Ruby on Rails Invoicing Solutions Comparison (UPDATED)

To present every solution as objectively as possible I’ll use the same set of criteria and score them from one to five points in each category:

• Ease of use: how easy it is to use and implement the solution
• Maintenance: if the solution is still maintained by its creators (based on the date of the last commit)
• Comprehensiveness: how complex and universal the solution is
• Usability: how many useful functions it offers

For the solutions available on GitHub I’ll also take a look at two other important things:

• Stars: how popular it is based on Github stars (let’s assume for the sake of this review that 250 stars is a very good result)
• 200-250 stars = 5 points
• 150-199 stars = 4 points
• 100-149 stars = 3 points
• 50-99 stars = 2 points
• 0 - 49 stars = 1 point.
• Open issues: how many issues (bugs or missing functionalities) have been reported and have not yet been resolved (the bigger the number the lower the score)
• 0-1 issue = 5 points
• 2-4 issues = 4 points
• 5-7 issues = 3 points
• 8-9 issues = 2 points
• 10 issues and more = 1 point.

code-mancers/invoicing

Github

Website

The gem named “invoicing” will probably be the first thing you will encounter when searching for invoicing solutions for your Rails service.

It offers a wide range of functionalities. Here are only some of them (taken from the official documentation):

• Representing customer and supplier accounts, as well as multi-party billing relationships;
• Automatically rounding currency values to the customary precision for that currency, e.g. based on the smallest coin in circulation;
• Supporting any number of different currencies simultaneously;
• Rendering invoices, account statements etc. into a fully customizable HTML document;
• Providing default Value Added Tax (VAT) implementation and the ability to plug in your own tax logic;
• Summarising account balances, sales statements, etc. under chosen conditions (e.g. data from one quarter, or payments due at a particular date).

Sounds good doesn’t it? Let’s add very easy installation and initialisation, many useful features and well-written guides, and we may end up with the perfect solution at the very beginning of our little investigation. Unfortunately, things start to get a bit disappointing when you check the date of the last commit and see “3 years ago”. What a shame!

siwapp/siwapp

Github

Website

This piece of code isn’t a gem. Instead, it’s an out-of-the-box solution for invoice management based on Rails.

It’s described as “an open source web application meant to help manage and create invoices in a simple, straightforward way”. It's still being maintained (the last commits were 18 days ago) and offers a basic range of useful functionalities e.g. drafting, printing, as well as managing customers and products. It also comes with a nice plain layout and seems to be very easy to use.

Even if you don’t need a separate solution you can still find some inspiration in siwapp on how to improve your own approach to invoicing within your app.

ianmurrays/active_invoices

Github

Another out-of-the-box solution for invoicing created in Rails is: active_invoices.

Its name comes from the gem it’s based on, called active_admin, which provides a basic administration panel. The author describes it as a “very simple invoicing application”, and these words are the most accurate review it could receive.

But simplicity doesn’t always come hand in hand with usefulness- especially that it hasn’t been maintained since the end of 2012 (maybe due the end of the world being in that year- which was real in some cases after all!)

External API

When none of the 'out-of-the-box' solutions to our invoicing problem fit your needs it’s good to consider some other options.

There are plenty of tools and applications meant to help with creating and managing invoices, many of them offering their own APIs. This usually offers more possibilities and functionalities, but on the other hand, implementing a complete solution is much more time consuming. It’s definitely sensible to consider such an option if we need a complex solution or just want to have everything under absolute control.

In exchange for higher implementation costs you will receive a custom high-quality solution adjusted to your needs.

Here are some online invoicing and accounting providers who offer nice, rich APIs- the scores reflect how these types of solutions compare:

• Xero
• Freshbooks
• Zoho

Should you decide to explore Freshbooks here is a quick rundown on some of the features and functionalities you can expect but if you want to take a closer look (and at some other options) there are plenty on the market for you to consider.

Custom implementation

In case none of the presented solutions fit your needs (or maybe they offer too many functionalities that you don’t need), you can still have a tailor-made invoicing system built for your app.

It’s can also be time-consuming but it’s definitely worth a try – especially if you don’t need complex calculations and features, only simple invoice generation based on a users’ orders.

In our article “How to do basic invoicing for your Ruby on Rails application”, you can learn how to use gems which we mentioned at the start of this article- or, simply contact Netguru to build this for you.

What ranks best?

1. Custom implementation (Total: 4/5) & External API (4/5)
2. siwapp/siwapp (Total: 3.5/5)
3. code-mancers/invoicing (Total: 3/5)
4. ianmurrays/active_invoices (Total: 2.5/5)

Summary

To cut a long story short - Ruby on Rails offers many solutions and can certainly take care of your invoicing requirements.

There are some great examples out there such as the application inFakt- a very complex and useful invoicing tool based on Ruby on Rails.

Even if certain popular gems are no longer maintained you can still find something to suit you and having a custom implementation built can save a lot of time and uncertainty in the long run.