Recurring invoices

Recurring Invoices: Schedule Automatic Invoice Creation

Set up a reusable schedule and create fresh invoices daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly.

Set up regular work once as a recurring invoice schedule. On each due date, Simple Invoicing creates a separate invoice with a current number, dates, client, and line items.

Recurring invoices work well for monthly support, rent, retainers, memberships, and other services with stable content. Choose a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly interval and add an end date when the arrangement is fixed-term.

Each occurrence creates an ordinary invoice in your invoice list. The document receives its own number and current dates and remains linked to its recurring schedule.

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How to set up a recurring invoice schedule

Start with a new schedule or reuse the details of an existing invoice, then define what future invoices should contain.

  1. 1

    Create the schedule

    Open Recurring invoices and create a new schedule. From an existing invoice, choose Create recurring plan to reuse the client, line items, appearance, and payment details.

  2. 2

    Choose the frequency and start date

    Set the first date, interval, and optional end date. If the schedule includes today, choose whether to create today’s invoice immediately or skip that occurrence.

  3. 3

    Review the invoice defaults

    Check your business and client details, line items, currency, payment terms, tax settings, logo, and invoice-number format.

  4. 4

    Let the schedule create fresh invoices

    A new invoice is created in the early morning on its scheduled date, and the schedule advances to its next date. Open, edit, and download the generated invoice like any other PDF invoice.

Example: monthly website support

A developer charges a client $750 each month for website support. They create a monthly schedule starting September 1, set payment due 14 days later, and add a “Monthly website support” line item.

On the first day of each month, a new invoice is created with the next number from the selected format. Its invoice date follows the schedule, its due date is calculated automatically, and the invoice remains linked to its schedule.

  • Frequency: monthly from the selected start date.
  • Defaults: saved client, line item, price, and payment details.
  • Result: a separate invoice in the normal invoice list.

Every invoice receives its own number and dates

The schedule keeps the selected numbering format, but each occurrence asks that format for its next number based on invoices already issued. Generated documents do not reuse an old identifier.

Due and service dates are calculated as offsets from the invoice date. The schedule stores the defaults while each generated invoice becomes an independent snapshot that can be edited afterward.

Pause, resume, or archive the schedule

A paused schedule creates nothing new. When it is resumed, elapsed dates are skipped; if the next occurrence is today, you decide whether to create or skip it.

Archiving stops future generation but keeps previous invoices available. Generated invoices continue to link back to the schedule that created them.

When to update or pause a schedule

The schedule uses its saved defaults. Update it before the next due date if the contract, price, client, or tax treatment changes.

Each generated invoice is an independent document. Editing it later does not change the schedule defaults or any future invoices.

Related guides and tools

Frequently asked questions

Yes. The Create recurring plan action uses its client, business details, items, appearance, and payment settings as the starting defaults for a new schedule.

The next run processes all outstanding occurrences in date order, so a temporary outage does not permanently skip a due invoice.

Yes. It is an ordinary invoice in your invoice list. Editing it does not change the defaults stored in the recurring schedule.

No. Schedule changes apply only to future documents. Previously generated invoices remain unchanged.

In the early morning on its scheduled date. The exact time may vary slightly as scheduled jobs are processed.

Set up regular work once

Create a recurring invoice schedule, review its first date, and let future documents appear at the selected interval.

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