Seeking invoice generator

March 20, 2007 11:04 AM

I would like to generate a couple of thousand invoices per week, using a data file with either fixed-width or tab-delimited fields.

The output should preferably be PDF. Is there a standard program out there, that will run on a PC, that would allow me to create a format for the invoice, with logo heading, etc., defining exactly where all the fields in the input file should go on the page (and possibly doing some calculation in the process, like generating a due date from a transaction date) -- and then let me run through the input file and create all the invoices? Similar to an MSWord MailMerge, but with PDF output. The program should generate USPS bar codes for ZIP+4 addresses. I'm looking for a somewhat non-standard invoice format, so some flexibility in the output design would be a good thing. In the end there should also be a function to print all generated invoices (ideally in ZIP-code order even if the input file is not). I do not need any other financial functions like accounts receivable management as part of this.

posted by beagle to technology (5 comments total)

DOC1 does this: my employers use it to create PDF and AFP invoices. ISIS-Papyrus is another application suite that covers this area.
posted by misteraitch at 11:44 AM on March 20, 2007

Microsoft Access would do the trick. You can create and format a report in Access however you would like. In the report you can actually perform calculations as well. To do everything else that you are describing you would need to create some queries and macros.

This is a big project with Access, though.
posted by mjger at 11:47 AM on March 20, 2007

I know you're not a programmer, but if you have any friends proficient in Perl, my online store uses the PDF-Reuse module to generate nice-looking receipts automatically.

A good Perl programmer could use the same module (available from CPAN) and write a program to do what you want to do in a few hours. Not a "standard program", but definitely low-cost.
posted by arrhn at 12:47 PM on March 20, 2007

Like arrhn said, this should be fairly easy to do with perl or php and one of the available pdf modules available for this languages. If you need help with this, feel free to let me know.
posted by lodev at 3:34 AM on March 21, 2007

Docucorp produces software that does this. It's more big-budget oriented (e.g. licensing), but they also have an application service provider (ASP) based model that is pretty simple to get up and running.
posted by ca_little at 10:51 PM on March 21, 2007