Invoice Theme Development

The Invoice theme controls the PDF generation and public web-view structure of client invoices. Customizing the invoice theme allows you to match payment documents exactly to your branding and regional compliance requirements.

Creating Your Theme

Faster Development with CLI

We highly recommend using the Billmora Artisan CLI to scaffold your theme. It automatically generates the folder, theme.json, Vite configuration, and copies default Blade views as a starting point.

php artisan billmora:theme:make mytheme --type=invoice

1. Create the Folder: Set up a new directory under /resources/themes/invoice/ (e.g., mytheme).
2. Add theme.json: Even though invoices don't compile external JS/CSS assets, you MUST include a theme.json file for Billmora to register the theme (see section below).

Theme Metadata (theme.json)

The theme.json file must reflect the "invoice" type. The assets property is omitted as invoices generate inline CSS or attach inline generated PDFs over HTTP boundaries.

{
  "name": "My Clean Invoice Theme",
  "description": "Minimalist invoice layouts suitable for print.",
  "author": "Your Name",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "type": "invoice"
}

Styling Strategy (Class styles)

Unlike Emails, which require inline style="..." elements for strict client compatibility, Invoices are directly rendered into a PDF document using DOMPDF (or similar engine) and displayed on the web.

You are fully supported to use <style> blocks with standard class-based CSS within your Blade views.

<style>
  .invoice-header {
    background-color: #f8fafc;
    border-bottom: 2px solid #e2e8f0;
  }
  .invoice-table th {
    font-weight: bold;
    text-align: left;
  }
</style>

<div class="invoice-header">
  <!-- Invoice content here -->
</div>

Overriding Views

Copy the core invoice layout into your custom theme's views/ directory (e.g., /resources/themes/invoice/mytheme/views/invoice.blade.php) and modify the HTML/CSS as required.

Distribution & Installation

Once your invoice theme is complete, you can package it into a ZIP file for installation via the System > Themes section of the Admin panel.

You can easily package your theme using the Billmora Artisan CLI:

php artisan billmora:theme:export mytheme --type=invoice

This command will package the theme with the correct directory structure and save the distributable ZIP file to storage/app/exports/.

Alternatively, if you want to package it manually, refer to the Packaging for Distribution reference.

Full File Structure

Below is an overview of a fully configured Invoice theme, taking the core moraine theme as a reference (organized with folders first).

/resources/themes/invoice/moraine/
├── views
│   └── index.blade.php
└── theme.json