Automatically generate PDF invoices for customers – need something faster!

Hi Zenners,

Every time an order as completed at the moment I click go to Customers > Orders then I select the order, and display the invoice.
Then I got to File > Print and save the invoice as a PDF file.
When I save as PDF the default file name is always oID=1000
(e.g. when order number is 1000)
I change it manually every time to “Invoice 1000 – Customer Name”
For starters is there any way to make it automatically do this?

Then I go to my gmail account and email the customer with the PDF invoice as an attachment. I then change the status to delivered.

Doing this individually is taking considerable time and effort and I am falling behind. Is there a faster way to do this?

I installed PDF order centre but this does not seem to help at all. The INVOICES generated by that have a horrible made up logo and come up messed up, nothing like the invoices from my orders.php page, can I change this to simply be a file > Print (PDF) of my invoices.php page as I have modified it a bit? Also if I select to do 100 invoices at once using PDF order centre it saves them ALL TOGETHER as a 100 page PDF file which is not much help at all. Ideally I would like them saved as “Invoice 001 – John Smith.pdf”, “Invoice 002 – Jane Citizen.pdf” etc.

What is the best way to get all these invoices out as fast as possible?

Even does someone know how I can batch convert multiple order invoices or webpages at once to PDF? I try entering the invoice URLs into FLASHGET but it cannot seem to download the page. Is there some program where I can enter a list of URLs and have all of them saved as HTML, or better still all of them saved as PDF? And then a program which can batch convert HTML to PDF?

P.S. On an aside, my logo when you print the HTML page comes great (it is blue writing on a white background), however once you PDF this and then try to print the white background now prints off white colour and looks very tacky, although the PDF looks fine on the screen? I gather this is because when converting to PDF it must be saving that logo as a low quality jpg, but even using maximum settings it does this? Please help because I want customers to be able to print my invoices on white paper and have them look professional, not with a big off-white rectangle around the logo!

I am interested in this answer also.

Thanks!

im also interested if anyone knows the answer to this

Hi Guys!

Looks like there is a lot of interest in this!

c'mon does anyone know how, please contact me this is something I need urgently.

As I said at the moment I have to load each page:
admin/invoice.php?oID=1000
Then File > Print > PDF then attach to email

Ideally is there any way when I change the order status to "Delivered" I can tick a checkbox "attach PDF invoice" and it will attach to the email it sends the customers a PDF of the invoice page e.g. admin/invoice.php?oID=1000

??

Hi Zenners,

sending a customer a PDF invoice seems the most basic and fundamental functions of any online store I can't believe there isn't a way to do it automatically with zen cart?

can someone help pls!

Even if I have to do them one at a time if I can at least change order status to "Delivered" and tick a box maybe to include the PDF invoice with that email that would really help

even if someone could do this commercially pls get in touch

Hi Zenners,

There is alot of interest in this can someone in the know please reply!

I do not understand - how are Zen-Cart owners meant to send out invoices? What is the norm that everyone else is doing? Just about every customer especially business customers demand invoices promptly for tax etc, is everyone else really doing what I am doing and making PDFs of the invoices manually to email out or what?

I see in the order confirmation email there is a link to view an invoice but that is not acceptable as there it does not state our business address, ABN etc. Printing out the order confirmation email is similarly also not acceptable, the customers really need the invoice.php as a PDF emailed to them

Please reply?? I am confused?? am I missing something?? I am wasting my life sitting and manually clicking on each order, view invoice, print to PDF then email manually to customer, I am falling behind and customers are getting irate, calling and demanding invoices on time!
HELP!!

Hey all,

Although it's aparently no longer supported in English, there's 'PDF Order Center' available in the downloads pages - I've just this moment installed it, and I now have very nice pdf invoices!!

It's at: http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&cPath=40_41&products_id=112

Good luck!

Hi Lina,

Thanks for the tip but as mentioned I already tried PDF order centre and unless I am missing something that could not email each customer their PDF invoice, or even create PDF invoices for customers?

I got horrible looking invoices with weird graphics that look nothing like invoice.php, also when doing multiple orders at once it just made the one PDF file with 100 pages

I am really behind on this guys would appreciate help, surely a PDF invoice can just be sent to the customer automatically just like an order confirmation? Even if I can send it when I change status of order to delivered that would be OK

atm ploughly through manually creating and emailing PDF invoices

all customers need invoices?? what is everyone else doing??

Hi Zenners,

I really MUST send out customers proper invoices - currently I email PDFs of admin/invoice.php BUT if a link or HTML invoice can do the job and save time that's great, I am looking for the most efficient solution to my problem.

I realise Order Confirmation Emails have a link to a DETAILED INVOICE that a customer can click, login and view. The only thing is that invoice is not acceptable as it has the webstore header images, sideboxes, and all the website graphics and No business address or ABN business number. The detailed invoice link is not acceptable for printing out or tax purposes. I really need to send them a link which links to the invoice.php page like in the admin, these guys on the forum want the same thing:

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20592&highlight=detailed+invoice

The invoice the customer needs is this one:
admin/invoice.php?oID=XXXX

Either a link to that, a HTML save of it or a PDF print of it would be fine! PDF has the advantage of always printing properly on one page without adding header and footer text, and the customer cannot edit and change things like they can with html.
(we use warehouses and dropshippers so physically printing out and including the invoice in the pack is not possible, printing out every single invoice and phyically posting it is equally impractical, that is why it is vital to supply the customer a soft copy of their invoice)

PDF order centre is no help for what I need I think? unless I am using it wrong, the invoice is all messed up. Also if you do 100 at once it saves them all together as 100 pages of just the ONE big PDF file. Also it does not email these as attachments to customers.

Anyone? Also I can pay a small amount to do this commercially even so feel fre to PM me

???

All you need to do is: invoice - print - Adobe PDF, if you have Acrobat

Send pdf files to customers? Actually lots of sites such amazon.com simply let you check and print the invoice directly from your account.

I rarely see any store sends out pdf invoice.

Hi francocauter
Yes I know you just Print and make a PDF of the invoice but you have to do then do that manually thousands of times for all the orders ... which is why we are falling behind, customers end up just calling and emailing for invoices which creates more work, wish the cart could just email them the PDF or even a LINK when they order?

yellow1912, Actually yes letting them download the invoice directly from their account would be great, (also being able to email them a link to this in their order confirmation would help) basically I don't want it to require manual work every single order, as it currently does .

anyway any zenners out there!

Look this is really URGENT for us

If someone can help us automate this please send me a PM or email me dave 'at' apeshop.com, even being able to send them links to a decent ABN invoice in HTML format would help! (current one unsatisfactory, must be like admin/invoice.php as explained above)

cheers

Have you tried PDF center.

Allows you to select all orders, by various criteria, create and print PDF invoices/ship docs, labels etc.... Also changes status of all orders and more.

Excellent contribution.

re
andy

Hi,
I so emplathise with what you are going though. I have to email out about 300 invocies monthly for our office tenants, and am going thouh the same issues as what you are facing. I have come up with the following solution: I have downloaded a program called workspace macro, which effectively "records" my keystrokes, and then just just repeats them over and over again. Then, I import the 300 odd invoices into my accounting pacakge, aftwewhich I run the macro overnight, which pdf's each individualy invoice, (ie. file, print, pdf), and saves it as the repective invocie number which is the file name.

Hope this makes sense.

However, I cannot work out how to automate the emailing out of th individual invoces...so i do this manually.

Let me know how this gets on for you.

I used this package before when creating PDF invoices for a client, I never used it with Zen cart but I may well look into it.
See: tallapplications.com

Basically you can send an XML file to the package, it will create an invoice from a template of your own design from the fields you supply in XML. You can then choose to Print, save or email the PDF docuemrnt.

The package is designed to run automaicatlly in the background or as a service. The template you create is saved as a project. The PDF creater can be excuted from the command line and you can specify the project. The project can do all the actions relating to the project automatically in the packground.

It maybe a little expensive for your budget, but with 300 invoices it would pay for itself, you can also ask the guys at tallapps if it has ever been used with zen cart or there maybe alternatives out there on the market..

Just a thought.