Allow ticket buyers to download their invoice

[xibe]

As suggested by Siobhan on the Community Slack: "Could there be something whereby, after someone buys a WC ticket, they can click a "Request Invoice" link and an invoice is auto-generated and emailed to them?"

And as Andrea said: "European organizers would thank you forever and ever and ever" I agree :)

Also, from Mikel King: "it would be helpful for companies that want to buy a batch of tickets for their employees if they could select each one or group by domain name email addie and invoice the total group."

[glueckpress]

+100

[iandunn]

https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/community/p1417798076002376

It seemed to me like everyone who was interested in this wanted it for slightly different reasons, and there were several different ways suggested for how it would be implemented.

So, before we build anything, I think it'd be helpful if everyone who wants it could get together and nail down what the underlying need for it is, and hash out the exact features and how it should work.

Without that, I think we risk wasting a lot of time building the wrong thing.

[glueckpress]

@iandunn True. Should we post expectations right here, or in separate issues?

[iandunn]

Here is fine, but it'd probably be better to have a chat in #community, and then post the link here, so that more people will see it and participate.

[mikelking]

I think one and probably the easiest way to 'batch' a group of tickets together for a company would be by expanding the discount code system. It would allow a company to 'sponsor' the event in a different sort of way form the traditional single donation scheme. They could apply for a group savings code where they agree to pay x% of the full ticket price for a group of tickets. Then at a specified cutoff date the company would be invoiced for that amount.

I see this working in basically two scenarios.

• Scenario 1: A company wants to buy 20 tickets to the event they request a discount code set to 100% and distribute it to their employees and friends.
• Scenario 2: Is not all that different but a company agrees to sponsor a percentage of a each ticket in the batch. The attendee still has to pay something but it's less than normal.

Each scenario has a specific cutoff date and all tickets not allocated by that date are nulled. The cuttoff is to ensure that the company makes good on their commitment. I know from chasing down sponsors at WCNYC it is important to have the $ in before the event.

[smckeown]

This is a bit different to what I'm requesting. What we need is an automated way to provide invoices. We get asked for them all the time.

What I envisage is this:

User end

1. User buys tickets or group of tickets.
2. In the purchase form, user is asked if they would like to be emailed an invoice. User selects yes
3. User completes order and is emailed the invoice

Organiser end

1. Organiser can enter custom information into the back end (we'll need to come up with a list of what that is)
2. Organiser can create an invoice template (Under Camptix Tools)

[iandunn]

More discussion: https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/community/p1418127998000044

[Zodiac1978]

After reading the slack discussion I want to add one question which I don't find answered there or here:
If I run the money through the WPF (like we did for WordCamp Hamburg, Germany) do we have to pay sales taxes in Germany? I don't know. And I don't have the money to ask a lawyer. Maybe the WPF can ask one of their lawyers? This is the most important question for the invoice/receipt in my opinion.
And I don't think the people who are asking for the invoice/receipt are doing that for the sales tax but for the income tax (which will be decreased by any company/freelancing costs). Or they have to prove the payment for their company to get the money back from them. We had a lot emails requesting these invoices/receipts ...

[iandunn]

If I run the money through the WPF (like we did for WordCamp Hamburg, Germany) do we have to pay sales taxes in Germany? [...] Maybe the WPF can ask one of their lawyers?

It'd be better to ask the Foundation that.

[DeveloperWil]

We had over 60 people at WordCamp Sydney ask for a proper invoice which we could not generate.

They need tax rates to show so they can properly claim back purchases as a business expense. The purchase acknowledgement is just not enough.

We tell them to login to PayPal and print out the transaction but ideally if we could set up a tax name and %, then generate a proper invoice email rather than just a purchase confirmation that would do the trick.

Doesn't need to be fancy.

[iandunn]

Andrea has been looking into VAT issues for European camps, which might end up with the site having access to rate data, etc. I don't think that'll be ready in the near term, though, since there's lots of financial, legal, and technical obstacles to overcome.

In the mean, time, the idea I suggested in #149 (comment) might work, since organizers could enter their own percentage. That would still be cumbersome if different attendees needed different percentages, based on their physical location, though.

[xibe]

Further discussion here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2016/07/12/automated-ticket-invoicing/

[coreymckrill]

Related: https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/2992

[willybahuaud]

Hello,

As camptix users, our team of organizers make a separate Camptix Addon to send Invoices to attendees. The plugin also permit to edit custom invoices (for sponsors).

Feel free to contribute or use it the way you want : https://bitbucket.org/willybahuaud/camptix-invoices (this plugin is also waiting for approval on the wordpress plugins repository)