Recipe: invoice

Goal: your billing service generates a branded PDF invoice for every order, while the layout stays editable by anyone in the editor.

You’ll use: text boxes, a header band, a logo, required and optional variables, the export API.

1. Design the template

1. Create a template named Invoice. Its title becomes the PDF file name (Invoice.pdf).

2. Header band — draw a rectangle across the top of the page (about 1920 × 180), fill it with your brand color, stroke width 0, then Send to back.

3. Logo — click the image tool and upload your logo as PNG; move it onto the band.

4. Title — a text box with INVOICE in Courier Prime or Anton, 64 px, white, on the band.

5. Variables — create the following, inserting each one in a text box next to its label:

   Variable	Required	Default
   invoiceNumber	✅
   issueDate	✅
   customerName	✅
   customerAddress
   description	✅
   amount	✅
   vat		0.00
   total	✅
   paymentTerms		Payment due within 30 days.

6. Separators — thin rectangles (height 2) make clean lines between sections.

Click Imprime and fill in the form to check the result. Once it looks right, note the template ID from the URL.

Tip

For the line items, use an object-list variable rather than line1Label, line2Label… Declare its fields (label, quantity, price) once, put a group with a repeat on it, and the table grows with the data you send.

2. Generate it from your code

Format every value in your code — Imprime inserts strings as they are.

Node.js

invoice.ts

const IMPRIME_URL = 'https://app.imprime.io';
const INVOICE_TEMPLATE_ID = process.env.IMPRIME_INVOICE_TEMPLATE_ID!;

const eur = new Intl.NumberFormat('en-IE', { style: 'currency', currency: 'EUR' });
const date = new Intl.DateTimeFormat('en-GB', { dateStyle: 'long' });

export async function renderInvoice(order: Order): Promise<Buffer> {
  const res = await fetch(`${IMPRIME_URL}/api/export/${INVOICE_TEMPLATE_ID}/pdf`, {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'x-api-key': process.env.IMPRIME_API_KEY!,
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      invoiceNumber: order.invoiceNumber,
      issueDate: date.format(order.createdAt),
      customerName: order.customer.name,
      customerAddress: order.customer.address,
      description: order.description,
      amount: eur.format(order.amount),
      vat: eur.format(order.vat),
      total: eur.format(order.amount + order.vat),
    }),
  });

  if (!res.ok) {
    const { error } = await res.json();
    throw new Error(`Invoice generation failed (${res.status}): ${error}`);
  }
  return Buffer.from(await res.arrayBuffer());
}

Python

invoice.py

import os
import requests

IMPRIME_URL = "https://app.imprime.io"
TEMPLATE_ID = os.environ["IMPRIME_INVOICE_TEMPLATE_ID"]

def render_invoice(order) -> bytes:
    res = requests.post(
        f"{IMPRIME_URL}/api/export/{TEMPLATE_ID}/pdf",
        headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["IMPRIME_API_KEY"]},
        json={
            "invoiceNumber": order.invoice_number,
            "issueDate": order.created_at.strftime("%d %B %Y"),
            "customerName": order.customer.name,
            "customerAddress": order.customer.address,
            "description": order.description,
            "amount": f"€{order.amount:,.2f}",
            "vat": f"€{order.vat:,.2f}",
            "total": f"€{order.amount + order.vat:,.2f}",
        },
        timeout=60,
    )
    if not res.ok:
        raise RuntimeError(f"Invoice generation failed ({res.status_code}): {res.json()['error']}")
    return res.content

Then store the buffer (S3, database, disk) or attach it to the confirmation email.

3. Let the layout evolve

When marketing wants a new color or legal wants an extra sentence, they edit the template in Imprime. Your code doesn’t change, as long as variable names stay the same.

Tip

Adding an optional variable is always safe. Adding a required variable breaks callers that don’t send it yet — deploy the code first, then make the variable required.