR invoice work by email too? Yes. Sending it as a PDF by email is the normal case. Banking apps scan the QR code straight off the screen.
What about eBill? eBill delivers the invoice directly into the customer’s e-banking, with no email or paper involved. That’s an additional channel with its own sign-up via your bank or a network partner; the QR invoice remains the standard alongside it for paper and PDF invoices.
Do I need separate QR invoices for advance payments? Yes, every partial invoice gets its own payment slip, ideally with its own QR reference, so payments are matched cleanly.
Can I create QR invoices with Excel or Word? The invoice part yes, the payment slip only with an extra tool. Neither Word nor Excel produces a compliant Swiss QR Code with a correct reference check digit and the prescribed layout on its own. People who try anyway usually combine a template with an online generator and paste the image in, which has to be repeated by hand every time the amount changes.
Where do I get a QR-IBAN? Free from your bank, on request or directly in e-banking. It does not replace your normal IBAN, it comes in addition: use the QR-IBAN for invoices with a reference and keep the normal IBAN for everything else.
How long is the QR reference and how do I build it? 27 digits, numbers only, the last one a check digit. The usual approach is to place the invoice number right-aligned and pad with zeros on the left. The reference should always be generated by the system, never by a person, or the check digit will eventually be wrong.
Do I have to fill in the amount? No. A payment slip without an amount is permitted, and the payer fills it in. That is impractical for invoices but normal for donations or deposits.