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Show HN: Invoice-o-matic – a free online invoice tool

invoiceomatic.io

31–40 of 92 posts

Re: Show HN: Invoice-o-matic – a free online invoice tool

#31
post #8

That's all? I expected something like duetapp or better.. :/ Here's the same, but opensource so that you can customize to your own needs. http://css-tricks.com/html-invoice/

Note how that doesn't create a PDF.

How does one go about creating (and sending) a PDF from a web form (like Invoice-o-matic and billable.me)?

Re: Show HN: Invoice-o-matic – a free online invoice tool

#32
post #26

I dont get it. How is this so much better than having a, say, rtf document template on your own computer and emailing attachments from there? Or if you want to email a pdf there's printing to e.g cute pdf.

it's just one step instead of 2,3, etc better mousetrap :)

Ok thanks, I'd just wondered if i was missing something.

Re: Show HN: Invoice-o-matic – a free online invoice tool

#33
post #8

That's all? I expected something like duetapp or better.. :/ Here's the same, but opensource so that you can customize to your own needs. http://css-tricks.com/html-invoice/

Note how that doesn't create a PDF.

phantomjs could fix that for you.

http://phantomjs.org/

Re: Show HN: Invoice-o-matic – a free online invoice tool

#34
post #30

I wrote something similar to this a few years ago: http://billable.me There's nothing wrong with a bit of competition and it makes me wonder if this space needs something... Why do these keep appearing?

What technology did you use to build it? Or generate the PDF that fast?

It's built on node.js, there's a great command line tool called wkhtmltopdf:

https://github.com/antialize/wkhtmltopdf

Re: Show HN: Invoice-o-matic – a free online invoice tool

#36

I scanned over the list once or twice, but I did not see in the currency list RMB (Renminbi, Kuai), China's main currency. Just wanted to give you a heads up.

Thanks for the heads up. We've got the spanners out and are tweaking her now.

Edit: We've had a look and there is already support for CNY. Are invoices normally specified in RMB ?

Re: Show HN: Invoice-o-matic – a free online invoice tool

#37
post #21

I'd love to be able to specify the subtotal after VAT is applied as well, since that's often what you quote in practice and converting that to pre-VAT prices is a PITA. VAT is also actually called BTW here, so the ability to change how VAT is called would be useful as well.

Well, there's the up-sell :). FreeAgent does these things of details in the pay-for tool, including setting the invoice language, which translates the VAT field, for example.

Re: Show HN: Invoice-o-matic – a free online invoice tool

#38
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What technology did you use to build it? Or generate the PDF that fast?

It's built on node.js, there's a great command line tool called wkhtmltopdf: https://github.com/antialize/wkhtmltopdf

I have an invoicing pipeline in the form of a Python command-line "wizard", which is effectively in interactive form, which then fills a restructured text document, which gets turned into HTML before becoming a PDF via wkhtml2pdf. However, wkhtml2pdf is kind of CPU hungry and not that fast. How did you make that scale?

Re: Show HN: Invoice-o-matic – a free online invoice tool

#39
post #8

That's all? I expected something like duetapp or better.. :/ Here's the same, but opensource so that you can customize to your own needs. http://css-tricks.com/html-invoice/

Referencing my comment below. Here's a phnatomjs example that will render a webpage to pdf:

https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/examples/rast...

Re: Show HN: Invoice-o-matic – a free online invoice tool

#40
While this is good from a UX perspective, don't rely on tools like this to make sure that you include all information on an invoice that you're legally required to include.

For instance, in the UK (which appears to be where this company is based), all invoices for VAT registered companies must carry their VAT Registration Number. However with this tool, even if you select to include VAT in the settings (which you must do if you're VAT registered), there is no box or prompt to include your VAT reg no.

I.E., never rely on 3rd party services to make sure you are complying with the law. It's your backside on the line if you or they get it wrong.

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