Recurring templates

Recurring templates (menu: Accounting → Recurring Templates) auto-generate invoices or bills on a schedule. Use them for anything that repeats: a monthly retainer, quarterly rent, annual software subscriptions, or a regular supplier order.

A template is a recipe, not a document. It defines what to generate, when, and whether to approve automatically. Each run spawns a real invoice or bill, identical to one you’d create by hand.

Create a template

Recurring Templates → New Recurring Template.

Section	Fields
Template Details	Template Name, Document Type (Invoice (AR) or Bill (AP) — you’re only offered the types your role can create), Reference, Customer/Supplier, Currency, Tax Mode, and — for a foreign currency — the exchange rate (see below)
Schedule	Frequency (Weekly/Monthly/Yearly), interval (every N), day of month, start date, due-date offset (days)
Line Items	Same drag-and-drop grid as documents — items, accounts, tax, tracking
Auto-approve	Switch: generate drafts (default) or auto-approve and post each run

For example: every 1 month, on the 1st, starting Jan 1, due 14 days after issue generates an invoice dated the 1st of each month, due on the 15th.

Foreign-currency templates show an exchange-rate field under Currency: leave it on System rate on issue date (each generated document takes the system rate on its own issue date), or click Use custom rate to use the same rate every time (Use system rate switches back). The rate is entered in market order — see Currencies & exchange rates.

Schedule math

• Weekly advances by interval × 7 days (same weekday).
• Monthly advances by interval months and snaps to your day-of-month. Day 31 clamps to month-end (so the 31st becomes the 28th/29th in February).
• Yearly advances by interval years (Feb 29 rolls to Feb 28 on non-leap years).
• An optional end date or max occurrences retires the template to completed when reached.

Template statuses

active ⇄ paused → completed

• Active — scheduled; generates on each next-run date.
• Paused — halted. Resume jumps the next run forward to the next valid future date (it won’t fire a backlog burst for the paused period).
• Completed — reached its end date or max occurrences; no further runs.

Drafts vs auto-approve

The Auto-approve switch decides what each run produces:

• Off (default) — generates a draft invoice/bill for review. Safe; a human still approves before anything posts.
• On — immediately approves and posts each generated document (as the system actor). Requires the Approve Documents permission (plus access to the invoice or bill side) and that the org’s system accounts (AR/AP + Tax Payable) exist. Best for rock-solid repeating items like rent.

Accept online payments

For invoice templates, an Accept online payments on generated invoices toggle seeds the Pay Now button on every invoice this template spawns. Each generated invoice inherits this setting (independent of your org-wide default), and can still be toggled per invoice afterward. Requires a connected Stripe account — see Online invoice payments.

Run, pause, and inspect

From a template’s detail page you can:

• Run now — generate immediately (useful for catching up or testing), choosing create-draft vs create-and-post.
• Pause / Resume.
• View the schedule, last run, next run, generated count, and the generated documents table (links to every spawned invoice/bill).

If the most recent run failed (e.g. a locked period or missing system account), a colored banner shows the status and the error so you can fix it. Failures leave no partial document — generation is atomic per run.

How generation stays reliable

• Idempotent. Re-running the same occurrence won’t duplicate — the job’s idempotency key plus a check for an existing document on that issue date prevent double generation.
• Lock date respected. A run targeting a locked period fails cleanly and retries with backoff.
• Schedule advances only on success. nextRunDate, lastRunDate, and generatedCount update atomically after the document is created.
• Deleting a template keeps its generated documents — only the recipe is removed.

Worked example: a monthly retainer

You bill Acme Co $2,000 + tax on the 1st of every month.

1. New Recurring Template, type Invoice (AR), customer Acme Co, currency USD, Tax Exclusive.
2. Schedule: Monthly, every 1, day 1, start next month, due-date offset 14.
3. Line: Monthly design retainer, qty 1, price $2,000, account Sales Revenue, tax Tax on Sales (10%).
4. Auto-approve on (you trust this one).
5. Create template.

On the 1st of each month, AccountFUN generates and approves an invoice for $2,200 (revenue $2,000 + tax $200), due on the 15th. It appears in your Invoices list as Approved and posts to your ledger — no manual entry, every month, forever (or until you pause or set an end date).

If Acme cancels after a year, just Pause the template; the twelve already- generated invoices stay exactly as they are.