Repeating invoices

Setting one up

1. Write the invoice as you normally would — client, lines, tax, the lot.
2. From its menu, choose Repeat this.
3. Pick how often: weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly or yearly.
4. Set when the next one is due, and optionally when to stop.

The invoice you started from becomes the template. Manage every schedule from Settings → Repeating invoices.

It makes drafts, and only drafts

When a scheduled date has passed, Billkeep creates a draft for you to check and finish. It never finishes one on its own.

When they appear

Due drafts are made when you open your invoice list. There is no background job and none is wanted — a process producing business records unattended is worse than a catch-up a day late.

Come back after a long gap and Billkeep catches up at most twelve missed dates at once, and says that it did. The schedule then advances to the next real date rather than replaying old ones forever.

Dates: each draft is dated when it was due

A draft generated today for a date three weeks ago carries that issue date, not today's. The issue date is the tax point, so a catch-up dated today would put income in the wrong period and misstate a return.

Month arithmetic clamps: 31 January plus one month is 28 February — or 29 in a leap year — never 3 March. A schedule set on the 31st stays on month ends rather than drifting forward.

Changing the template

Editing the template changes the ones still to come and leaves drafts already made alone. That is exactly what a price rise means: next month's is different, last month's is not retrospectively rewritten.

Stop repeating this ends the schedule. Drafts already made stay where they are — they are your records now, not the schedule's.

What to check before finishing one

• The period it covers, if your description mentions a month.
• Hours or quantities, if they vary.
• The payment link, if you use a per-invoice one with the amount in it — that link is per sale, so it needs replacing each time.