Hi all!
It had to happen at some point: I quit my job and started as self-employed engineer/consultant/services provider. Wohoo!
I’m better at helping people than at sending invoices. I foresee that hand-forged invoices in Libreoffice Writer will become a pain quite quickly. Even if at the moment I have few clients, I want to set things up a bit structured to help me in the long run.
Now Yunohost is aimed more at individuals than at companies, but we have a number of invoice-capable apps in the catalog. I might have missed one or two in assessing whether they meet my requirements. Those are, somewhat in order of importance:
- Open Source license: I have an OS “solution” in Libreoffice. No need to go for less.
- Create invoices:
- Must be configurable to follow Dutch law concerning VAT and included info
- Just PDF’s I can send manully by email is good enough; automation is nice
- Manage client info
- Seems a no brainer, how else can the invoices be generated?
- No other needs at first
- Time tracking feature
- Nice-to-have, so that time spent can be fed to the invoicing
- (Traveling) expenses
- Nice-to-have, would feed into invoicing as well as tax requirements
- Investments
- Only needed for tax requirements. I don’t expect a high volume of investments, so can track those manually
Probably there are more things to worry about, but this is a nice start 
In the catalog I found at least that at least those apps do invoicing:
- Dolibarr
- FOSS on the frontpage
- Intro for Dutch configuration supplied by community member / independent consultant
- Seems to have all I need, and (too?) much more
- InvoiceNinja
- No-go: the self-hosted option is not open source
- Phone-home provisioning for user names and other info
- ITFlow
- FOSS on the frontpage
- Dutch templates are not an option as of Januari 2024
- Not sure about VAT options
- The project seems quite new and small scale at the moment, which is helpful in grasping the workings, but may just fall short
- Kimai2
- Open Source on the frontpage
- Focus on time tracking
- Github-only forum
- Many options, but the last VAT-related discussion was four years ago explaining that Kimai is not aimed at invoicing
- Odoo/LibreERP
- Open Source, but hidden away. LGPL
- Dutch templates and VAT have very little traction on the forum; that could mean it all works, or that it is not used.
- Scale/complexity seems of the same order as Dolibarr
- Noalyss
- Not suitable for me: French only
- Paheko
- AGPL on the frontpage
- Very friendly looking, but French only
Do any of you have experience with Dolibarr? Ease of use? Or other suggestions in general?
Thanks!
PS, I had a look at Tooljet, an Open Source “low code” platform. It could be an option to create an app with that. Many of those platforms are quite closed and aggressive in their licenses, so reading a bit more about it, I came across a few posts by its creator. One of them in particular stood out, concluding:
Every company, regardless of size, should have the freedom to manage and secure its own data. We need more open-source options, simplified pricing models, and community-driven resources to bridge the gap between intention and accessibility. Self-hosting is not a privilege; it’s a basic tenet of digital autonomy, and it’s time we make it the norm, not the exception.
Which is what we already know but nice to see it reiterated