Invoices and documents · 2 min read

The QR payment code on an invoice

The payment QR code on an invoice, following the Czech Banking Association's SPD standard — the client scans it with mobile banking and the amount, account number and variable symbol fill in on their own. When it renders on the document, and when it doesn't.

What a payment QR code is

A payment QR code is a graphic code that encodes payment instructions — the account number (IBAN), the amount, the variable symbol and a message for the recipient. The client simply scans it with their phone and their banking app pre-fills the payment automatically. There's no need to copy the account number by hand, and no risk of a typo.

Taxorio generates QR codes according to the Czech Banking Association's Short Payment Descriptor (SPD, version 1.0) standard. This format is supported by all the major Czech banking apps.

A document issued in euros and paid to a euro account carries a SEPA QR payment (EPC QR, known as GiroCode) under the European Payments Council standard instead of the Czech norm — banking apps across the whole SEPA area read it, so a client in Germany, Austria or the Netherlands scans the invoice just as easily as a Czech client does. Documents in CZK and other currencies stay with the Czech QR code.

Where the QR code appears

The QR code is automatically inserted into the invoice PDF — usually in the bottom right corner next to the payment details, alongside the account number and the variable symbol. It shows up when you have QR payment turned on, a bank account filled in, and the invoice has a positive amount.

How the client uses the QR code

  1. The client opens the invoice as a PDF (in an email, or printed out).
  2. They open their banking app on their phone and pick Pay by QR code or Scan a payment.
  3. They point their phone at the QR code on the invoice — the app automatically picks up the IBAN, the amount and the variable symbol.
  4. The client checks the pre-filled details and confirms the payment.
💡 Tip: Clients who use the QR code make significantly fewer payment mistakes (a wrong variable symbol, a wrong amount). You'll find it easier to identify the payment on your statement, too.

Technical requirements

For the QR code to show up on the invoice, these conditions have to be met:

  • QR payment turned on — turn on QR code generation on invoices in Settings.
  • A bank account filled in — a Czech account number with a bank code in the company settings is enough; Taxorio works out the IBAN needed for the QR code from these details on its own (a manually entered IBAN naturally works too). No QR code can be generated without a bank account. If you have more than one account, the QR carries whichever account was chosen on the invoice at issue time — changing or archiving an account later doesn't change the QR on an already-issued document.
  • A positive invoice amount — no QR code is generated for credit notes, tax documents for an advance, or invoices with a zero amount.
⚠️ Careful: the QR code carries a fixed amount from the invoice. If you edit the invoice after generating the PDF (changing the amount), download a fresh PDF — the old QR code would still point to the original amount.