Bypassing Billing Information(first step) of Checkout Process in Magento!

Recently I faced a situation in which I had to remove the first step of one page checkout process in Magento. it was a real brain turner for me because throughout the web I found articles to remove second and third steps of the checkout process but not the first one. And after an immense R&D my friend Vivek Khatri came up with the easiest trick of removing the first step(billing information) from Magento checkout process. Here I am sharing the trick with my readers...



Open the file app\code\core\Mage\Checkout\Block\Onepage.php
Here in the function getSteps() find the line:

$stepCodes = array('billing', 'shipping','shipping_method', 'payment', 'review');

and replace it with:

$stepCodes = array('shipping','shipping_method', 'payment', 'review', 'billing');

Open the file app\design\frontend\default\default\template\checkout\onepage.phtml
Here find the following JavaScript code:

<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
    var accordion = new Accordion('checkoutSteps', '.head', true);
    <?php if($this->getActiveStep()): ?>
    accordion.openSection('opc-<?php echo $this->getActiveStep() ?>');
    <?php endif ?>

    var checkout = new Checkout(accordion,{
        progress: '<?php echo $this->getUrl('checkout/onepage/progress') ?>',
        review: '<?php echo $this->getUrl('checkout/onepage/review') ?>',
        saveMethod: '<?php echo $this->getUrl('checkout/onepage/saveMethod') ?>',
        failure: '<?php echo $this->getUrl('checkout/cart') ?>'}
    );
//]]>
</script>

and replace it with:

<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
    var accordion = new Accordion('checkoutSteps', '.head', true);
    <?php if($this->getActiveStep()): ?>
    accordion.openSection('opc-<?php echo $this->getActiveStep() ?>');
    <?php endif ?>

    var checkout = new Checkout(accordion,{
        progress: '<?php echo $this->getUrl('checkout/onepage/progress') ?>',
        review: '<?php echo $this->getUrl('checkout/onepage/review') ?>',
        saveMethod: '<?php echo $this->getUrl('checkout/onepage/saveMethod') ?>',
        failure: '<?php echo $this->getUrl('checkout/cart') ?>'}
    );
 document.getElementById('checkout-step-billing').style.display = 'none';
 billing.save();
 document.getElementById('opc-billing').style.display = 'none';
//]]>
</script>
<span id="loding-please-wait" style="padding-right:50%"; class="please-wait" >
            <img src="<?php echo $this->getSkinUrl('images/opc-ajax-loader.gif') ?>" alt="<?php echo $this->__('Loading steps please wait...') ?>" title="<?php echo $this->__('Loading next step...') ?>" class="v-middle" /> <?php echo $this->__('Loading steps please wait...') ?>
</span>

And you are done!
I hope you will enjoy the simplest trick.