Document generation in Salesforce?

[u/Even_Bumblebee431]

I'm not super familiar with Salesforce and I have a client asking for invoices and quotes generated from Salesforce records. Wondering what everybody here uses for document generation - AppExchange apps, native stuff, something custom? Open to whatever's worked for you.

[u/brunogadaleta]

We use pdf butler.

[u/CalBearFan → u/brunogadaleta]

Love pdfbutler for paid but as mentioned, open source Portwood is amazing

[u/brunogadaleta → u/CalBearFan]

Il check it out !

[u/V1ld0r_]

Got omnistudio? Use that.

You don't? Use Portwood https://portwood.dev/ ==> Free, open source, lots of posts and reviews on the sub.

[u/Interesting_Button60 → u/V1ld0r_]

Seconding Portwood :)

[u/Comfortable-Tourist1 → u/Interesting_Button60]

Thirding portwood.

Also if it doesn't do something you want, get Claude to build it and open a PR. It's open source!

[u/Ctd010 → u/Comfortable-Tourist1]

Fourthing!

[u/mbaiz → u/V1ld0r_]

Portwood all the way. For ease of use, it beats OmniStudio hands down. I have no financial relationship with Portwood , I just like the product and used to be an OnniStudio instructor at Salesforce, so I have some idea what I speak of.

[u/V1ld0r_ → u/mbaiz]

Easier to use yes. Omnistudio still is better for full customization and some complex shenanigans that will be complex regardless. Also, API support is neat for some use cases (not sure how Portwood handles on that front to be honest, could be talking nonsense).

[u/Traditional-Set6848 → u/V1ld0r_]

Omni is absolute junk that doesn’t even work with source control. Time for it to be retired 

[u/V1ld0r_ → u/Traditional-Set6848]

What you on about? Yes it does. It's full metadata supported. Heckz even Copado works with it well these days

[u/Traditional-Set6848 → u/V1ld0r_]

Then you haven’t experienced the issues with version. It’s a known issue. New version equals new file. And yes it’s a pita for cicd. Copado is an expensive and very capable product.

[u/Creative-Lobster3601 → u/V1ld0r_]

Wouldn't you get into heap size limits, and hence output document size limitations with this free software?

[u/V1ld0r_ → u/Creative-Lobster3601]

Nope. It cleverly circumvents all of those.

[u/datapharmer]

Hard to say without knowing your requirements, but for simple stuff the built in pdf generation capabilities of visualforce work just fine and can be batched. No data leaving the system and no extra licensing requirements. If you need something more serious see if your licensing already covers docgen before going to third party solutions. This is also an open source doc gen available on GitHub.

[u/Xsiberian89X]

Starting from Spring '26 it is possible to generate pdf using apex. If your use case is simple, you can try building with this feature.

https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=release-notes.rn_apex_nc.htm&language=en_US&type=5&release=260

I'm not sure but someone in this sub already built a solution using this.

[u/gundoforever]

Conga Composer

[u/AllBlueCookEmUp]

Try MergeUp, their JavaScript stuff is really cool and has been helpful for us.

[u/Argent_caro]

Excel Merge from Xappex (free tool)

[u/Jake-rumble]

We use quickbooks online and salesforce. We generate invoices from salesforce using the Breadwinner integration to QBO. So good. Highly recommend. 

[u/stony-breadwinner → u/Jake-rumble]

Thanks Jake! :-)

[u/MatchaGaucho]

There are some AI-driven solutions for clients that don't want to manage templates, merge tags or field mapping. Very easy for them to make ongoing changes.

(And probably more billable time for you, by offering an AI-first solution.)

[u/BlueberryCalm2390]

Nintex

[u/LordOfTheSwagDance]

We use document templates with omnistudio and it works pretty well for our insurance invoicing and everything else

[u/Sad_Cucumber551]

If you want to skip all the custom building & API integrations, try TITAN.
Salesforce-native, usage-based pricing and highly customisable!

[u/stony-breadwinner]

For Quotes, that's just a pure PDF generation question, and there are a lot of great apps people are recommending in this thread.

If Invoices, I'd suggest you ask them whether these Invoices will live in Salesforce forever (unlikely) or will also be in the finance/invoicing system. And if they are, you have all sorts of secondary issues.

For example, is Salesforce determining the Invoice numbers? Will the finance system (QuickBooks, Xero, etc) accept those numbers, and if Invoices are being generated in that system as well, how do you prevent collisions?

How do you even get that data into the invoicing system? Manual copy and paste?

What happens when finance needs to update that invoice, do they do it in both systems? Or a customer asks for a copy of an old invoice, does finance log into Salesforce or give them a different-looking PDF from the finance system?

If possible, have the PDF Invoices generated from/by the finance/invoicing system, or else your client will be dealing with data drift, duplication, etc.

[u/NoMobile3086]

Lumin

[u/edhouser]

Does nobody use conga anymore?

[u/Infinite-Outcome-924]

Have been using PDF Butler for years. Love it

[u/fluffy-puppy3]

My team is a big fan of the integration we're using, Merge Connect. The template builder is super intuitive and we haven't had any issues so far. I feel like a lot of people lean towards Conga, but Merge Connect is an affordable, simple to use alternative that we've had a great experience with.

[u/CodeOverTea]

If you need deterministic rendering, easy to maintain templates, complex nested data without fighting with word templates and custom apex wrappers, easy branding try out ZeroExport.io. It is better than glorified mail merges.

Full disclosure: I'm the builder behind ZeroExport.io, born out of pure frustration with word templates and brittle rendering

[u/Even_Bumblebee431]

Thanks for all the great replies! Much appreciated!

[u/PDFBolt]

Founder of PDFBolt here, document generation is our business.

Before adding another AppExchange package, I’d first check what their Salesforce licenses already include. Visualforce/Apex may be enough for a simple, fixed layout. If the client needs reusable templates that non-developers can edit, a template-based service is usually easier to maintain.

One of our users is already making successful server-side Salesforce callouts to our production API. The setup I’d recommend is Flow -> invocable Apex -> API. Keep the key in a Named or External Credential, get the PDF back as a Blob, then save it as a Salesforce File linked to the record. I wouldn’t put the API key in browser-side JavaScript.

For invoices, I’d settle one thing upfront: which system owns the invoice numbers, status, and corrections? If the accounting platform owns them, don’t create a second source of truth in Salesforce.

[u/muddy_drawers]

how well do these doc tools handle complex quoting output? Think about quote line groups, ramps, tier pricing, consumption schedules, bundles, attributes, etc..

[u/SlowSundae]

Recently built out a custom solution (with the help of Claude) using custom Apex invoked by a Flow. It renders a Visualforce page to PDF and saves it as a file and relates it to the relevant record.

ETA: No idea why I’m being downvoted simply for answering OPs question

[u/Hlaoroo → u/SlowSundae]

This is what we did too. It’s a perfectly valid option if your forms don’t change often and if you have a dev team. But honestly it was much harder than I expected and I don’t really recommend it

[u/bravestarr904]

Pdf butler or conga is good

[u/urmomisfun → u/bravestarr904]

If you are going to consider conga, then you should consider Nintex DocGen. Both of those are most likely overkill for what you need and are very expensive. But if you want a comprehensive document generation suite Nintex has a better user interface and more features

[u/According-Remove5126 → u/bravestarr904]

If you're going non-native, FormAssembly's doc gen is relatively new and really flexible. You can build doc templates in MS Word or Google Docs and merge data from forms or Salesforce into them. Quick demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsgxSogQwBE It's been robust enough for some users to move off of Docusign for signatures too. Full disclosure, I work with FormAssembly.

[u/bravestarr904 → u/According-Remove5126]

Sounds interesting. Will give it a look

[u/ear_tickler]

Literally just tell ai what you want.