Importing, exporting and validating documents¶

To switch between Invoice instances and UBL/CII documents, this library provides a set of readers and writers for importing and exporting invoices, respectively. For example, if you want to export an invoice to UBL, you'll have to use the UblWriter.

Exporting invoices¶

Once you have a working invoice instance, create a writer to export it to a document. For example:

use Einvoicing\Writers\UblWriter;

$writer = new UblWriter();
$document = $writer->export($inv);
file_put_contents(__DIR__ . "/example.xml", $document);

Importing documents¶

Similar to exporting invoices, you need a reader to import a document into an invoice instance:

use Einvoicing\Readers\UblReader;

$reader = new UblReader();
$document = file_get_contents(__DIR__ . "/example.xml");
try {
    $inv = $reader->import($document);
} catch (\InvalidArgumentException $e) {
    // Failed to parse XML document
}

If the document you're importing has a custom CIUS/extension not supported by this library, you need to register the preset implementing that specification when instantiating the reader:

use Einvoicing\Readers\UblReader;
use Acme\Invoicing\Presets\CustomPreset;

$reader = new UblReader();
$reader->registerPreset(CustomPreset::class);
$inv = $reader->import($document);

Check the Creating custom presets page for more information.

Validating invoices¶

It is good practice to validate an invoice against the business rules defined in the European standard and its preset (if using one) before exporting to and after importing from a document.

This step is extremely simple as it only requires calling one method from the invoice instance:

use Einvoicing\Exceptions\ValidationException;

try {
    $inv->validate();
} catch (ValidationException $e) {
    // The invoice is not valid (see exception for more details)
}

The Invoice::validate() method does not return any value and instead will throw an exception when the invoice is not valid.