[ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Peter Jones]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 731 bytes --]

All,

I thought I'd share some elisp that I'm using in conjunction with
org-mode for helping me prepare invoices.

The attached file is useful for producing an org mode dblock that groups
headings by date and calculates billing information based on your hourly
rate.  It also has a clean API for other elisp packages to use.

I currently have another elisp file that submits the invoice data to my
private invoicing system, and I'm working on another that submits to
FreshBooks (a web-based accounting package that one of my clients uses).

At some point in the future, if there's enough interest I'll post this
to Worg with a tutorial.

To those org-mode users in the US that are celebrating Thanksgiving,
have a Happy Holidays!


[-- Attachment #2: org-invoice.el --]
[-- Type: application/emacs-lisp, Size: 16297 bytes --]

[-- Attachment #3: Type: text/plain, Size: 65 bytes --]


-- 
Peter Jones, http://pmade.com
pmade inc.  Louisville, CO US

[-- Attachment #4: Type: text/plain, Size: 204 bytes --]

_______________________________________________
Emacs-orgmode mailing list
Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode

Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Oliver Charles]

Wow, great work - this looks really useful! I'm gonna have a play now :)

Thanks for posting!
- Ollie

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 6:01 PM, Peter Jones <mlists@pmade.com> wrote:
> All,
>
> I thought I'd share some elisp that I'm using in conjunction with
> org-mode for helping me prepare invoices.
>
> The attached file is useful for producing an org mode dblock that groups
> headings by date and calculates billing information based on your hourly
> rate.  It also has a clean API for other elisp packages to use.
>
> I currently have another elisp file that submits the invoice data to my
> private invoicing system, and I'm working on another that submits to
> FreshBooks (a web-based accounting package that one of my clients uses).
>
> At some point in the future, if there's enough interest I'll post this
> to Worg with a tutorial.
>
> To those org-mode users in the US that are celebrating Thanksgiving,
> have a Happy Holidays!
>
>
> --
> Peter Jones, http://pmade.com
> pmade inc.  Louisville, CO US
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
>
>

Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Mark A. Hershberger]

Peter Jones <mlists@pmade.com> writes:

> I thought I'd share some elisp that I'm using in conjunction with
> org-mode for helping me prepare invoices.

Very nice.  I was looking for something like this.

Now, if I can just figure out how to integrate invoicing and ledger....

Mark.

Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Peter Jones]

mah@everybody.org (Mark A. Hershberger) writes:
> Now, if I can just figure out how to integrate invoicing and ledger....

Is ledger an application, or some additional org functionality you want?

-- 
Peter Jones, http://pmade.com
pmade inc.  Louisville, CO US

Re: Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Tim O'Callaghan]

I think he means:

http://www.newartisans.com/software/ledger.html

Tim.

2008/12/6 Peter Jones <mlists@pmade.com>:
> mah@everybody.org (Mark A. Hershberger) writes:
>> Now, if I can just figure out how to integrate invoicing and ledger....
>
> Is ledger an application, or some additional org functionality you want?
>
> --
> Peter Jones, http://pmade.com
> pmade inc.  Louisville, CO US
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
>

Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Mark A. Hershberger]

Peter Jones <mlists@pmade.com> writes:

> mah@everybody.org (Mark A. Hershberger) writes:
>> Now, if I can just figure out how to integrate invoicing and ledger....
>
> Is ledger an application, or some additional org functionality you want?

http://www.newartisans.com/software/ledger.html (Thanks, Tim, for the
link.)

A new tax year is starting up and I'm looking at how I do accounting
again — along with all the regrets about the past being less than
perfect.

Adapting my usage of Org for invoicing to work with org-invoice would
help a lot.  Integrating it with ledger would help that much more.

Mark.

Org and Ledger (was: Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0)

[Carsten Dominik]

Hi Mark,

John Wiegley also asked me recently if there would be a path for  
intergating
Org with ledger in some way, because apparently this has been brought  
up on the ledger mailing list.  I have never used ledger, and so I  
have no picture in my head of what would be useful.  Maybe we should  
have a discussion of ideas here?

- Carsten

On Dec 7, 2008, at 9:23 PM, Mark A. Hershberger wrote:

> Peter Jones <mlists@pmade.com> writes:
>
>> mah@everybody.org (Mark A. Hershberger) writes:
>>> Now, if I can just figure out how to integrate invoicing and  
>>> ledger....
>>
>> Is ledger an application, or some additional org functionality you  
>> want?
>
> http://www.newartisans.com/software/ledger.html (Thanks, Tim, for the
> link.)
>
> A new tax year is starting up and I'm looking at how I do accounting
> again — along with all the regrets about the past being less than
> perfect.
>
> Adapting my usage of Org for invoicing to work with org-invoice would
> help a lot.  Integrating it with ledger would help that much more.
>
> Mark.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode

Re: Org and Ledger (was: Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0)

[Russell Adams]

On Sun, Dec 07, 2008 at 11:25:32PM +0100, Carsten Dominik wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> John Wiegley also asked me recently if there would be a path for  
> intergating
> Org with ledger in some way, because apparently this has been brought up 
> on the ledger mailing list.  I have never used ledger, and so I have no 
> picture in my head of what would be useful.  Maybe we should have a 
> discussion of ideas here?
>
> - Carsten

Ledger rocks as a double entry accounting tool. I've been using it for
some basic accounting, expense reports, and more with latex & perl. I
even wrote a CSV importer (CSV2Ledger) that provides much of the
functionality I felt was missing from importers in other packages (ie:
Gnucash).

On the flip side, Ledger is exactly that, a double entry accounting
tool. Not more, or less. I'm faced with needing the ability to
integrate it into some business workflows (ie: expense reporting,
invoicing cycles, tax reporting, etc) which I'll have to write all of
the logic myself. I can use Ledger for the data, but I have to code
the workflows I require.

I've been struggling with this for several months, because I want to
avoid solutions like Quickbooks that provide a workflow coupled to an
accounting backend with proprietary formats in that other OS. I'm
certainly open to suggestions.

Thanks.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Russell Adams                            RLAdams@AdamsInfoServ.com

PGP Key ID:     0x1160DCB3           http://www.adamsinfoserv.com/

Fingerprint:    1723 D8CA 4280 1EC9 557F  66E8 1154 E018 1160 DCB3

Re: Org and Ledger

[Mark A. Hershberger]

Carsten Dominik <dominik@science.uva.nl> writes:

> I have never used ledger, and so I have no picture in my head of
> what would be useful.  Maybe we should have a discussion of ideas
> here?

I think Russell Adams gives a hint at the problem:

> I'm faced with needing the ability to integrate it into some business
> workflows (ie: expense reporting, invoicing cycles, tax reporting,
> etc) which I'll have to write all of the logic myself. I can use
> Ledger for the data, but I have to code the workflows I require.

With the introduction of org-invoice, I can begin to see my way through
this muddled mess.

Ideally, when I generate an invoice, I could verify that all was correct
and invoke some sort of “send-to-client” function that would make an
entry in ledger's “Accounts Receivable” as well as emailing the invoice
to the client (or updating FreshBooks, or what have you).

Another idea is budgeting: Org and its tables seems like natural fit
for this.  If I could easily tie org to ledger accounts, maybe I could
see when I'm spending more than is budgeted.

Or if I keep track of a “TO BUY” list in org and need to save money for
some big ticket item, maybe I could have Org query ledger to see how
much money I have saved.

Pie-in-the-sky ideas, and my use of ledger as-yet is non-existent, but
this would really help.

Mark.

Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Oliver Charles]

Hi Peter,

I tried emailing you about this when it was first released, but I
didn't have any reply, so I'll try again (please forgive my rudeness
if I'm being ignored on purpose! ;)

've just been having a play - and not
having much luck getting any output. I use org-mode with odd-levels on
by default.

I've tried setting `org-invoice-default-level' to 3, but that doesn't
seem to change the situtation. I've tried these invoices:

With `org-invoice-default-level' set to *2*:

* Invoices
** An Invoice Header
*** [2008-11-25 Tue] An Invoice Item
   :PROPERTIES:
   :WORK:     0:10
   :CLOCKSUM: 0:10
   :END:

#+BEGIN: invoice
| Task / Date | Time | Price |
|-------------+------+-------|
| Total:      | 0:00 |  0.00 |
#+END:

Any idea what I'm missing? If I can get this working with the default
org-mode setup, I can then start fiddling and changing this to suit my
setup (invoices start at level 3, etc)

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 6:01 PM, Peter Jones <mlists@pmade.com> wrote:
> At some point in the future, if there's enough interest I'll post this
> to Worg with a tutorial.

Please do, this would be much appreciated!

-Ollie

Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Peter Jones]

"Oliver Charles" <oliver.g.charles@googlemail.com> writes:
> I tried emailing you about this when it was first released, but I
> didn't have any reply, so I'll try again (please forgive my rudeness
> if I'm being ignored on purpose! ;)

Oliver, I'm not ignoring you, your email must have found its way to my
spam folder.  Sorry about that!

> 've just been having a play - and not
> having much luck getting any output. I use org-mode with odd-levels on
> by default.
>
> I've tried setting `org-invoice-default-level' to 3, but that doesn't
> seem to change the situtation. I've tried these invoices:
>
> With `org-invoice-default-level' set to *2*:
>
> * Invoices
> ** An Invoice Header
> *** [2008-11-25 Tue] An Invoice Item
>    :PROPERTIES:
>    :WORK:     0:10
>    :CLOCKSUM: 0:10
>    :END:
>
> #+BEGIN: invoice
> | Task / Date | Time | Price |
> |-------------+------+-------|
> | Total:      | 0:00 |  0.00 |
> #+END:
>
> Any idea what I'm missing? If I can get this working with the default
> org-mode setup, I can then start fiddling and changing this to suit my
> setup (invoices start at level 3, etc)

Since you are using odd levels, set org-invoice-default-level to 2, and
use a structure like this:

* Invoices
*** An Invoice Header
***** [2008-11-25 Tue] An Invoice Item
   :PROPERTIES:
   :WORK:     0:10
   :CLOCKSUM: 0:10
   :END:

#+BEGIN: invoice
| Task / Date | Time | Price |
|-------------+------+-------|
| Total:      | 0:00 |  0.00 |
#+END:

This is based on what I know about org-odd-levels-only, which isn't
much.  org-invoice should correctly move up to the 3-star heading if you
set org-invoice-default-level to 2.

-- 
Peter Jones, http://pmade.com
pmade inc.  Louisville, CO US

Re: Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Oliver Charles]

Excellent! Thank you very much, I wonder how I missed that :) Seems
like a great package, I'll try and give it some more extensive testing
later

On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 4:23 AM, Peter Jones <mlists@pmade.com> wrote:
> "Oliver Charles" <oliver.g.charles@googlemail.com> writes:
>> I tried emailing you about this when it was first released, but I
>> didn't have any reply, so I'll try again (please forgive my rudeness
>> if I'm being ignored on purpose! ;)
>
> Oliver, I'm not ignoring you, your email must have found its way to my
> spam folder.  Sorry about that!
>
>> 've just been having a play - and not
>> having much luck getting any output. I use org-mode with odd-levels on
>> by default.
>>
>> I've tried setting `org-invoice-default-level' to 3, but that doesn't
>> seem to change the situtation. I've tried these invoices:
>>
>> With `org-invoice-default-level' set to *2*:
>>
>> * Invoices
>> ** An Invoice Header
>> *** [2008-11-25 Tue] An Invoice Item
>>    :PROPERTIES:
>>    :WORK:     0:10
>>    :CLOCKSUM: 0:10
>>    :END:
>>
>> #+BEGIN: invoice
>> | Task / Date | Time | Price |
>> |-------------+------+-------|
>> | Total:      | 0:00 |  0.00 |
>> #+END:
>>
>> Any idea what I'm missing? If I can get this working with the default
>> org-mode setup, I can then start fiddling and changing this to suit my
>> setup (invoices start at level 3, etc)
>
> Since you are using odd levels, set org-invoice-default-level to 2, and
> use a structure like this:
>
> * Invoices
> *** An Invoice Header
> ***** [2008-11-25 Tue] An Invoice Item
>   :PROPERTIES:
>   :WORK:     0:10
>   :CLOCKSUM: 0:10
>   :END:
>
> #+BEGIN: invoice
> | Task / Date | Time | Price |
> |-------------+------+-------|
> | Total:      | 0:00 |  0.00 |
> #+END:
>
> This is based on what I know about org-odd-levels-only, which isn't
> much.  org-invoice should correctly move up to the 3-star heading if you
> set org-invoice-default-level to 2.
>
> --
> Peter Jones, http://pmade.com
> pmade inc.  Louisville, CO US
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
>

Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Ulf Stegemann]

Hi Peter,

Peter Jones <mlists@pmade.com> wrote:

> I thought I'd share some elisp that I'm using in conjunction with
> org-mode for helping me prepare invoices.
>
> The attached file is useful for producing an org mode dblock that groups
> headings by date and calculates billing information based on your hourly
> rate.  It also has a clean API for other elisp packages to use.

yesterday, I had the time to have a quick look at org-invoice. It
already looks very interesting. Thank you for sharing this.

If you plan to expand your package I'd have suggestions for it:
Currently, times are always given as hours and rates as hourly rates. 
This is fine for a collection of smaller tasks. For projects it's much
more common to use person days, -weeks or -months. So it would be nice
if one could choose between these calculation schemes (or if the best
scheme would be chosen automatically). NB that it's quite common that a
person day is not hourly rate times eight, so different rates would be
necessary, too. And while we are at it, a column that indicates the rate
used would be fine.

Another nice feature would be to have invoice items with a fixed price,
i.e. where the price is not calculated based on work or clock time.
Imagine e.g. hardware sold along with IT services or things like that.

Those things are rather ideas than feature requests but nevertheless, I
thought I'll let you know as I think org-invoice has quite a good
potential, e.g. I can imagine that it's not only handy for actual
invoices but also for project planning, cost estimates, bids and all
other things where a cost component is involved.

Ulf

Re: [ANN] Org Invoice 1.0.0

[Peter Jones]

Ulf Stegemann <ulf-news@zeitform.de> writes:
> If you plan to expand your package I'd have suggestions for it:
> Currently, times are always given as hours and rates as hourly rates. 
> This is fine for a collection of smaller tasks. For projects it's much
> more common to use person days, -weeks or -months. So it would be nice
> if one could choose between these calculation schemes (or if the best
> scheme would be chosen automatically). NB that it's quite common that a
> person day is not hourly rate times eight, so different rates would be
> necessary, too. And while we are at it, a column that indicates the rate
> used would be fine.
>
> Another nice feature would be to have invoice items with a fixed price,
> i.e. where the price is not calculated based on work or clock time.
> Imagine e.g. hardware sold along with IT services or things like that.
>
> Those things are rather ideas than feature requests but nevertheless, I
> thought I'll let you know as I think org-invoice has quite a good
> potential, e.g. I can imagine that it's not only handy for actual
> invoices but also for project planning, cost estimates, bids and all
> other things where a cost component is involved.

Great ideas Ulf, thanks.  I've started a TODO file for org-invoice
(using Org of course).  I'll probably be adding new features to it after
the new year.

-- 
Peter Jones, http://pmade.com
pmade inc.  Louisville, CO US