Looks handy. But I miss a field where I can specify payment information, such as bank account #s, paypal info, whatever. So it would probably be nice if I register as a "Business" with all my information and just send an Email to your service which specifies customer name/address + products sold + tax.
I highly recommend adding a privacy policy as soon as possible, so we know (among other things) exactly how you will use the information gathered. Will it be stored? Will you send us marketing emails? Will you sell our data? etc.
Perhaps you could also have a text submit page (form), and then allow people to download the generated pdf? (Allows people to try out anonymously)
Also, generating in some kind of editable format, may be a good idea. For any minor edits I want to do, on the generated invoice, or fix any errors in generation because of its interpretation of the text.
Quick tip: You don't have to specify the "me" section from the second invoice onwards unless it's different. Your previously saved name and address will be used :)
Inbound emails are with the help of the lovely guys at PostMark - http://postmarkapp.com. They have webhooks. That'll post inbound emails as JSON to your app.
Other than that, Rails + Postgresql + Nginx + Redis
Wow I hadn't heard of postmark. That would make processing emails from users really easy!
Now I just need to think of a business idea where I process emails from users. Hmm, how about a service where users can forward emails and it automatically creates an appointment on their calendar?
Quick tip that could be relevant for Indian businesses - Most of the invoice recipients insist on the invoice sent on the letterhead.
While asking for an image/banner to be used as letterhead could be too 'tedious'. How about letting the user attach company logo in the email & you process it as letterhead.
Company logo & name below it on the left, company address on the right. May be - make the background color gray to show it as letterhead.
I disagree. I thought it was a clever idea to ask people what they would pay for the service. It's a simple service, pricing it would be hard unless people tell them how much it's worth to them.
The question isn't. 'What do you think this service is worth?' - the question is 'How much would you be willing to pay for this?'.
The key difference being, I may like to use the service if it was $5 a month, but not if it was $50 a month - on the other hand someone else may do thousands of invoices and be happy to pay $100 a month.
The feedback he'll get will let him guage the size of the market, the prices people will be prepared to pay and allow him to offer a reasonable plan. Without this prior research he could over price or under price the product substantially.
If on the other hand, no one gives him any feed back on how much they'd pay - I'd take that as clear sign that either the market isn't there for people willing to pay for this or he's targeting the wrong market with his marketing.
I had the same thing in mind as PaulJoslin. This app might just sound like a feature. So I thought putting in a number isn't good unless I know the usage and what others have in mind.
Also, I think there might be a typo on your "Guide" page. Did you mean to have "Customer name and address" and "Invoice items" at the end of the "me" and "customer" addresses, respectively?
I was using bootstrap on the site before. I kept tweaking it and realised I had to do a lot of tweaks to get it to a state I need. So I removed it in favour of custom design.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll style up the pricing page soon.
I just sent you an email about this but did you know that the design of your site is almost identical to what I just recently launched (https://writeapp.me - once you register an account and log in you'll definitely know what I mean). Colors, layout, buttons... errily similar. Honestly, definitely not saying you did it on purpose and even if it was on purpose I don't mind. In fact I'd be flattered! I'm just pretty amazed at how 2 different people came up with something so seriously similar.
Edit: I see you just signed up for an account (I get texts when new users sign up) so you probably never saw my design before which makes this even more awesome. By the way, I'm really diggin' CreateMyInvoice. Awesome work.
I don't think this would be useful. Ive used QuickBooks in the past but switched to Freshbooks about a year and a half ago. This seems too simplistic whereas Freshbooks is just simple.
I like the general idea of making email a human api for web services.
Email based invoice generation service, markdown renderers, tweet/blog from email, post to forum etc. seem to fit into this category. Services like event/reservation booking can also be used from email if the service has a forgiving parser (like WolframAlpha) for the human input.
I agree. We've been thinking about email as an interface for a while now. It's the most accessible interface. And every once in a while there's a discussion on HN about this. So I guess this acts as proof of concept.
Invoices aren't a uniform bunch. Its general format changes very much based on the industry and location.
The two options would be to either target a niche audience initially and grow from there, or focus on building a general purpose solution that can cater to a dynamic range of requirements. The second option might not be particularly wise in the early stages.
Feedback: The pdf looks nice! I worry about parsers not getting things right
(and, er, me not getting things right for the parser, typos, mistakes etc.), so this scares me a little. Plus, the "5 invoices" is also "5 attempts", discouraging trial-and-error to get it right. It would be great if you could somehow address the developer problem, of asking for money, by closing the gap even more. It does help already, great if it could help more - that is, focus on what will help someone accomplish their task, not on the actual code or product, what it does, how it does it. Just changing the process or steps might help; or changing the copy on the website (the way it's presented).
e.g. If it formed a buffer between you and the customer (like a secretary), so you just state the straightforward, factual information (no stress!), as if talking to a friendly ally (who is on your side!), and then it takes care of the rest of it - including sending it. But if you went that route, there needs to be a way to check it. Sending incorrect invoices is also scary!
EDIT I don't mean the parser fails to parse in a technical sense, I mean it didn't do what you wanted/expected. It's pretty common (think: regex problems).
EDIT2 I was thinking that a markdown-like syntax might work well, because more familiar - but then I remembered that I often test my markdown to check it does what I think. Same issue.
Thanks for the feedback. That was very useful insight.
5 invoices is not 5 attempts (parser errors not counted). It's 5 successfully created invoices, unless you make typos in the name, address, etc, then that's counted too. I'll have to make that clear on the pricing page.
If typos and other accidental errors end up being a problem, you could use a different email for proofing or demos. The proofing email wouldn't count against the 5 invoices, and would include a prominent watermark or something. Just a thought.
I wanted to chime in here to backup `flyingyeti's` point. If you slap a giant watermark on it (doesn't count as a hit against the free 5), then it encourages experimentation and interaction with the platform. I'd think you'd want this, as your users will likely discover errors, problems, and output that doesn't meet their expectations.
Yea, I agree that making a solution to bridge the gap would be useful. Oooh! Great idea: if you took the data and automatically created a webpage that the person receiving the invoice could go to to pay the person for the amount, etc. and then put the link in the invoice would really help the seller get his money and it would be easier for the buyer to pay! win-win!
My mother-in-law would love this.
Is there a way, she could get a pre-filled email each time that she could just edit and then send off?
She sends just a few invoices at the end of each month, but each month she has to be reminded what to do.
Your project is much simpler, so hopefully she'll find it easier to remember what to do.
68 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 153 ms ] threadThanks for the feedback.
Thanks for your 2 cents and more :)
Other than that, looks great - very simple.
I hate marketing emails myself. Your emails will not be sold or used for marketing purposes. I'm on your side.
Thanks for the feedback.
Also, generating in some kind of editable format, may be a good idea. For any minor edits I want to do, on the generated invoice, or fix any errors in generation because of its interpretation of the text.
I've tried to keep everything thing as simple as possible for now.
Thanks for the feedback.
Other than that, Rails + Postgresql + Nginx + Redis
Now I just need to think of a business idea where I process emails from users. Hmm, how about a service where users can forward emails and it automatically creates an appointment on their calendar?
While asking for an image/banner to be used as letterhead could be too 'tedious'. How about letting the user attach company logo in the email & you process it as letterhead.
Company logo & name below it on the left, company address on the right. May be - make the background color gray to show it as letterhead.
Attaching an image was in the next iteration. I skipped it because I was about to lose motivation and just wanted to ship something.
Will these in.
The question isn't. 'What do you think this service is worth?' - the question is 'How much would you be willing to pay for this?'.
The key difference being, I may like to use the service if it was $5 a month, but not if it was $50 a month - on the other hand someone else may do thousands of invoices and be happy to pay $100 a month.
The feedback he'll get will let him guage the size of the market, the prices people will be prepared to pay and allow him to offer a reasonable plan. Without this prior research he could over price or under price the product substantially.
If on the other hand, no one gives him any feed back on how much they'd pay - I'd take that as clear sign that either the market isn't there for people willing to pay for this or he's targeting the wrong market with his marketing.
I had the same thing in mind as PaulJoslin. This app might just sound like a feature. So I thought putting in a number isn't good unless I know the usage and what others have in mind.
Thanks for the feedback czzarr and PaulJoslin
1) the ability to set some kind of reference/invoice ID
2) the ability to set (grey/faint) footer text for legal bumpf (company number, VAT registration number, legal name etc etc)
A lot of people seems to be asking for #2. I too was thinking Invoice ID will be useful.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll style up the pricing page soon.
Edit: I see you just signed up for an account (I get texts when new users sign up) so you probably never saw my design before which makes this even more awesome. By the way, I'm really diggin' CreateMyInvoice. Awesome work.
Bill and me sorted this over email. The similarity in design was a co-incidence because the design is very simple.
:)
Incase you don't specify a "me" section, the details from the previous invoice will be used. You can try it out right now.
Thanks for chipping in :)
Thanks for the feedback.
Email based invoice generation service, markdown renderers, tweet/blog from email, post to forum etc. seem to fit into this category. Services like event/reservation booking can also be used from email if the service has a forgiving parser (like WolframAlpha) for the human input.
Excellent way to figure out how much to charge.
The two options would be to either target a niche audience initially and grow from there, or focus on building a general purpose solution that can cater to a dynamic range of requirements. The second option might not be particularly wise in the early stages.
Agree that there's a lot of competition for general purpose market.
> please let us know what amount you would like to pay every month. http://createmyinvoice.com/pricing
Feedback: The pdf looks nice! I worry about parsers not getting things right (and, er, me not getting things right for the parser, typos, mistakes etc.), so this scares me a little. Plus, the "5 invoices" is also "5 attempts", discouraging trial-and-error to get it right. It would be great if you could somehow address the developer problem, of asking for money, by closing the gap even more. It does help already, great if it could help more - that is, focus on what will help someone accomplish their task, not on the actual code or product, what it does, how it does it. Just changing the process or steps might help; or changing the copy on the website (the way it's presented).
e.g. If it formed a buffer between you and the customer (like a secretary), so you just state the straightforward, factual information (no stress!), as if talking to a friendly ally (who is on your side!), and then it takes care of the rest of it - including sending it. But if you went that route, there needs to be a way to check it. Sending incorrect invoices is also scary!
EDIT I don't mean the parser fails to parse in a technical sense, I mean it didn't do what you wanted/expected. It's pretty common (think: regex problems).
EDIT2 I was thinking that a markdown-like syntax might work well, because more familiar - but then I remembered that I often test my markdown to check it does what I think. Same issue.
5 invoices is not 5 attempts (parser errors not counted). It's 5 successfully created invoices, unless you make typos in the name, address, etc, then that's counted too. I'll have to make that clear on the pricing page.
She sends just a few invoices at the end of each month, but each month she has to be reminded what to do. Your project is much simpler, so hopefully she'll find it easier to remember what to do.
Someone else also told me the same thing about being able to receive a pre-filled email and sending it back. I'll look into this one.
Thanks for the feedback.