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Generating PDF invoices using Lago
31–40 of 56 posts
Re: Generating PDF invoices using Lago
#32hey. does anyone know of a foss/open source project that does invoice template designing? there are tools that let you customize an invoice in its print form wyswig and allowing to use/export as pdf. t
Re: Generating PDF invoices using Lago
#33Not sure this actually solves a real problem. A lot of the questions/problems mentioned in the article are already things being addressed by any service worth using. At the end of the day, you just need to generate a PDF from a template. The template is a solved problem. Invoices generally do not have that huge amount of variability in terms of layout. I have been using microinvoice ( https://github.com/baptistejamin…
Lago founder here. FWIW we love what Baptiste did with Microinvoice!
I can only speak for what we've experienced first hand, in our prev. company (a $5B B2B fintech) we spent a lot of time around billing x invoicing in pdf :
- When billing is complex (lots of fees, different billing cycles, usage based consumption) - And you need to have a clear "invoice presentation" to avoid triggering questions (that is maintained while you iterate on pricing, launch new products or countries) the "template isn't really a solved problem", and our eng. team did rebuild the system in-house. We would have avoided it if it could have been possible and looked at every possible option, in-depth.
We've seen similar needs for marketplaces or vertical saas as well.
However thanks for the feedback, we could have done a better job at explaining why it can be a pain in specific use cases! And I was the 1st person to say, when I first discover the painpoint "there must be an existing solution for that, please don't build anything in-house".
Re: Generating PDF invoices using Lago
#34Not sure this actually solves a real problem. A lot of the questions/problems mentioned in the article are already things being addressed by any service worth using. At the end of the day, you just need to generate a PDF from a template. The template is a solved problem. Invoices generally do not have that huge amount of variability in terms of layout. I have been using microinvoice ( https://github.com/baptistejamin…
Lago founder here. FWIW we love what Baptiste did with Microinvoice! I can only speak for what we've experienced first hand, in our prev. company (a $5B B2B fintech) we spent a lot of time around billing x invoicing in pdf : - When billing is complex (lots of fees, different billing cycles, usage based consumption) - And you need to have a clear "invoice presentation" to avoid triggering questions (that is maintained…
> When billing is complex (lots of fees, different billing cycles, usage based consumption)
So does Lago have a template for all these use cases? What happens when a new unique case comes up? Is Lago flexible enough to handle all the cases? Current and future ones? How is that different than having a flexible template? What actually is the problem with that?
Re: Generating PDF invoices using Lago
#3512 years ago, I was working on a contract for an aircraft spares supplier. One of the hard requirements: all sales invoices, purchase orders, quotations, invoices, and so on, had to be printed AND available as PDF.
The solution was to use JasperReports. The business could design their templates in a iReport Designer, test with dummy data, put the jrxml templates in a dedicated storage, and a simple http call would merge the real data with the template in a java service (200 lines of code) resulting in a PDF. That PDF would then get printed using ColdFusion cfprint (those huge multi-source laser printers with 10 different drawers). It was worth spending £800 for CF just for the cfprint stuff.
Hundreds of these were printed and generated every day.
Re: Generating PDF invoices using Lago
#36Cool idea, I can see how this would be useful once you're dealing with more than a few invoices per month. For those like me that do indeed only send out a few a month, I've found the Numbers app on Mac to have a very nice invoice template that you can customize, fill out, and generate a professional-looking invoice from.
You can self host Lago for free under AGPLv3 licence. You have access to the entire billing service (UI, API and all related services). Feel free if you need a proper demo
Re: Generating PDF invoices using Lago
#37Actual title: Generating PDF invoices using Lago
@mellosouls love you title also!
Re: Generating PDF invoices using Lago
#38Not sure this actually solves a real problem. A lot of the questions/problems mentioned in the article are already things being addressed by any service worth using. At the end of the day, you just need to generate a PDF from a template. The template is a solved problem. Invoices generally do not have that huge amount of variability in terms of layout. I have been using microinvoice ( https://github.com/baptistejamin…
Is a PDF invoice typically expected to be generated every time you’re billed, or only when someone clicks “View PDF Invoice”?
It seems like the % of customers that care to have PDF over an HTML page would greatly affect the need for scalability.
What is this percentage, I don’t know. I wouldn’t have guessed high.
Anecdotally even when I’ve preferred a PDF invoice, it’s been on a case by case basis.
Re: Generating PDF invoices using Lago
#39Not sure this actually solves a real problem. A lot of the questions/problems mentioned in the article are already things being addressed by any service worth using. At the end of the day, you just need to generate a PDF from a template. The template is a solved problem. Invoices generally do not have that huge amount of variability in terms of layout. I have been using microinvoice ( https://github.com/baptistejamin…
Actually, this is only a feature Lago is providing. We have a full billing API to create usage based billing, subscription based billing and hybrid pricing. If you need to charge and invoice your clients, you don’t want to build this yourself. The invoice is generated automatically and can be downloaded from the UI or the API.
Give it a closer look, happy to show you more!
Re: Generating PDF invoices using Lago
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lago founder here. FWIW we love what Baptiste did with Microinvoice! I can only speak for what we've experienced first hand, in our prev. company (a $5B B2B fintech) we spent a lot of time around billing x invoicing in pdf : - When billing is complex (lots of fees, different billing cycles, usage based consumption) - And you need to have a clear "invoice presentation" to avoid triggering questions (that is maintained…
> When billing is complex (lots of fees, different billing cycles, usage based consumption) So does Lago have a template for all these use cases? What happens when a new unique case comes up? Is Lago flexible enough to handle all the cases? Current and future ones? How is that different than having a flexible template? What actually is the problem with that?
We make the whole fee calculation easy to do. If you have a paying feature, the charge related to it can be implemented in few minutes. We handle automatically the upgrades, downgrades, invoices, subscription dates and boundaries, and a lot of prebuilt charge model (graduated pricing, percentage pricing, package pricing…).
We adapt to any pricing use case easily!