How do I automate invoice generation with a REST API?

Turn Airtable / Sheets / CRM records into signed, branded invoice PDFs — then post them straight to accounting.

What is the problem this solves?

Most teams still generate invoices by hand: copy line items out of a CRM or spreadsheet, paste them into a Word or Google Docs template, export to PDF, upload to accounting, and email the client. That works for ten invoices a month and breaks at a hundred — every step is a place a typo, a stale template, or a missed send can slip through. Even automated exports from accounting tools usually deliver a single fixed layout, so branded or custom-formatted invoices go back to being manual.

How does ASHDOCS solve it?

ASHDOCS replaces the manual chain with a three-step pipeline: a trigger (new Airtable row, Zapier event, CRM webhook) hands data to the html-to-pdf endpoint, which renders your branded HTML invoice template, and a destination step posts the finished PDF into Drive, S3, QuickBooks or Xero. The whole pipeline is built visually — no code — and every step is verified by reading the result back before it turns green, so a silent failure at the accounting end shows up in the run log instead of the client's inbox.

What is the end-to-end workflow?

1. 1. Trigger the pipeline
   Start the flow from an Airtable record change, a Zapier or Make trigger, or a webhook from your CRM. The trigger passes the invoice's fields (line items, customer, totals) into the flow's data context.
2. 2. Render the invoice HTML → PDF
   Use POST /api/v1/tools/html-to-pdf with your Handlebars-style template. 1 credit per invoice. A4 by default; landscape and custom margins supported.
3. 3. Deliver to accounting
   Use the Google Drive, S3, Dropbox or webhook destination step to push the finished PDF into your accounting system's inbox. Every delivery is read back from the destination before the step turns green.
4. 4. Notify the client
   Chain a Gmail or Outlook step to email the invoice from your own address, or a Slack/Discord step to post a link into a channel on job.completed.

Which ASHDOCS tools does it use?

What outcomes do teams see?

# Render an invoice, deliver to Google Drive on job.completed
curl -X POST https://www.ashdocs.com/api/v1/tools/html-to-pdf \
  -H "X-API-Key: ash_live_xxx" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "html": "<h1>Invoice #{{ invoice_id }}</h1> ...",
    "options": { "format": "A4", "margin_mm": 20 }
  }'

Frequently asked questions