rwachtler / Manta

🎉 Flexible invoicing desktop app with beautiful & customizable templates.

Manta

A desktop application for creating invoices with beautiful and customizable templates.

Screenshots • Features • Downloads • Technologies • Why? • Goals • Development • FAQ

Screenshots

Here's a few screenshots:

Features

• 🎚 Flexible form. You can turn on/off field and save as default setting.
• 🏗 Drag & drop for reordering items. This makes editing easier.
• 📐 Use SVGs for logo for better printing.
• 🎨 Custom designed & highly customizable templates.
• 🏷 Custom statuses for invoices.
• 📊 Export PDF for print or email.
• 🔒Complete Privacy. You financial data stays where it belongs.
• 💯 Totally Free.

Downloads

macOS	Windows	Linux
Download v1.1.2	Download v1.1.2	Download v1.1.2

More Download Options

Technologies

• Electron
• React
• Redux
• React-DnD
• React-Beautiful-DnD
• React-Motion
• Webpack

Why

The main reason I decided to build this is because I need a simple tool to create good looking invoices, estimates, and receipts but couldn't find one that suits my needs. I don't do invoicing for a living but I do need it occasionally so an ideal invoicing app just needs to be good at one thing and one thing only, which is making invoices. I really don't need a full-fledged bookkeeping or accounting software.

I believe there are many people such as freelance designers, developers, photographers or writers... also have such need. However, most (if not all) products I found have these these problems:

Complexity

• Most invoicing products nowadays is web-based, which means you’ll need to maintain a new account (possible a monthly fee, too) just to create an invoice.
• Sure, there some open-source products that can be self-hosted, but that will introduce a new layer of complexity to your workflow. Who will setup the product? Who will maintain the server? Who will cover the cost? ...
• You will always need internet connection to be able to create your invoices. It can be slow sometimes.

Privacy

• When you use a web service, most of the time, you’re giving away your data whether you want it or not. Financial data is sensitive and I believe that no one should know about your data except yourself.

Goals

With that in mind, I know that Manta would need to satisfy these criteria:

• 🚀 Fast!!!

• 👍 Friendly UI & UX

• 🎉 Has nice looking templates

• 🔒 Does not touch user’s data

• 💰 Free! :)

  If you think Manta delivers these, let me know by putting a star on this project 😉

Development

It's very easy to get started with these 3 steps:

• Clone this project to your local machine.
• Open terminal and cd into the cloned folder, usually cd Manta.
• Run yarn install to install dependencies.
• Run yarn dev in one tab to start webpack-dev-server.
• Run yarn start in another tab to open the app.

This is still in beta and it's far from perfect so feedbacks, issues or PRs are greatly appreciated! :)

Note that on Linux you will need additional dependencies to provide the icns2png and gm commands. Ubuntu/Debian users can run: sudo apt install -y icnsutils graphicsmagick.

FAQ

• Is this app built with Electron?

Yes, it's built on top of Electron. Please see the Technologies section for more info.

• What boilerplate did you use

None. This is my attempt to integrate Electron with React from scratch. The idea was to get a better understanding of how things work together, especially Webpack. But I do take cue from other projects.

• What CSS/UI Framework did you use?

I wrote all the CSS myself. I only use Bootstrap for prototyping at first. But I gradually encapsulate most of the style to the component with the help of styled-components. There is some places still use Bootstrap mostly for layout purpose but I'll get rid of it eventually.

• Where did you get the icons?

ionicons. They're great!

• Why did you name the project Manta? It has nothing to do with invoicing.

It's actually very common to associate an animal with your brand. There's a reason behind the Twitter bird, the famous MailChimp Freddy or the Docker whale ... It's called the Baby-Face bias. You can read more about it in the book Designing for Emotion by Aaron Walter. In my case, I was inspired by the movie Racing Extinction and by naming this project Manta, I hope to raise people's awareness on some environmental issues mentioned in the movie. You can read more about it here

• I like Manta's logo, did you design it?

Yes, I actually did all the illustrations as well as the templates that you see in the app.

• Are you available for hire?

Yes, kind of. I'm exploring new opportunities at the moment. Please let me know what you have in mind.

• How do I contact you?

If you find an issue, please report it here. For everything else, please drop me a line at [e-mail]