When will I receive my color charges, offprints or open access invoice?

After your article is accepted, the Editor sends it to the production department for processing. The article is registered in our Production Tracking System and a unique production reference number (our reference) is assigned. You can track your accepted article using this reference number with Elsevier’s Article Tracking service. The corresponding author will receive a letter of acknowledgement, including links to online forms to be completed. These may include:

• Journal Publishing Agreement (copyright transfer form)
• Offprint order form
• Rights and Access form (where you can choose an OA license and provide key information)
• Color figure reproduction form

For bank and company address details, you can refer to the 'Terms and Conditions of Sale and Purchase' which are provided together with the above forms.

Depending on when the online forms are completed, invoices for open access and additional offprint orders are usually sent within 2-3 working days after the forms have been completed. Invoices for color charges will be generated once the article has reached a certain stage of production.

Please note: For some journals, invoices relating to color costs and offprint orders are not sent until 4-6 weeks after the article is published in an issue of the journal. If this is the case for the journal you're publishing in, we can't issue invoices prior to your article’s publication.

Invoices are raised for payment of the following:

• Cost of color figure reproduction
• Offprints of the published article
• Page charges
• Open access

All invoices will include title of the journal, title of the article, service type (open access, color charges, offprints) and publication details of the article concerned. If you've provided a Purchase Order or VAT number, this will show on the invoice as well. At the bottom of the invoice in the Remittance Advice section you'll see all the payment details.

If after making an order you realise you've not provided all the required information or made an error on the invoice, please contact us once you've received your invoice.

If you have any queries relating to an invoice e.g. purchase orders, purchase order numbers, VAT exemption certificates, or if you receive two invoices for the same article or order, contact us via the Chat option at the bottom of this page, and provide the following information along with your query:

• Invoice number
• Account number
• Details of the published article (e.g. production reference number, journal name, DOI, full title of the article)

Please note: to raise a purchase order you may need Elsevier's address. For open access, it will be Elsevier BV, registered in the Netherlands. For offprints and color charges it will depend on the journal – it can be Elsevier Inc or Elsevier Ltd. There are standard forms with Elsevier finance and bank details available for use in this instance. If you need to raise a purchase order and do not have the required details, contact us via the Chat option at the bottom of this page and we'll send you the relevant form.

Still have a question?

We can help! Contact us via the Chat option at the bottom of this page. Enter your details in the quick form and select 'Open Access' for contact reason before you 'Start chat'. (Thank you in advance for giving our representatives helpful information so they can respond swiftly to your query.)