You can now easily set up and create automatic recurring invoices for your clients at a specific frequency (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or custom frequency) directly from your Qonto account to make your invoicing process more efficient and less time-consuming.
This feature is available for Admins and Owners on web app, via the Account Receivable add-on.
Setting up your recurring invoice
You can access this feature from Invoices > Clients > Recurring invoices. When setting up a recurring invoice, you need to select:
- Start date: this indicates the start of the recurrence (i.e. when the first invoice will be created).
- End date: this indicates the end of the recurrence (optional). If you don’t select an end date, invoices will continue to be created indefinitely until you decide to suspend or cancel the recurring invoice.
- Frequency: this indicates how frequently invoices are created (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, or at a custom frequency).
- Payment terms: this indicates the due date of each created invoice. For example, if the payment terms are 15 days, each invoice will need to be paid within 15 days from the issue date.
- Email details: here you can enter the recipient's email address (or addresses) and the email subject and message that will be used when each invoice is automatically sent.
-
Client and products and services remain unchanged from normal one-off invoices
⚠️ Invoices created automatically will all have the same amount, but the recurring invoice can be edited during the invoicing period. -
Payment details: just like with one-off client invoices, you can specify the account where you’d like to receive the payment. Additionally, if you’re eligible for direct debit collection, you can enable the option to automatically debit your client. Learn more about eligibility.
💡 How direct debit collection works on recurring invoices
1. Once you’ve set up a recurring invoice, you’ll need to set up your recurring direct debit in the following step. To save you time, we’ll pre-fill the amount, first collection due date, and frequency from your recurring invoice details.
2. Enter a transaction reference.
3. Next, assign a mandate to the direct debit:
- If your client has one or more active mandates, you’ll find them listed in the dropdown menu. Otherwise, you can choose to create a new one. Remember we will only start debiting your client after they sign the mandate.
- If your client has no active mandates, we’ll create and request one for you.
4. Lastly, click on Confirm, and your recurring direct debit will be set up.
The individual invoices created from a recurring invoice will be listed together with normal one-off invoices. They will be identified with an informational note saying: “This invoice was created automatically as part of a recurring invoice.”
☝️ Good to know: This feature will be available only on the web app, but users on mobile devices will be able to see the informational note saying: “This invoice was created automatically as part of a recurring invoice.”
What are the different recurring invoice statuses and what actions can I take?
Recurring invoices have 5 statuses:
- Active → this is a recurring invoice that is currently running
- Suspended → this is a recurring invoice that has been paused
- Scheduled → this is a recurring invoice that has a start date in the future
- Completed → this is a recurring invoice that has ended
- Canceled → this is a recurring invoice that has been canceled
You can only perform some actions if the recurring invoice has the Active, Suspended or Scheduled
statuses:
-
Edit → You can edit
Active, Suspended or Scheduled
recurring invoices. -
Suspend → You can suspend
Active
recurring invoices. No invoices will be created while a recurring invoice is suspended. On the end date, the recurring invoice will move toCompleted
. -
Reactivate → You can reactivate
Suspended
recurring invoices. By reactivating a recurring invoice, we will resume creating invoices. -
Cancel → You can cancel
Active, Suspended, and Scheduled
recurring invoices. By canceling a recurring invoice, we stop creating invoices. - You can also view all invoices created from a recurring invoice and their status (
Paid, To be paid, Canceled
) by clicking on the table row and opening the right-hand side panel.
What should I take into account when managing my recurring invoices?
⚠️ Important: If you need to pause a recurring invoice, you should cancel or suspend it on the day before the next invoice is issued. This will avoid you having to manually cancel it.
- You cannot edit the
start date
orfrequency
of anActive or Suspended
recurring invoice. - If you delete a client that is used on an
Active, Suspended, or Scheduled
recurring invoice, we’ll mark this recurring invoice asCanceled
. - If your company’s account is closed, all
Active, Suspended, or Scheduled
recurring invoices will be marked asCanceled
. - For recurring invoices, we apply automatic numbering. This means that, if you have a recurring invoice that is
Active, Suspended, or Scheduled
, you will not be able to switch between automatic numbering and manual numbering whenever you want to create one-off invoices or quotes. If you have no recurring invoices or all recurring invoices areCompleted or Canceled
, you will then be able to switch again between the two numbering modes.