If you bill the same customer every month for rent, a retainer or a support plan, you do not want to retype the invoice each time. Billing's Recurring bills screen keeps that rule for you and tells you when a bill is due, but it never raises one on its own. This guide explains how recurring bills work in Billing, what happens when you press the button, and how to keep the invoices tidy.
Where to find recurring bills
Open Settings, then Automation & workflows. Below the payment reminder rules you will see a Recurring bills section with an Open recurring bills button. That takes you to the Recurring bills screen, which lists every rule in the company you are working in.
You need the recurring.manage permission in your Billing profile to see the Automation section. If your profile does not include it, the page says that recurring bills and payment reminders are not part of your Billing profile. Ask the company owner to change your profile rather than working around it.
What a recurring bill actually is
A recurring bill is a rule, not a scheduled invoice. The rule holds:
- a name you will recognise, such as "Shop rent, monthly";
- the customer account to bill;
- how often it repeats: weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual, or every set number of days;
- a first date and, if you want one, a last date;
- the invoice lines (the items, rates and quantities) and an optional narration.
The screen shows each rule with its name, customer, how often it repeats, the next date and its status: active, paused or ended. The screen is for working through what is due. A rule is set up with a name, customer, frequency and at least one invoice line, so have those ready.
Billing never raises a bill by itself
This is the most important point. When a rule's date arrives, it is listed as due. The date turns in a warning colour, and the count appears on the bell and on the overview as "recurring bills ready to raise". Nothing is posted until a person presses Raise it.
Billing is built this way on purpose. An invoice is a statutory document, and one that posts unattended, with nobody checking the customer or the amount, is hard to take back. A human pressing the button is the check.
The Raise it button appears only for active rules whose date has come, and only if your profile allows creating sales bills. A rule that is paused or ended shows no button, and trying to raise it is refused.
What happens when you press Raise it
Pressing the button creates a real sales invoice in Smart Books, through the same route as any other sale made in Billing. There is no second, hidden path. The invoice:
- is dated on the rule's due date, not on the day you pressed the button;
- uses the lines and narration saved in the rule;
- is billed to the customer account on the rule.
Then the rule moves on to its next date. If the rule has a last date and the next date would fall after it, the rule is marked Ended instead.
Because the invoice date is the due date, a bill raised late still lands in the period it belongs to. Check the date with your CA if a bill crosses a month-end or a return period.
No double billing
Billing keeps one run for each due date of a rule. If you press Raise it twice, or two people press it at the same moment, only one invoice is made. A second attempt for a date already raised is refused with a message that the bill has already been raised for that date.
If Smart Books cannot accept the invoice, the run is recorded as failed with the reason, and the rule does not move on. You can try again once the problem is fixed. A retry after a lost answer completes the invoice Smart Books may already hold rather than creating another.
Month-end dates stay at month-end
Rent billed on the last day of the month is a common case. Billing remembers the day the rule is anchored to. A bill dated 31 January is followed by 28 February, then 31 March and 30 April. Each month is cut down to its own length, and the rule goes back to the 31st when the month allows it. It does not drift to the 28th for ever after February.
Missed a month?
If a rule has been due for a while, the date shows in the warning colour until you raise it. Billing never moves a rule backwards onto dates it has already billed. Look at the invoice date before you confirm, so that a late bill still lands in the right month, and ask your CA if it crosses a return period.
A simple monthly routine
- Look at the overview or the bell for "recurring bills ready to raise".
- Open Recurring bills and read each due rule: customer, frequency and date.
- Confirm the amounts are still right. If something has changed, fix it before you raise the bill rather than after.
- Press Raise it on the ones you mean.
- Follow up on collection. Our guide to Money to Collect in Billing shows how to age receivables and chase overdue bills, and payment links let customers pay online.
Check the invoice, not just the rule
A saved rule is only as good as its lines. Before a rule goes live, read the saved lines the way you would read any invoice: description, rate, tax and quantity. If you are unsure which fields a GST tax invoice must carry, see the Rule 46 checklist. If a recurring bill is wrong after it is raised, a credit note is the usual way to correct it.
Every recurring-bill action, creating a rule, raising it, pausing it or ending it, is written to the Billing audit trail, so you can see who did what and when.
Key takeaways
- A recurring bill is a rule that tells you when to bill; it is not an automatic invoice.
- Due rules are counted on the bell and overview; nothing posts until someone presses Raise it.
- The invoice is dated on the rule's due date and goes to Smart Books like any other sale.
- One invoice per due date, so a double press cannot bill twice.
- Month-end rules keep their anchor day.
- Confirm tax treatment and invoice dates for your case with a CA.
If you bill the same customers every month, try Recurring bills in Aicountly Billing and keep control of every invoice that goes out.
