Bulk Download Invoices

Pull every invoice for any date range out of Blesta in one go, as a single merged PDF, a ZIP of individual PDFs, or a CSV summary.

What it does

When your accountant asks for "every invoice from last quarter" or a client wants a year's worth of receipts for their own records, downloading them one at a time from Blesta does not scale. Bulk Download Invoices adds a report screen to your staff Tools menu, plus a matching self-service page in the client portal, where you pick a date range and a few filters and get every matching invoice back as one merged PDF, a ZIP of individual PDFs, or a CSV spreadsheet. A job that used to mean opening invoices one by one, or a support ticket asking your team to do it, becomes a couple of clicks.

Key features

• Three export formats: Choose Merge for one combined PDF, Separate for one PDF per invoice bundled into a single ZIP, or a CSV summary spreadsheet, picking a different format for every export without changing any settings.
• Inclusive date range with quick presets: Set a start and end date, or use the one-click This month, Last month, This quarter, and This year presets to build weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly accounting packs in seconds.
• Filter by date billed, due, or paid: Choose which invoice date the range applies to, so the same screen produces a billing report, an aged-receivables pull, or a paid-in-period pack for your accountant.
• Currency and status filters: Narrow an export to any combination of currencies and to active or proforma invoices; drafts and voided invoices are always left out so exports never contain paperwork you did not issue.
• Client and client group filters: Restrict a staff export to one client or an entire client group, making per-reseller, per-brand, or single-client invoice packs a two-click job.
• Client self-service downloads: Clients get their own Bulk Download Invoices page in the portal with the same date, currency, status, and format choices, strictly limited to their own invoices, so your team stops fielding "please resend last year's invoices" tickets.
• Ready-to-use CSV summary: Lists invoice number, client, date billed, date due, currency, subtotal, total, paid, remaining, and status, ready to drop straight into a spreadsheet or a bookkeeping import.
• Per-staff-group permissions: Access to the staff export screen is a permission you grant per staff group, so you decide which roles can pull invoices across the whole company.

Installing Bulk Download Invoices

Before you start

• Version 3.x requires Blesta 6.0 or later. On a Blesta 5 install, use version 2.x instead.
• If you are on the leased (subscription) licence, the Blesta Club Subscription Manager must be installed and your subscription active. The owned and owned-source licences have no such requirement.

1. Upload the files

Upload the extension folder into your Blesta installation so it lands under your Blesta directory at:

plugins/bulk_download_invoices/

For example, on a typical install: /var/www/html/blesta/plugins/bulk_download_invoices/

2. Install it in Blesta

1. Log in to your Blesta admin area with a staff account that has the Plugins permission, including Install Plugin and Manage Plugin (found under the Settings group in Manage Staff Groups).
2. Go to Settings > Company > Plugins and click the Available tab.
3. Find Bulk Download Invoices in the list and click Install.

3. Configure it

Bulk Download Invoices has no settings screen, no API credentials, and no cron task to configure - it reads your existing invoices, so there is nothing to set up before first use beyond granting access:

1. Grant the staff permission. Blesta registers a plugin's permissions switched off, and a plugin is not allowed to grant its own. Go to Settings > System > Staff > Staff Groups, edit each staff group that should have access, find its own Bulk Download Invoices section in the permissions list, tick it, and save. Skip this and staff in those groups will not see the Bulk Download Invoices entry under Tools at all.
2. Allow specific clients' contacts to use the client-area page (optional). The primary account holder can always reach the client portal's Bulk Download Invoices page and export their own invoices. If a client has given one of their other contacts a separate portal login and wants that contact to use the page too, the client (or you, from the client's profile) must tick both the Bulk Download Invoices and Invoices boxes on that contact's Authentication tab - both are required together.

You're ready to go - see the usage guide for a walkthrough of day-to-day use.

Bulk Download Invoices - Update Guide

Keeping your Bulk Download Invoices plugin up-to-date ensures you have the latest features and security improvements. Follow these steps to update your plugin:

Update Steps

1. Backup Existing Plugin Files:

   • It's always a good practice to backup your existing plugin files before making any updates.

2. Download the Latest Version:

   • Download the latest version of the Bulk Download Invoices plugin files from the client area.

3. Upload New Plugin Files:

   • Upload the new plugin files to your Blesta plugins directory, overwriting the existing files:

     /var/www/html/blesta/plugins/bulk_download_invoices/

4. Log in to Blesta Admin:

   • Log in to your Blesta admin account.

5. Navigate to Plugins:

   • Go to Settings > Plugins.

6. Update the Plugin:

   • Find the Bulk Download Invoices plugin and click the "Update" button.

Permissions after updating

This plugin declares its own staff permissions, and Blesta registers them unchecked - it does not grant them. After installing or updating, any staff group other than the one that performed the install (and, on an update that introduces a new permission, every staff group) has the permission present but unticked on the staff-group screen. Until an administrator grants it, affected staff lose the plugin's navigation entry and see "You are not authorized to access that resource". Updating from v1.0.0 introduced this plugin's first staff permission, so it applies to that update in particular.

To grant access, go to Settings > System > Staff > Staff Groups, edit each staff group that should have access, tick this plugin's permissions, and save.

Version-specific notes

• 3.0.0: Requires Blesta 6.0 or later - upgrade Blesta first, then the plugin. Blesta 5 installs should stay on 2.x. Nothing changes in your data, permissions or exports; the staff page simply takes on the Blesta 6 admin theme and its date fields use your browser's own date picker. The export button no longer stays greyed out after a merged PDF or CSV download, so a second export no longer needs a page reload.

Contact access to the client bulk download page (v2.0.0)

The client-area bulk download page now follows Blesta's own contact permissions. Where a client has given a billing or other contact their own portal login, that contact reaches the page only when two permissions are ticked, because access is gated in two independent layers:

• Bulk Download Invoices - this plugin's own checkbox. It controls whether the contact may reach the page at all.
• Invoices - the core area that owns the invoice data the page reads and exports.

Both boxes are on the same screen: in the client area, My Information > Contacts, edit the contact, then the Authentication tab. Staff can do the same from the client's profile.

Ticking only one of the two is not enough, and it fails with exactly the same message as ticking neither - "You do not have permission to access that resource, please contact the primary account holder to request access". If you grant only Bulk Download Invoices and the page still refuses the contact, that is the missing Invoices permission, not a fault in the plugin.

The second layer is deliberate rather than duplicated: a contact may legitimately be allowed this plugin's page in general while still being kept away from the account's invoices, and Invoices is what decides that.

Previously any contact with a login could export every invoice on the account, whatever their permissions.

Primary account holders are not affected and need no changes.

Any other breaking changes will be communicated to clients.

Keep your Bulk Download Invoices plugin up-to-date to ensure you have the latest features and improvements.

Using Bulk Download Invoices

For your staff

Bulk Download Invoices (Tools menu)

Once you have been granted the permission (see the install guide), open the Tools dropdown in the admin navigation bar and click Bulk Download Invoices. You will see a single form split into two sections, Filters and Export:

• Quick ranges: Click This month, Last month, This quarter, or This year to instantly fill in the Start Date and End Date fields for that period, instead of typing dates by hand.
• Start Date / End Date (inclusive): The date range to export. Both ends are inclusive, so setting the same start and end date exports everything billed (or due, or paid) on that single day.
• Filter Dates By: Choose whether the date range above applies to Date Billed, Date Due, or Date Paid (closed). This lets the same screen produce a billing report, an aged-receivables pull, or a paid-in-period pack.
• Currency: Optionally limit the export to one or more currencies. Leave nothing selected to include every currency.
• Status: Optionally limit the export to Active and/or Proforma invoices. Draft and voided invoices are never included, whatever you select.
• Client: Optionally restrict the export to a single client.
• Client Group: Optionally restrict the export to a single client group.
• Export Type: Choose how the matching invoices are delivered:
  • Merge - one combined PDF containing every matching invoice, one after another.
  • Separate - one PDF per invoice, bundled together and downloaded as a single ZIP file.
  • CSV summary - a spreadsheet listing invoice number, client, date billed, date due, currency, subtotal, total, paid, remaining, and status for every matching invoice, instead of the PDFs themselves.

Click Submit to run the export. Depending on the export type, your browser downloads a PDF, a ZIP, or a CSV file. If nothing matches your filters, the page shows "No invoices found with the specified criteria." instead of downloading anything.

For your clients

Bulk Download Invoices (client portal)

Your clients see a Bulk Download Invoices entry in the top navigation bar of their portal, before their account menu. It opens the same kind of form as the staff screen - Quick ranges, Start Date/End Date, Currency, Status, and Export Type - but scoped entirely to that client's own invoices. There is no date-field, client, or client-group choice, since a client only ever sees their own account: the range always applies to the date each invoice was billed.

Clients use it exactly like staff do: pick a range (or a quick preset), optionally narrow by currency or status, choose Merge, Separate, or CSV summary, and click Submit to download. This is a self-service alternative to asking your support team to resend old invoices.

A client can only reach this page and export their own invoices if their portal login is allowed to. The primary account holder always can. If a client has given a secondary contact their own login, that contact needs both the Bulk Download Invoices and Invoices permissions ticked on their Authentication settings (see the install guide) - without both, they will be told they do not have permission to access the page.

Good to know

• Draft and voided invoices are never included in any export, staff or client side, regardless of the Status filter.
• Date ranges are inclusive on both ends and are evaluated against your company's local time zone, so the day you enter is the whole day you get.
• The CSV summary is a report of invoice details, not the invoice PDFs themselves - use Merge or Separate when you need the actual invoice documents.