6 ms·

I've been putting together a no-nonsense free invoice generator, for people (like myself) that only occasionally send invoices. It's more-or-less a WYSIWYG edit

I've been putting together a no-nonsense free invoice generator, for people (like myself) that only occasionally send invoices. It's more-or-less a WYSIWYG editor, and the state is stored in the URL, so you don't have to worry about keeping track of where you stored your copy - if you've sent someone an email with the link, you've got a copy. This project was born out of the frustration of trying to generate an invoice on my phone on the go, I found all the existing solutions to be quite awful (forced signups to paid subscriptions, clunky interface etc). Would love to hear any feedback the HN crowd has. I'm aware of a couple of alignment issues, will fix them up tonight. Also, yes, there will be a "generate PDF" button, for now if you want a pdf I'd suggest using the Print dialog to "Save as PDF". https://bestfreeinvoice.com https://bestfreeinvoice.com

Aspos 2y ago
Awesome. Would suggest considering a built-in URL shortener.
- nodesocket 2y ago
  Ha, I was going to say is that url query string a sha256 or something.
  - taejavu 2y ago
    Yeah it's compressed and encoded with `lz-string` but I know it's hideous - I'm curious if that will prove a practical problem for adoption, even if a technical crowd isn't fond of the choice. Surprisingly most messaging apps you paste urls into these days don't show the whole thing anyway - when you paste it'll transform the link into a small preview card with just the domain portion of the URL visible.
- Cyphase 2y ago
  Not too short or it's too easy to guess. The app might be stateless right now (I haven't checked); if it is, adding a URL shortener will break that.
  - Aspos 2y ago
    How about zipping the state string or, even better, putting it into a KV storage thus exchanging it for a 10-char string.
    - taejavu 2y ago
      Correct me if I'm wrong but zipping it would mean it would be encoded in a way that wouldn't be usable as a URL. The state is currently compressed and URL encoded via lz-string fwiw/in case you're curious.
- taejavu 2y ago
  I know the URLs are long compared to what people are used to. Part of the rationale for putting this out there in the current state is I'm curious if people in practise will share long URLs or not. At some point I'd like to add shortlinks but at the moment everything is clientside, there's no persistence at all (beyond localStorage). I think that's a nice feature from a security perspective.
colincooke 2y ago
Nice work! Would totally have used this when I was freelancing. Honestly love the serif'd fonts, would love to see everything serif'd tbh. Also back when I had to do these (I used Wave) having a notes section was very useful to include a few things (i.e. I used to include conversion rates). Would probably be pretty easy.
- taejavu 2y ago
  Thanks for the feedback, a notes section is a great idea!
  - 6510 2y ago
    it might be required to name some law
niraj-agarwal 2y ago
Useful and simple. The pattern could be applied to any templatized document we need to generate.
- taejavu 2y ago
  Yeah it'd be cool to consider this approach for some other domains. Sometime soon I'll make it so you can change the word in the top-left from "INVOICE" to "QUOTE" or "RECEIPT". The nice thing about an invoice is you know there's going to be a relatively small amount of data, so storing the state in the URL is a plausible approach (even if it looks obscene to discerning users ).
nodesocket 2y ago
Interesting, I’ve been using https://simpleinvoices.io https://simpleinvoices.io for a couple of years and really like it. Integrates with my Stripe and super easy to configure. Best of luck!
- hboon 2y ago
  I have been using simpleinvoices.io for a few years too. It's great. (Just checked, 10 this year).
- taejavu 2y ago
  It looks nice at a glance, but there's just no way I can justify $15/mth for the few times a year I need to send an invoice. If https://bestfreeinvoice.com https://bestfreeinvoice.com gains some amount of traction I'd love to extend the feature set to justify a paid tier, but the basic experience (i.e. what's currently live) will always be free and genuinely useful.
pcdoodle 2y ago
Great friggin name! Love that it dumps you right into the experience.
- taejavu 2y ago
  Haha thank you, I was amazed the domain was available! And yeah jumping through hoops just to get to the invoice generator is something that frustrated me with existing alternatives, so dumping the user straight into it was one of the foremost decisions the design centered around.
atishaykumar 2y ago
Pls add support for changing currency and deductions (in India 10% TDS is supposed to be deducted on the amount (ie amount before tax is added) Overall it’s pretty good solution for occasional invoice generators.
- taejavu 2y ago
  Currency selection is on the roadmap but the need for deductions wasn't on my radar - thanks for the tip!
vldszn 2y ago
I built something similar for myself, but with a live PDF preview, support for downloading PDFs in multiple languages (English and Polish), VAT tax deductions, and multiple currencies. https://easyinvoicepdf.com/ https://easyinvoicepdf.com/ Also it’s open-source https://github.com/VladSez/easy-invoice-pdf https://github.com/VladSez/easy-invoice-pdf Would love to receive any feedback as well :)
- taejavu 2y ago
  Nice work, this looks better than the established players in this space! You've got some customisation options in yours that I'd love to implement in mine as soon as time permits. Huge props for not forcing people to sign up for an account to use it!
  - vldszn 2y ago
    Thank you =)
6510 2y ago
Most important is for it to have the right number consistently without room for error. You may also use multiple sequences like if you sell cars and crates of bananas you wouldn't want to mix those but you would want to use a single tool. Anything else can be corrected. It is important to easily make corrections and/or credit nota as those seem to happen at the worse time. Usually the same as the invoice but with amounts in the - It is also nice to tie the products into it so that you don't have to type it every time and get consistent naming. Same for an address book.
LeonM 2y ago
Not be negative about bestfreevoice, or any other invoicing tool, but it always seems like developers and early-stage entrepreneurs don't understand invoicing. First major disconnect is that not every country uses invoices, but may use receipts instead. This is true for the USA for example, so many US devs (for example: Stripe in the early days) are not familiar with the concept of invoicing. Technically there is no difference between receipts and invoices, so if you're not familiar with the concept of invoicing, just read this post with /s/invoice/receipt in mind. The point about invoicing is to act as a non-mutable entry into the ledgers of both parties (seller and buyer). In most countries (especially EU) invoices are mandated by law for B2B transactions, and so is keeping accounts (aka bookkeeping). So for invoicing to be practical it needs to be tied to your books/accounts. Because of this, any business will use some bookkeeping/accounting software, which will have invoicing capabilities built-in. Invoicing as a standalone product doesn't make sense if you have to import it all into your ledgers later. Then there is the 'design' trap, which many invoicing startups seem to fall for. Invoices are weird things. They are basically very, very inefficient artefacts from the past. An invoice is just a very little amount of transaction data exchanged between buyer and seller. In the days of physical bookkeeping (actual paper books) paper invoices made sense, but nowadays it is all done digitally. So the invoice is effectively a machine-2-machine interface, but for all sorts of legacy reasons we still wrap them in PDF with a fancy design that looks great for humans, but it effectively impossible for machines to read. There are all sorts of attempts made to improve upon this situation (like OCR, and nowadays AI to extract data from PDF invoices). There are open structured data formats such as UBL to replace / augment PDF invoices, but due to all sorts of politics and lobbying the open standards have been doomed from the beginning. There is a lot of money made in accounting software, and they all rely on vendor lock-in. The major accounting software vendors have very strong incentives to keep us from adopting UBL et al, and most of the established accounting product suck, but you can't easily migrate so you'll be stuck with it. If you run or own a business, treat your books as an asset of your business, a very important asset for that matter. Books are kept in accounting software, which is typically part of a larger software suite which also features tax filing, HRM, asset management, invoicing, etc. In fancy business terms this is often called ERP. But think of ERP as just your central database, or your 'books'. Choosing your accounting software an important decision. Choose accounting software that allows exporting your data (very important!), that has an API (also very important), and preferably a web interface. It should be always available, so on-premise software is out. For entrepreneurs: choose your own accounting software, do not be tempted to hire an external bookkeeper that keeps the books in 'their' systems (accountant lock-in). Don't let an accountant recommend your software either, they get huge kickbacks from the software vendors (vendor lock-in). Every sale—whether this being PoS, invoicing, or a payment integration like Stripe—should automatically registered as a ledger entry in the books, preferably with an invoice document attached. Here you can see why an accountant who keeps your books in their systems won't work, you don't want to be stuck having to periodically send an email (or shoebox) filled with invoices for them to process. Your books should be owned by the business, should be automated (at least for the receivable side), and always be up-to-date. You can then give an(y) accountant access to your books for them to do audits, tax filings, etc. For a business, the books are the central database of the business, everything else revolves around it. Do not be tempted to write your own, instead integrate with existing solutions while avoiding vendor lock-in as much as possible. Integrating your business with the accounting software is an ever-ongoing part of your software development efforts, so not underestimate it. Accepting payments is hard, making sure it is well registered in your books is equally hard. It takes _much_ more time than you'd think (most first-time entrepreneurs actually don't consider it at all). There are no silver bullets here.
Havoc 2y ago
Think you’d need to make it country specific. Some countries have specific requirements around invoices and what needs to be on it
- joseda-hg 2y ago
  If you could add custom templates, you could let the community add the country specific things
  - qwertox 2y ago
    I'm leaving this link here regarding the "EU e-invoicing standard CEN 16931" https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/DIGITAL/Obtaining+a+copy+of+the+European+standard+on+eInvoicing https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/D... I don't know how complicated or easy it would be to just create templates which satisfy this. In Germany it's already required for B2B transactions [0] In principle, the following formats will comply with CEN 16931: ZUGFeRD: Hybrid format: Human-readable PDF/A-3 with an embedded XML file in the syntax "Cross-Industry Invoice" (CII) XRechnung: XML file in the syntax "Cross-Industry Invoice" (CII) XRechnung: XML file in the "Universal Business Language" (UBL) syntax [0] https://www.bdo.global/en-gb/insights/tax/indirect-tax/germany-mandatory-e-invoicing-what-you-need-to-know https://www.bdo.global/en-gb/insights/tax/indirect-tax/germa...!
    - raphig 2y ago
      You can use AI to convert your PDF invoice into XRechnung to comply with EN 16931 should that occur, e.g., https://www.invoice-converter.com/en https://www.invoice-converter.com/en
scryers_bloom 2y ago
I really like this, I'll maybe use it once I actually get some clients to respond ;) I tried implementing my own on my own website, but between all my projects and work I keep pushing my own business website backward...

Aspos 2y ago

Awesome. Would suggest considering a built-in URL shortener.

nodesocket 2y ago
Ha, I was going to say is that url query string a sha256 or something.
- taejavu 2y ago
  Yeah it's compressed and encoded with `lz-string` but I know it's hideous - I'm curious if that will prove a practical problem for adoption, even if a technical crowd isn't fond of the choice. Surprisingly most messaging apps you paste urls into these days don't show the whole thing anyway - when you paste it'll transform the link into a small preview card with just the domain portion of the URL visible.
Cyphase 2y ago
Not too short or it's too easy to guess. The app might be stateless right now (I haven't checked); if it is, adding a URL shortener will break that.
- Aspos 2y ago
  How about zipping the state string or, even better, putting it into a KV storage thus exchanging it for a 10-char string.
  - taejavu 2y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong but zipping it would mean it would be encoded in a way that wouldn't be usable as a URL. The state is currently compressed and URL encoded via lz-string fwiw/in case you're curious.
taejavu 2y ago
I know the URLs are long compared to what people are used to. Part of the rationale for putting this out there in the current state is I'm curious if people in practise will share long URLs or not. At some point I'd like to add shortlinks but at the moment everything is clientside, there's no persistence at all (beyond localStorage). I think that's a nice feature from a security perspective.

colincooke 2y ago

Nice work! Would totally have used this when I was freelancing. Honestly love the serif'd fonts, would love to see everything serif'd tbh. Also back when I had to do these (I used Wave) having a notes section was very useful to include a few things (i.e. I used to include conversion rates). Would probably be pretty easy.

taejavu 2y ago
Thanks for the feedback, a notes section is a great idea!
- 6510 2y ago
  it might be required to name some law

niraj-agarwal 2y ago

Useful and simple. The pattern could be applied to any templatized document we need to generate.

taejavu 2y ago
Yeah it'd be cool to consider this approach for some other domains. Sometime soon I'll make it so you can change the word in the top-left from "INVOICE" to "QUOTE" or "RECEIPT". The nice thing about an invoice is you know there's going to be a relatively small amount of data, so storing the state in the URL is a plausible approach (even if it looks obscene to discerning users ).

nodesocket 2y ago

Interesting, I’ve been using https://simpleinvoices.io https://simpleinvoices.io for a couple of years and really like it. Integrates with my Stripe and super easy to configure. Best of luck!

hboon 2y ago
I have been using simpleinvoices.io for a few years too. It's great. (Just checked, 10 this year).
taejavu 2y ago
It looks nice at a glance, but there's just no way I can justify $15/mth for the few times a year I need to send an invoice. If https://bestfreeinvoice.com https://bestfreeinvoice.com gains some amount of traction I'd love to extend the feature set to justify a paid tier, but the basic experience (i.e. what's currently live) will always be free and genuinely useful.

pcdoodle 2y ago

Great friggin name! Love that it dumps you right into the experience.

taejavu 2y ago
Haha thank you, I was amazed the domain was available! And yeah jumping through hoops just to get to the invoice generator is something that frustrated me with existing alternatives, so dumping the user straight into it was one of the foremost decisions the design centered around.

atishaykumar 2y ago

Pls add support for changing currency and deductions (in India 10% TDS is supposed to be deducted on the amount (ie amount before tax is added) Overall it’s pretty good solution for occasional invoice generators.

taejavu 2y ago
Currency selection is on the roadmap but the need for deductions wasn't on my radar - thanks for the tip!

vldszn 2y ago

I built something similar for myself, but with a live PDF preview, support for downloading PDFs in multiple languages (English and Polish), VAT tax deductions, and multiple currencies. https://easyinvoicepdf.com/ https://easyinvoicepdf.com/ Also it’s open-source https://github.com/VladSez/easy-invoice-pdf https://github.com/VladSez/easy-invoice-pdf Would love to receive any feedback as well :)

taejavu 2y ago
Nice work, this looks better than the established players in this space! You've got some customisation options in yours that I'd love to implement in mine as soon as time permits. Huge props for not forcing people to sign up for an account to use it!
- vldszn 2y ago
  Thank you =)

6510 2y ago

Most important is for it to have the right number consistently without room for error. You may also use multiple sequences like if you sell cars and crates of bananas you wouldn't want to mix those but you would want to use a single tool. Anything else can be corrected. It is important to easily make corrections and/or credit nota as those seem to happen at the worse time. Usually the same as the invoice but with amounts in the - It is also nice to tie the products into it so that you don't have to type it every time and get consistent naming. Same for an address book.

LeonM 2y ago

Not be negative about bestfreevoice, or any other invoicing tool, but it always seems like developers and early-stage entrepreneurs don't understand invoicing. First major disconnect is that not every country uses invoices, but may use receipts instead. This is true for the USA for example, so many US devs (for example: Stripe in the early days) are not familiar with the concept of invoicing. Technically there is no difference between receipts and invoices, so if you're not familiar with the concept of invoicing, just read this post with /s/invoice/receipt in mind. The point about invoicing is to act as a non-mutable entry into the ledgers of both parties (seller and buyer). In most countries (especially EU) invoices are mandated by law for B2B transactions, and so is keeping accounts (aka bookkeeping). So for invoicing to be practical it needs to be tied to your books/accounts. Because of this, any business will use some bookkeeping/accounting software, which will have invoicing capabilities built-in. Invoicing as a standalone product doesn't make sense if you have to import it all into your ledgers later. Then there is the 'design' trap, which many invoicing startups seem to fall for. Invoices are weird things. They are basically very, very inefficient artefacts from the past. An invoice is just a very little amount of transaction data exchanged between buyer and seller. In the days of physical bookkeeping (actual paper books) paper invoices made sense, but nowadays it is all done digitally. So the invoice is effectively a machine-2-machine interface, but for all sorts of legacy reasons we still wrap them in PDF with a fancy design that looks great for humans, but it effectively impossible for machines to read. There are all sorts of attempts made to improve upon this situation (like OCR, and nowadays AI to extract data from PDF invoices). There are open structured data formats such as UBL to replace / augment PDF invoices, but due to all sorts of politics and lobbying the open standards have been doomed from the beginning. There is a lot of money made in accounting software, and they all rely on vendor lock-in. The major accounting software vendors have very strong incentives to keep us from adopting UBL et al, and most of the established accounting product suck, but you can't easily migrate so you'll be stuck with it. If you run or own a business, treat your books as an asset of your business, a very important asset for that matter. Books are kept in accounting software, which is typically part of a larger software suite which also features tax filing, HRM, asset management, invoicing, etc. In fancy business terms this is often called ERP. But think of ERP as just your central database, or your 'books'. Choosing your accounting software an important decision. Choose accounting software that allows exporting your data (very important!), that has an API (also very important), and preferably a web interface. It should be always available, so on-premise software is out. For entrepreneurs: choose your own accounting software, do not be tempted to hire an external bookkeeper that keeps the books in 'their' systems (accountant lock-in). Don't let an accountant recommend your software either, they get huge kickbacks from the software vendors (vendor lock-in). Every sale—whether this being PoS, invoicing, or a payment integration like Stripe—should automatically registered as a ledger entry in the books, preferably with an invoice document attached. Here you can see why an accountant who keeps your books in their systems won't work, you don't want to be stuck having to periodically send an email (or shoebox) filled with invoices for them to process. Your books should be owned by the business, should be automated (at least for the receivable side), and always be up-to-date. You can then give an(y) accountant access to your books for them to do audits, tax filings, etc. For a business, the books are the central database of the business, everything else revolves around it. Do not be tempted to write your own, instead integrate with existing solutions while avoiding vendor lock-in as much as possible. Integrating your business with the accounting software is an ever-ongoing part of your software development efforts, so not underestimate it. Accepting payments is hard, making sure it is well registered in your books is equally hard. It takes _much_ more time than you'd think (most first-time entrepreneurs actually don't consider it at all). There are no silver bullets here.

Havoc 2y ago

Think you’d need to make it country specific. Some countries have specific requirements around invoices and what needs to be on it

joseda-hg 2y ago
If you could add custom templates, you could let the community add the country specific things
- qwertox 2y ago
  I'm leaving this link here regarding the "EU e-invoicing standard CEN 16931" https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/DIGITAL/Obtaining+a+copy+of+the+European+standard+on+eInvoicing https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/display/D... I don't know how complicated or easy it would be to just create templates which satisfy this. In Germany it's already required for B2B transactions [0] In principle, the following formats will comply with CEN 16931: ZUGFeRD: Hybrid format: Human-readable PDF/A-3 with an embedded XML file in the syntax "Cross-Industry Invoice" (CII) XRechnung: XML file in the syntax "Cross-Industry Invoice" (CII) XRechnung: XML file in the "Universal Business Language" (UBL) syntax [0] https://www.bdo.global/en-gb/insights/tax/indirect-tax/germany-mandatory-e-invoicing-what-you-need-to-know https://www.bdo.global/en-gb/insights/tax/indirect-tax/germa...!
  - raphig 2y ago
    You can use AI to convert your PDF invoice into XRechnung to comply with EN 16931 should that occur, e.g., https://www.invoice-converter.com/en https://www.invoice-converter.com/en

scryers_bloom 2y ago

I really like this, I'll maybe use it once I actually get some clients to respond ;) I tried implementing my own on my own website, but between all my projects and work I keep pushing my own business website backward...