Billing plugins

phpaga gives you the ability to write your own custom billing plugins which decide how totals and subtotals are calculated when you generate PDF bills to send to your clients. phpaga comes pre-installed with a few user-contributed plugins to calculate taxes for various countries, and a very simple plugin, which returns the total, not including any taxes. You can use these files as a reference implementation of what a billing plugin should look like. If you happen to write your own generalized plugin feel free to contribute it back.

Mini HOWTO

Billing methods can be created as plugins. The plugin file can be freely named and must be installed under the directory lib/bill/

The billing method function in the plugin always has to be called phpaga_bill_calculate and accept the following parameters:

(-> in |  <- out)

-> float startsum    # The startsum from which to calculate the bill
-> int   currency-ID # ID of the currency to be used
<- real  endsum      # The full sum that is to be paid
<- array details     # Array containing the full calculation with
                     # description and amounts
-> float expensesum  # Amount of expenses (optional)
-> float paymentsum  # Sum of payments (optional)
-> float feesum      # Sum of late fees (optional); developed for notaxes
                     # plugin, so may require new code to account for taxes
                     # that accrue in total amount due i.e. endsum

The “details” array has to be of the following structure:

details[]["text"]
details[]["amount"]

Please refer to the sample files shipped with phpaga (to be found under lib/bill/); you can use one of them as a base for your personalized billing method.

When a user selects a billing method, the corresponding file will be included, and the function will be called (with the necessary parameters).

This should provide a standard interface with which users can create their own plugins that create their bills exactly the way they (or their legislation) needs them.

As of phpaga 0.3, billing method plugins can be installed/uninstalled from within phpaga. The files are not physically installed or removed, but the database entries can be managed from the administrator’s interface.