Recurring invoices

A recurring invoice bills the same customer the same lines on a schedule. easySales raises a draft invoice for each period, and someone in your team checks it and issues it. This page is for whoever looks after them; see Recurring invoices for how they work.

Where to find it

Select Recurring invoices in the sidebar, after Invoices. The list has five views, each with its count: All, Active, Paused, Ended and Needs attention. Each row shows the customer, the schedule, the amount per period before tax, the next invoice, the owner and the status.

Open a recurring invoice to see its Periods, its Template (the lines repeated every period) and its History. Under Next invoice it shows the date of the next period, and a note when a draft is waiting, such as “Period 10 (01 Oct 2026): draft awaiting issue”.

An account’s page has a Recurring invoices tab with up to five of its recurring invoices. When it has more, View all opens the list filtered to that customer.

What you can do

• Create a recurring invoice, copy one, or make an issued invoice recurring. See Set up a recurring invoice.
• Check Needs attention. It gathers periods not raised, periods due for you, drafts to issue, periods part invoiced, and recurring invoices whose owner is no longer an active user.
• Open a period’s draft with Open draft, check it, and issue it like any other invoice.
• Select Generate now on a period that is due or not raised, to raise its draft straight away.
• Skip a period the customer should not pay for, with an optional reason. A draft for that period is deleted. Undo skip brings the period back.
• Pause to stop the schedule for a while and Resume to restart it. Periods that fell due while it was paused wait for you to generate or skip them.
• End a recurring invoice for good. Issued invoices stay. It is refused while a period has a draft; issue or delete the draft first.
• Edit it: the contact, owner, payment term, end date, the lines and the automatic drafts switch.

Rules to know

• Drafts are never issued or sent automatically.
• easySales raises due drafts once an hour. A draft raised after its planned day is dated the day it is raised.
• The schedule does not catch up: a period whose day passed without a draft waits as Due - for you.
• Deleting a period’s draft makes the period Due - for you; the schedule does not raise it again.
• When a draft cannot be raised, the owner gets a notice in their message centre and the period shows Not raised with the reason. The schedule tries again once a day.
• A change to the lines affects drafts raised afterwards only.
• Each draft names its period, such as “Period 3 of 12 of recurring invoice #7”, with the dates it covers.

Permissions

Recurring invoices use the Invoice permissions; there is no separate one. You need List and View to see them, Add and Edit to create one or generate a draft, Edit to change, pause, resume, end or skip, and Delete to skip a period that has a draft. With Own records only you see and work on the recurring invoices you own. When your company’s Invoice module is off, recurring invoices are off too.

Why it works this way

A person issues every invoice. Issuing gives an invoice its number and cannot be undone, and only someone who knows the customer can tell whether this month’s charge is still right. So easySales prepares the draft on time, and a person checks it and issues it.

A missed period waits for you instead of catching up. A period can be missed because the recurring invoice was paused, or its draft was deleted on purpose. Raising every missed period at once could bill a customer for months you meant to leave out, so each one waits for you to generate or skip it.

Each period is raised automatically at most once. If the hourly run is retried, or someone selects Generate now at the same time, the customer still gets one draft for the period, never two.

It follows the Invoice permissions. Whoever may create and edit invoices may run recurring invoices, so there is no second set of rights to keep in step with the first.

Work faster

• Start each day with Needs attention. It lists only what needs a person: drafts to issue, periods due for you and periods not raised, with a count on the tab.
• Make an issued invoice recurring. Make recurring in the invoice’s ··· menu copies its customer, currency and lines, so you set only the schedule. See Set up a recurring invoice.
• Let descriptions name the period. A line such as “Plant styling for [Month] [Year]” prints “Plant styling for December 2026” on that period’s draft, so you never retype it. See Set up a recurring invoice.
• Skip ahead of time. The next period is listed on the Periods tab before its day comes; skip it there and no draft is ever raised for it.
• Fix the cause, then Generate now. The Not raised message names what stopped the draft, such as an inactive owner; correct it with Edit and select Generate now rather than waiting for the next daily try.

Examples

A month to skip. Lim & Co bills Harbour Café a monthly plant-styling retainer of SGD 450.00 plus GST 9% of SGD 40.50, SGD 490.50 a month, raised on the first day of each period from 1 October 2026. The café closes for renovation in December. On 25 November Mei Tan opens the recurring invoice and, on the Periods tab, selects Skip on period 3 (1 December 2026) with the reason “Closed for renovation”. Period 3 reads Skipped, no draft is raised on 1 December, and period 4 is raised on 1 January 2027 as usual. The café pays SGD 490.50 × 2 = SGD 981.00 for October and November.

An owner who has left. Jason, who owned the recurring invoice for Seaside Florist, has left and his user is no longer active. Needs attention shows it as Owner inactive, and its next period reads Not raised: “This recurring invoice’s owner is no longer an active user. Change its owner, then generate the invoice again.” Daniel Lim, whose Invoice Edit is All records, selects Edit, makes himself the Owner and saves, then selects Generate now on the period. The draft is raised, and he issues it.

Common questions

• Does easySales send recurring invoices to the customer automatically? No. Each period is raised as a draft for a person to check and issue, and easySales never sends an invoice to a customer. Send the PDF yourself once it is issued.
• Why was no draft raised this month? The recurring invoice may be paused, its automatic drafts may be off, or the period’s day passed before automatic drafts started. Look under Needs attention: the period shows Due - for you, or Not raised with the reason.
• How do I stop a recurring invoice? Select End to stop it for good, or Pause to stop it for a while and Resume later. Issued invoices are not affected.
• Can I skip one month of a recurring invoice? Yes. Select Skip on that period and give a reason if you wish. Undo skip brings it back.
• What happens if I delete a recurring invoice’s draft? The period becomes Due - for you and is not raised again by the schedule. Select Generate now to raise it again, or Skip it.
• Who is told when a draft cannot be raised? The recurring invoice’s owner, in their message centre. The period shows Not raised with the reason, and the schedule tries again once a day.

Related

• Recurring invoices (concept)
• Set up a recurring invoice
• Invoices
• Plan billing stages