24 Jun
2014
24 Jun
'14
10:15 a.m.
Hi Andy,
Can I ask what you use to produce the BitFolk invoices? Is it an
open-source tool chain or proprietary?
Thanks,
Chris
--
Chris Smith <space.dandy(a)icloud.com>
24 Jun
24 Jun
10:48 a.m.
Hi Chris,
On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 11:15:31AM +0100, Chris Smith wrote:
Can I ask what you use to produce the BitFolk
invoices? Is it an
open-source tool chain or proprietary?
I created a template in OpenOffice and then use Perl's PDF:API2 to
write on top of it.
http://search.cpan.org/~ssimms/PDF-API2-2.021/lib/PDF/API2.pm
There might be a better Perl module now and if starting again I
might use them without the template step. My invoices come out quite
large and I think this may be due to the template PDF being imported
as an image rather than as the PDF commands that make it up.
There are many similar modules for other languages.
Cheers,
Andy
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
11:14 a.m.
On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 10:48:18AM +0000, Andy Smith wrote:
On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 11:15:31AM +0100, Chris Smith
wrote:
Now I read your subject line of "invoicing software" I suspect you
actually wanted to know about off the shelf CRM software rather then
how to create a PDF programmatically.
I'm afraid I don't know anything about that, although I'm sure that
some on here do, so by all means if anyone else can help…
Cheers,
Andy
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Can I ask what you use to produce the BitFolk
invoices? Is it an
open-source tool chain or proprietary?
I created a template in OpenOffice and then use Perl's PDF:API2 to
write on top of it.
http://search.cpan.org/~ssimms/PDF-API2-2.021/lib/PDF/API2.pm 
11:40 a.m.
I'm fond of Freshbooks for invoicing. It's a hosted service, not installable
software, but it has an API and is run by friendly Canadians.
-Graham
11:42 a.m.
We're using FreeAgent for CRM/invoicing and tax calculations etc. It has an
API too so it's all integrated with the company website.
--
Alex Harrington
Network Development Manager
Longhill High School
t: 01273 304086 | e: alex(a)longhill.org.uk
On 24 June 2014 12:40, Graham Freeman <graham(a)jahiel.net> wrote:
I'm fond of Freshbooks for invoicing. It's a
hosted service, not
installable software, but it has an API and is run by friendly Canadians.
-Graham
_______________________________________________
users mailing list
users(a)lists.bitfolk.com
https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/users
11:46 a.m.
On 24/06/2014 12:14, Andy Smith wrote:
On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 10:48:18AM +0000, Andy Smith
wrote:
Actually, no. Your original email was pretty much what I wanted,
although I didn't expect the bit about overwriting a PDF template.
Regards,
Chris
--
Chris Smith <space.dandy(a)icloud.com>
On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 11:15:31AM +0100, Chris
Smith wrote:
Now I read your subject line of "invoicing software" I suspect you
actually wanted to know about off the shelf CRM software rather then
how to create a PDF programmatically. Can I ask what you use to produce the BitFolk
invoices? Is it an
open-source tool chain or proprietary?
I created a template in OpenOffice and then use Perl's PDF:API2 to
write on top of it.
http://search.cpan.org/~ssimms/PDF-API2-2.021/lib/PDF/API2.pm
11:49 a.m.
On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 12:46:40PM +0100, Chris Smith wrote:
On 24/06/2014 12:14, Andy Smith wrote:
Ah. I strongly suspect the very basic shapes could be drawn directly, if
not by PDF::API2 then one of the other modules or software of that
nature.
Cheers,
Andy
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Now I read your subject line of "invoicing
software" I suspect you
actually wanted to know about off the shelf CRM software rather then
how to create a PDF programmatically.
Actually, no. Your original email was pretty much what I wanted,
although I didn't expect the bit about overwriting a PDF template. 
3:10 p.m.
Hi,
On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 11:15:31AM +0100, Chris Smith
wrote:
In the future, can you offset it a little bit so that it looks like it's
come out of a slightly mis-aligned line printer?
Thanks.
:-)
Extra marks for "print-thru" on page 2 and individual out-of-place
characters type-writer style as well as 9-pin-grey style typeface.
Regards,
@ndy
--
andyjpb(a)ashurst.eu.org
http://www.ashurst.eu.org/
0x7EBA75FF
Can I ask what you use to produce the BitFolk
invoices? Is it an
open-source tool chain or proprietary?
I created a template in OpenOffice and then use Perl's PDF:API2 to
write on top of it. 
3:19 p.m.
On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 04:10:15PM +0100, Andy Bennett wrote:
Hi,
Or alternating white and pale green stripes across the page,
slightly out of phase with the lines of text...
Hugo.
--
=== Hugo Mills: hugo@... carfax.org.uk | darksatanic.net | lug.org.uk ===
PGP key: 65E74AC0 from wwwkeys.eu.pgp.net or http://www.carfax.org.uk
--- Would you like an ocelot with that non-sequitur? ---
On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 11:15:31AM +0100, Chris
Smith wrote:
In the future, can you offset it a little bit so that it looks like it's
come out of a slightly mis-aligned line printer?
Thanks.
:-)
Extra marks for "print-thru" on page 2 and individual out-of-place
characters type-writer style as well as 9-pin-grey style typeface. Can I ask what you use to produce the BitFolk
invoices? Is it an
open-source tool chain or proprietary?
I created a template in OpenOffice and then use Perl's PDF:API2 to
write on top of it. 
3:29 p.m.
Hugo Mills said:
> In the future, can you offset it a little bit so
that it looks like it's
> come out of a slightly mis-aligned line printer?
Or alternating white and pale green stripes across
the page,
slightly out of phase with the lines of text...
Using Comic Sans so it looks handwritten for that personal touch, surely?
Ian
5:54 p.m.
On Jun 24, 2014, at 8:19 AM, Hugo Mills <hugo-bf(a)carfax.org.uk> wrote:
On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 04:10:15PM +0100, Andy Bennett
wrote:
And make it LOUD AS HELL.
-Jeremy
In the future, can you offset it a little bit so that it looks like it's
come out of a slightly mis-aligned line printer?
Or alternating white and pale green stripes across the page,
slightly out of phase with the lines of text… 
9:42 p.m.
Hello Chris,
On 24/06/14 11:15, Chris Smith wrote:
Hi Andy,
Can I ask what you use to produce the BitFolk invoices? Is it an
open-source tool chain or proprietary?
Back in the mists of time when I ran my own little consultancy business,
I used a web-based system called SQL Ledger [1]. In it's current guise
it is a full ERP system with a double-entry accounting system at it's
heart, so it's perhaps overkill for what you need. The reason why I used
it at the time was it's awesome invoice creation module. It took some
serious setting up, because it uses LaTeX as the PDF creation engine.
Learning LaTeX is a non-trivial task [3], but in this case it has large
rewards. SQL Ledger could create invoices for me, and automagically
either email them off to clients, and/or print them on demand.
Workflow-wise there are of course much more sophistication to be had,
but in my case I only needed to create PDF documents and fire them off
manually to the few clients I had at the time. The PDF documents created
by SQL Ledger is also absolutely stunning.
If I had to do the above again from scratch, I would probably not go
with SQL Ledger, but use a similar system called LedgerSMB [2].
LedgerSMB as a project forked from SQL Ledger a number of years ago, and
is 100% community-based as opposed to SQL Ledger that has a company
behind it. Other than that there is probably not much to choose between
these two systems, it's just that I always seem to lean towards
community-based projects.
Links:
[1] SQL Ledger: http://www.sql-ledger.com/
[2] LedgerSMB: http://ledgersmb.org/
[3] I used Kile as my LaTeX "IDE": http://kile.sourceforge.net/
--
Regards,
Jan Henkins
3833
days inactive
3833
days old
11 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
Alex Harrington -
Andy Bennett -
Andy Smith -
Chris Smith -
Graham Freeman -
Hugo Mills -
Ian -
Jan Henkins -
Jeremy Kitchen