blog/_Electronic__paper_invoices___using_vCard_in_a_QR_code.html

   1 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   2           "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
   3 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr">
   4   <head>
   5     <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: "Electronic" paper invoices - using vCard in a QR code</title>
   7     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/style.css" />
   8     <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/vim.css" />
   9
  10
  11   </head>
  12   <body>
  13     <div class="title">
  14  <h1>
  15      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  16
  17  </h1>
  18
  19 </div>
  20
  21
  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title">"Electronic" paper invoices - using vCard in a QR code</div>
  24       <div class="date">12th February 2013</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>Here in Norway, electronic invoices are spreading, and the
  26 <a href="http://www.anskaffelser.no/e-handel/faktura">solution promoted
  27 by the Norwegian government</a> require that invoices are sent through
  28 one of the approved facilitators, and it is not possible to send
  29 electronic invoices without an agreement with one of these
  30 facilitators.  This seem like a needless limitation to be able to
  31 transfer invoice information between buyers and sellers.  My preferred
  32 solution would be to just transfer the invoice information directly
  33 between seller and buyer, for example using SMTP, or some HTTP based
  34 protocol like REST or SOAP.  But this might also be overkill, as the
  35 "electronic" information can be transferred using paper invoices too,
  36 using a simple bar code.  My bar code encoding of choice would be QR
  37 codes, as this encoding can be read by any smart phone out there.  The
  38 content of the code could be anything, but I would go with
  39 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VCard">the vCard format</a>, as
  40 it too is supported by a lot of computer equipment these days.</p>
  41
  42 <p>The vCard format support extentions, and the invoice specific
  43 information can be included using such extentions.  For example an
  44 invoice from SLX Debian Labs (picked because we
  45 <a href="http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">ask
  46 for donations to the Debian Edu project</a> and thus have bank account
  47 information publicly available) for NOK 1000.00 could have these extra
  48 fields:</p>
  49
  50 <p><pre>
  51 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
  52 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
  53 X-INVOICE-KID:123412341234
  54 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
  55 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
  56 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
  57 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
  58 </pre></p>
  59
  60 <p>The X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER field was proposed in a stackoverflow
  61 answer regarding
  62 <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10045664/storing-bank-account-in-vcard-file">how
  63 to put bank account information into a vCard</a>.  For payments in
  64 Norway, either X-INVOICE-KID (payment ID) or X-INVOICE-MSG could be
  65 used to pass on information to the seller when paying the invoice.</p>
  66
  67 <p>The complete vCard could look like this:</p>
  68
  69 <p><pre>
  70 BEGIN:VCARD
  71 VERSION:2.1
  72 ORG:SLX Debian Labs Foundation
  73 ADR;WORK:;;Gunnar Schjelderups vei 29D;OSLO;;0485;Norway
  74 URL;WORK:http://www.linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/
  75 EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:sdl-styret@rt.nuug.no
  76 REV:20130212T095000Z
  77 X-INVOICE-NUMBER:1
  78 X-INVOICE-AMOUNT:NOK1000.00
  79 X-INVOICE-MSG:Donation to Debian Edu
  80 X-BANK-ACCOUNT-NUMBER:16040884339
  81 X-BANK-IBAN-NUMBER:NO8516040884339
  82 X-BANK-SWIFT-NUMBER:DNBANOKKXXX
  83 END:VCARD
  84 </pre></p>
  85
  86 <p>The resulting QR code created using
  87 <a href="http://fukuchi.org/works/qrencode/">qrencode</a> would look
  88 like this, and should be readable (and thus checkable) by any smart
  89 phone, or for example the <a href="http://zbar.sourceforge.net/">zbar
  90 bar code reader</a> and feed right into the approval and accounting
  91 system.</p>
  92
  93 <p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2013-02-12-qr-invoice.png"></p>
  94
  95 <p>The extension fields will most likely not show up in any normal
  96 vCard reader, so those parts would have to go directly into a system
  97 handling invoices.  I am a bit unsure how vCards without name parts
  98 are handled, but a simple test indicate that this work just fine.</p>
  99
 100 <p><strong>Update 2013-02-12 11:30</strong>: Added KID to the proposal
 101 based on feedback from Sturle Sunde.</p>
 102 </div>
 103
 104       <div class="tags">Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>.</div>
 105
 106
 107     </div>
 108
 109
 110
 111
 112     <div id="sidebar">
 113
 114
 115
 116 <h2>Archive</h2>
 117 <ul>
 118
 119 <li>2014
 120 <ul>
 121
 122 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 123
 124 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/02/">February (3)</a></li>
 125
 126 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/03/">March (8)</a></li>
 127
 128 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/04/">April (7)</a></li>
 129
 130 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/05/">May (1)</a></li>
 131
 132 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/06/">June (2)</a></li>
 133
 134 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/07/">July (2)</a></li>
 135
 136 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2014/08/">August (1)</a></li>
 137
 138 </ul></li>
 139
 140 <li>2013
 141 <ul>
 142
 143 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/01/">January (11)</a></li>
 144
 145 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/02/">February (9)</a></li>
 146
 147 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/03/">March (9)</a></li>
 148
 149 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/04/">April (6)</a></li>
 150
 151 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 152
 153 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/06/">June (10)</a></li>
 154
 155 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 156
 157 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 158
 159 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/09/">September (5)</a></li>
 160
 161 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/10/">October (7)</a></li>
 162
 163 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/11/">November (9)</a></li>
 164
 165 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2013/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 166
 167 </ul></li>
 168
 169 <li>2012
 170 <ul>
 171
 172 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/01/">January (7)</a></li>
 173
 174 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/02/">February (10)</a></li>
 175
 176 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/03/">March (17)</a></li>
 177
 178 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/04/">April (12)</a></li>
 179
 180 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/05/">May (12)</a></li>
 181
 182 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/06/">June (20)</a></li>
 183
 184 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/07/">July (17)</a></li>
 185
 186 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 187
 188 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/09/">September (9)</a></li>
 189
 190 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/10/">October (17)</a></li>
 191
 192 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/11/">November (10)</a></li>
 193
 194 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2012/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 195
 196 </ul></li>
 197
 198 <li>2011
 199 <ul>
 200
 201 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/01/">January (16)</a></li>
 202
 203 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/02/">February (6)</a></li>
 204
 205 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/03/">March (6)</a></li>
 206
 207 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/04/">April (7)</a></li>
 208
 209 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/05/">May (3)</a></li>
 210
 211 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/06/">June (2)</a></li>
 212
 213 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/07/">July (7)</a></li>
 214
 215 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/08/">August (6)</a></li>
 216
 217 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/09/">September (4)</a></li>
 218
 219 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 220
 221 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 222
 223 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2011/12/">December (1)</a></li>
 224
 225 </ul></li>
 226
 227 <li>2010
 228 <ul>
 229
 230 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/01/">January (2)</a></li>
 231
 232 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/02/">February (1)</a></li>
 233
 234 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/03/">March (3)</a></li>
 235
 236 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/04/">April (3)</a></li>
 237
 238 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 239
 240 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/06/">June (14)</a></li>
 241
 242 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/07/">July (12)</a></li>
 243
 244 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/08/">August (13)</a></li>
 245
 246 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/09/">September (7)</a></li>
 247
 248 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/10/">October (9)</a></li>
 249
 250 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/11/">November (13)</a></li>
 251
 252 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2010/12/">December (12)</a></li>
 253
 254 </ul></li>
 255
 256 <li>2009
 257 <ul>
 258
 259 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/01/">January (8)</a></li>
 260
 261 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/02/">February (8)</a></li>
 262
 263 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/03/">March (12)</a></li>
 264
 265 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/04/">April (10)</a></li>
 266
 267 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/05/">May (9)</a></li>
 268
 269 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/06/">June (3)</a></li>
 270
 271 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/07/">July (4)</a></li>
 272
 273 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/08/">August (3)</a></li>
 274
 275 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/09/">September (1)</a></li>
 276
 277 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/10/">October (2)</a></li>
 278
 279 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/11/">November (3)</a></li>
 280
 281 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2009/12/">December (3)</a></li>
 282
 283 </ul></li>
 284
 285 <li>2008
 286 <ul>
 287
 288 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/11/">November (5)</a></li>
 289
 290 <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/archive/2008/12/">December (7)</a></li>
 291
 292 </ul></li>
 293
 294 </ul>
 295
 296
 297
 298 <h2>Tags</h2>
 299 <ul>
 300
 301  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/3d-printer">3d-printer (13)</a></li>
 302
 303  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/amiga">amiga (1)</a></li>
 304
 305  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/aros">aros (1)</a></li>
 306
 307  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bankid">bankid (4)</a></li>
 308
 309  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bitcoin">bitcoin (8)</a></li>
 310
 311  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bootsystem">bootsystem (14)</a></li>
 312
 313  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/bsa">bsa (2)</a></li>
 314
 315  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/chrpath">chrpath (2)</a></li>
 316
 317  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian">debian (99)</a></li>
 318
 319  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/debian edu">debian edu (148)</a></li>
 320
 321  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/digistan">digistan (10)</a></li>
 322
 323  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/dld">dld (15)</a></li>
 324
 325  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/docbook">docbook (12)</a></li>
 326
 327  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/drivstoffpriser">drivstoffpriser (4)</a></li>
 328
 329  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english (250)</a></li>
 330
 331  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fiksgatami">fiksgatami (21)</a></li>
 332
 333  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/fildeling">fildeling (12)</a></li>
 334
 335  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freeculture">freeculture (13)</a></li>
 336
 337  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/freedombox">freedombox (8)</a></li>
 338
 339  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/frikanalen">frikanalen (11)</a></li>
 340
 341  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/intervju">intervju (41)</a></li>
 342
 343  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram">isenkram (9)</a></li>
 344
 345  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/kart">kart (18)</a></li>
 346
 347  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ldap">ldap (9)</a></li>
 348
 349  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/lenker">lenker (8)</a></li>
 350
 351  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ltsp">ltsp (1)</a></li>
 352
 353  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/mesh network">mesh network (8)</a></li>
 354
 355  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia (28)</a></li>
 356
 357  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/norsk">norsk (247)</a></li>
 358
 359  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug (162)</a></li>
 360
 361  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/offentlig innsyn">offentlig innsyn (11)</a></li>
 362
 363  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/open311">open311 (2)</a></li>
 364
 365  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/opphavsrett">opphavsrett (47)</a></li>
 366
 367  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/personvern">personvern (73)</a></li>
 368
 369  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/raid">raid (1)</a></li>
 370
 371  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reactos">reactos (1)</a></li>
 372
 373  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/reprap">reprap (11)</a></li>
 374
 375  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rfid">rfid (2)</a></li>
 376
 377  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/robot">robot (9)</a></li>
 378
 379  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/rss">rss (1)</a></li>
 380
 381  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/ruter">ruter (4)</a></li>
 382
 383  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/scraperwiki">scraperwiki (2)</a></li>
 384
 385  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sikkerhet">sikkerhet (40)</a></li>
 386
 387  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sitesummary">sitesummary (4)</a></li>
 388
 389  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/skepsis">skepsis (4)</a></li>
 390
 391  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard (44)</a></li>
 392
 393  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stavekontroll">stavekontroll (3)</a></li>
 394
 395  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/stortinget">stortinget (9)</a></li>
 396
 397  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/surveillance">surveillance (25)</a></li>
 398
 399  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/sysadmin">sysadmin (1)</a></li>
 400
 401  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/valg">valg (8)</a></li>
 402
 403  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video (42)</a></li>
 404
 405  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/vitenskap">vitenskap (4)</a></li>
 406
 407  <li><a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/web">web (32)</a></li>
 408
 409 </ul>
 410
 411
 412     </div>
 413     <p style="text-align: right">
 414  Created by <a href="http://steve.org.uk/Software/chronicle">Chronicle v4.6</a>
 415 </p>
 416
 417   </body>
 418 </html>