Automatically cancel small invoices and avoid invoice email

[SeanC]

Hi all,

I'm trying to write a hook to automatically cancel tiny disk-space overusage invoices that WHMCS occasionally generates and avoid notifying the customer about them.  I saw something similar on these forums using PHP's MySQL API, I took inspiration and re-wrote using the WHMCS API's and have so far written the following:

function cancelSmall($vars) {
  $MIN_VALUE = 0.5;
  $NOTE = "Amounts under £0.50 are not payable. This invoice has been cancelled";

  logActivity("DEBUG: ".print_r($vars, true));

  $invoiceId = $vars['invoiceid'];

  logActivity("DEBUG: invoiceid=".$invoiceId);

  $invoiceDetail = Capsule::table('tblinvoices')->where('id', $invoiceId)->first();

  logActivity("DEBUG: ".print_r($invoiceDetail, true));
  logActivity("DEBUG: ".$invoiceDetail->total);

  if (($invoiceDetail->status == "Unpaid") && ($invoiceDetail->total <= $MIN_VALUE)) {
        logActivity("DEBUG: Invoice is smaller than minimum value and unpaid!");

        $command = 'UpdateInvoice';
        $postData = array(
                'invoiceid' => $invoiceId,
                'status' => 'Cancelled',
                'notes' => $NOTE,
        );

        $results = localAPI($command, $postData);

        logActivity("DEBUG: ".print_r($results, true));
  } else {
        logActivity("DEBUG: Invoice is larger than minimum value or not unpaid!");
  }
}

add_hook('InvoiceCreation', 1, 'cancelSmall');

When testing by generating invoices via the admin panel, the hook runs fine and small invoices are automatically marked as cancelled when they transition from the "Draft" to "Unpaid" status.  However, an invoice email is still sent out despite the invoice being marked as cancelled.  I am using the "Publish and send email" button, as I assumed this would use the same process as the automated invoice would use.

Am I missing something?

Thanks,
Sean

Edited August 5, 2022 by SeanC

[leemahoney3]

Hey Sean,

So WHMCS does have a InvoiceCreationPreEmail hook, however there is no way for it to abort the email from being sent.

Theoretically you could use the EmailPreSend hook to perform this action, as an email is always sent when an invoice is generated (unless you create an invoice and choose not to send the email). In fact, the below code will work for you.

<?php

use WHMCS\Database\Capsule;

function cancel_invoice_under_a_certain_amount($vars) {

    $amount         = 0.50;
    $notes          = 'Amounts under £0.50 are not payable. This invoice has been cancelled';
    $emailTemplates = ['Invoice Created', 'Credit Card Invoice Created'];

    $merge_fields = [];

    if (in_array($vars['messagename'], $emailTemplates)) {

        $invoice = Capsule::table('tblinvoices')->where('id', $vars['mergefields']['invoice_id'])->first();

        if ($invoice->status == "Unpaid" && $invoice->total <= $amount) {

            localAPI('UpdateInvoice', [
                'invoiceid' => $invoice->id,
                'status'    => 'Cancelled',
                'notes'     => $notes
            ]);
            
            $merge_fields['abortsend'] = true;

        } 

    }
        

    return $merge_fields;

}

add_hook('EmailPreSend', 1, 'cancel_invoice_under_a_certain_amount');

Though I don't really see the use case for this, instead of cancelling the invoice, would you not rather mark it as paid so all post payment actions would be executed?