Recurring invoices
Have invoice drafts created automatically from a contract’s monthly prices, then review and issue them.
A Billing plan creates an invoice draft for a contract at fixed intervals. It never issues or sends anything itself: you review each draft, approve it, issue it and send it like any other invoice.
You create a plan with the ‘Issue documents’ permission and write access to the project. Everyone who sees the project’s documents may view it. Prerequisites are complete billing data and an active or planned contract on the customer.
Create a plan
- Open the customer and the Contracts card. For a contract with a monthly price or flat rate, the Billing plan button appears.
- Choose the Billing customer. If it is missing, you create it right in the dialog.
- Set:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Frequency | monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly |
| Invoice | in advance (at the start of the period) or in arrears (on the day after the end) |
| Start of billing | Default is the contract start |
| Draft in advance (days) | the draft is created this many days before the invoice date, default 5 |
| Tax case | Default 19 %, without VAT for small businesses |
| One-time flat rates | are charged with the first invoice |
| Bill elapsed periods retroactively | otherwise the plan starts with the first period whose invoice date is not in the past |
Before you save, a preview shows the first period, the invoice date and the line items.
What is billed
- Items per month with the number of months in the period. If a quantity is agreed in the contract, it is never exceeded, not even in the last quarter.
- Flat rates once, with the first invoice.
- Items per appointment depend on counted services and belong in service settlement (Finance › Service settlement). The card lists them as ‘Not in the plan’.
The plan reads prices and line items from the contract for each draft. If you change a price, it applies from the next draft. Each period is created at most once.
What happens then
About 15 minutes after the date ‘invoice date minus lead time’ is reached, the draft is created. You receive the task Review recurring invoice, and the draft appears under Finance › Documents. The history names the plan as the source. The invoice date is the intended date; the due date follows from the billing customer’s payment term.
At the end of the contract, a part-period is billed in full. The draft then carries a note so that you can check the quantity.
Manage
Under Accounting → Recurring invoices you see all plans with next period, last run and errors. On the plan’s card, in the contract and in this list you have:
- Edit: Billing customer, lead time, tax case and flat rates can always be changed. Frequency and start only as long as no period has been billed or skipped.
- Pause and Resume: Periods that fall due during the pause are either caught up or skipped when you resume. Skipped ones appear in the history.
- Create draft now: creates the next period immediately.
- Skip period: with a reason, which appears in the history.
- End plan: final. Drafts already created remain.
- History: every period with a draft or skipped.
If you end or cancel the contract, its plan ends immediately. Once all agreed services have been billed, it ends by itself.
When a plan gets stuck
A red note on the card gives the reason, for example incomplete billing data or a billing customer that is no longer available. Fix the cause; the plan tries again on the next run, and the other plans carry on. If you discard a draft, the plan does not create it again. Create the invoice by hand then.