Invoice automatically every month

A recurring invoice is a template with a schedule: a maintenance contract, a subscription, a rent. On each planned date, To Bill creates the invoice and emails it to the client.

Create a recurring invoice

1. Open Invoices, then click Recurring, at the top of the page.

2. Click Add. The New Recurring Invoice editor opens: the same page as for an invoice, with Frequency and duration instead of the dates.

3. Client. Choose the client. Then, in Frequency and duration, the Invoice title and the Currency.

4. Billing Period (1): Weekly, every 2 or 4 weeks, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly, or Custom (every N weeks or months).

5. Start Date: the date of the first invoice.

6. Duration (2): No end, Installments (the total number of invoices, for example 12) or End date (the date of the last invoice).

7. Check the Billing schedule (3): the next issue dates.

   

8. Lines and Options (Discounts and fees, Notes): as for an ordinary invoice. Each invoice will take over these lines and this amount; the Total is that of each generated invoice.

9. Click Activate, at the top right.

Unlike an invoice, a recurring invoice does not save itself: it is saved when you click Activate, because it starts invoicing as soon as it exists. ⌘ S / Ctrl S reminds you of this. No invoice is issued yet: To Bill saves the template and its schedule. The first invoice goes out on the start date.

Creating a recurring invoice requires the Invoices · Create permission; editing it, Invoices · Edit.

No instalments

A recurring invoice is paid in one go: its editor does not have the Payment in instalments option. To spread a large amount, use an ordinary invoice with instalments.

What happens on each date

Every night, To Bill issues the invoices whose date has come:

• the invoice is dated the day it is issued, with the next number of your invoices;
• its due date follows the client’s payment terms;
• it goes out by email to the client’s address, with its QR-bill, and its status changes to Sent;
• if the client has no email address, it stays Pending in the invoice list: send it yourself.

The invoices issued are ordinary invoices: you follow them, send reminders for them and collect them like the others.

A recurring invoice’s page

In Invoices › Recurring, click the eye icon on a row.

1. The status: Active, Paused or Finished.
2. Pause stops the issuing; Reactivate resumes it.
3. The schedule lists the next dates. Invoices issued lists the invoices already created, with their status.

The summary shows the Amount per invoice, the Next invoice, the Billing Period, the Start Date and the End. On the right, Preview of the next invoice shows the upcoming PDF.

Edit, pause, delete

• Edit changes the content of the next invoices: client, title, lines, VAT, notes. The schedule itself does not change. For a different frequency, create a new recurring invoice and delete the old one. Your changes are saved when you click Save (or ⌘ S / Ctrl S); until then, the top bar shows Unsaved changes, and leaving the editor asks Leave without saving?.
• Pause: no invoice is issued during the pause. When you reactivate it, To Bill resumes at the next date of the original schedule; the dates that passed during the pause are not invoiced.
• Delete (… › Delete) erases the template. The invoices already issued remain.

Automatic pauses

To Bill pauses a recurring invoice, without issuing anything, when:

• Paused: VAT rate to correct: one of its lines’ VAT rates no longer applies. Click Correct the rate, edit the line, then reactivate.
• Quota reached: your subscription no longer allows you to issue an invoice this month.
• your subscription is no longer active.

Legal basis

Each invoice issued is a complete invoice: it must state the date or period of the supply when it differs from the invoice date, Art. 26 para. 2 let. c VAT Act. The title and the notes repeat on every invoice: word the period in general terms, for example “Maintenance for the month of the invoice”.