Using Recurring Invoices gives you an easy way to automatically create Invoices for continual work.
A Recurring Invoice is a template that is used to make an invoice repeatedly. This is useful for sending regular invoices to a recurring customer. These can also be known as:
- Automatic invoices
- Regular invoices
- Scheduled invoices
- Periodic invoices
- Repeating invoices
- Cyclical invoices
- Repeat billing
- Subscription billing
- Rolling invoices
- Continuous invoices
Creating a Recurring Invoice
To create a recurring invoice:
- Head to your Invoice Dashboard.
- Select New Recurring Invoice.
Once in the Recurring Invoice screen, you'll be presented with a list of configuration options and text fields. Below is a comprehensive list of what each field represents.
Invoice Schedule
Frequency Options:
Note: If the date you specify does not occur in a given month, the last day of the month is used instead. As an example, February doesn't have the 29th, 30th, 31st, so instead it'll be set to the 28th.
- Daily - This setting allows the invoice to be created on a daily basis (according to the number of days entered in the following "Every" field).
- Weekly - This setting allows the invoice to be created on a weekly basis (according to the number of weeks entered in the following "Every" field).
- Monthly - day of the month - This setting allows the invoice to be created on a monthly basis, based on the date in a month (i.e. 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc).
- Monthly - day of the week - This setting allows the invoice to be created on a monthly basis, based on the day of the week (i.e. Mon, Tues, Wed, etc).
Next Occurrence - This indicates when the next invoice will be created.
Stop Date - This allows for a stop date to be specified. Once you reach this date, the recurring invoice will stop being generated.
Invoice Information
- Invoice Name - Enter a description of the invoice to easily identify your Recurring Invoice template.
Customer – Use this field to add the relevant Customer for this recurring invoice.
Note: If this invoice is for a new customer, click the '+' icon to create the customer from scratch. You can find out more about entering a new customer here. - Site - Use this if your customer has separate physical locations and you wish to record which customer location this invoice is for. For more information on setting up and configuring sites, please see here
- Pricing Level - Use this to determine which pricing set to charge on this invoice. For more information on setting up and configuring Pricing Levels, please see here.
- Default Invoice Due Date - The date at which invoices associated with this customer will be due for payment.
- Reference – Use this field to input a reference on the invoice.
- Document Theme - This represents the invoice layout theme to use when printing or emailing this invoice to a customer. You can find out more about Document Themes here.
- Description - Use to input a description of the invoice. This will be shown on the customer printout.
Adding Labour and Material Line Items
Once you've configured the presets, you'll want to add your labour and material components. These costs will appear on every invoice created from this recurring invoice template.
Check out our dedicated articles on adding Line Items to your Tradify invoices:
Using Invoice Variables
Invoice variables provide a great way of automating some of your description text. For instance, if you always want your customer name to show in your invoice description.
Instead of typing it out, you can just use [customer name] and Tradify will automatically input the name when generating the invoice.
Ensure you're using the [ ] function, as it pulls through to Tradify's system.
The following variables can be used in the invoice description and line item description:
- [companyname] – your company name
- [customername] – the customer's name
- [contactname] – the contact name
- [date] – the invoice date
- [month] – the invoice month
- [year] – the invoice year
- [duedate] – the invoice due date
- [number] – the invoice number
- [jobaddress] – the job address
Examples of Invoice Variables
Examples below are for invoice IV1144 generated on 30th of September 2019 due on 20th of October 2019:
Computer Support for [month] [year] = Computer Support for September 2019
Quarterly Service [month-2] – [month] = Quarterly Service July – September
Invoice [number] due [duedate] = Invoice IV1144 due 20 October 2019