Recurring invoices

A recurring invoice is a template with a calendar attached. The only decision worth thinking about is how much of it happens without you.

Setting one up

Create a document of type Recurring. It looks like an invoice and has an extra block: how often, starting when, how many times, and two switches — issue automatically and send automatically. A recurring template never has a number of its own; it generates invoices that do.

How far the automation goes

Start with the first. Move to the third when you have watched it be right for two cycles — it is easier to trust a thing you have already checked than to un-send an email.

Month ends

A monthly schedule starting on the 31st does not skip February. It lands on the last day of the month instead, then returns to the 31st where the month has one. We handle this explicitly because the naive version — add one month to the date — silently drops a billing cycle every February and nobody notices until the year-end figures are short.

Never twice for the same period

Every generated invoice records the period it covers. Before issuing, we look for an invoice from the same template covering the same period; if there is one, nothing happens. A cron run that fails halfway and runs again does not double-bill anybody.

Stopping and changing

Pause a template and the schedule stops without losing the history. Change the lines or the price and the change applies to the next invoice, not to the ones already issued. Set an end date or a count, and the template retires itself.

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