In this lesson we will cover:
– What is a Recurring Invoice?
– Creating Recurring Invoices
– Cloning Recurring Invoices
– Tracking Changes
– Inactive Recurring Invoices
– Recurring Invoices on a Customer
Associated Admin Guides:
What is a Recurring Invoice?
Recurring Invoices are a list of entities that can be billed on a regular schedule. This includes fixed Agreement prices and Recurring Items. Recurring Items are set per item, this is set so that when creating Invoice PDF's you can see what items were recurring and which were one off. For example, recurring software licenses.
Recurring Invoices can be considered as 'templates' for Invoice creation. We will come back to this concept through this lesson.
There are 3 fundamental steps involved in the creation of a Recurring Invoice:
- Selecting the Customer.
- Setting your invoicing schedule.
- Add Recurring Products.
For a General overview of recurring invoices and how to set them up:
Creating Recurring Invoices
For this lesson, we will not consider creating Recurring Invoices from Agreements (details on this will be outlined in the following lesson).
Beyond this, there are 3 primary locations where you will be able to create Recurring Invoices:
- From the Invoices Module.
- From the 'Recurring Invoices' tab against a Customer Record.
- From Sales Order Lines.
Let's take a look at the most commonly used place where Recurring Invoices are created – From the Invoices Module.
In the Invoices module, you will find a 'Recurring Invoices' list on the left hand side.
Click into this list then click 'New' and you will be presented with the new Recurring Invoice screen.
Fig 1. Recurring Invoice List
On the right hand side, you will see the option to select a Customer/site, and products can be added to this in the same way as invoices.
Note: If a Site is selected here, invoiced entities for different Sites (but the same customer) will not be merged onto invoices generated from this Recurring Invoice.
Setting your Invoice Schedule
Below the "Customer Details" and "Address" sections, you will see the "Schedule" section. It is imperative that you set a schedule for your Recurring Invoices – without setting a schedule, Invoices will not be generated and you will not get paid!
Fig 2. New Recurring Invoice Screen
Clicking "Set Schedule" will show the below screen where the schedule can be set.
Fig 3. Recurring Invoice Schedule Screen
The premise here is relatively straight forward:
- Set a start date (the date the first invoice will need to be created).
- Set a repeat period (how frequent would you like invoices to be created – Monthly, Quarterly, Annually etc..).
- (Optional) set an End Date, or leave blank if you want invoices to be created until you manually intervene.
- Set a number of days ahead of the above schedule to create Invoices.
The Calendar at the top of the window will show you when you can expect Invoices to be created. In Fig 3, we can that the 21st of Jan is highlighted, denoting this will be when the first invoice is to be created.
Adding Recurring Products
The main portion of the screen is where you will see options around adding Recurring Invoice lines, including:
- Add Recurring Product – This will return a list of all Products in HaloPSA that are marked as Recurring Products. Note: Products are marked as being recurring via checking the 'Is Recurring Product' checkbox against a product.
- Add Product – This will allow you to add any Product from your inventory to this Recurring Invoice. Note that, even if you add a non-Recurring Product via this option, it will be added to all Invoices generated from this Recurring Invoice.
- Add Generic Product – This option will allow you to add Recurring Invoices lines without the need to select from your existing inventory. This option will not create a Product.
- Add a Group of Items – This option will allow you to make use of your existing Quote Group Templates to add multiple Products without the need to manually add one-by-one.
- Add New Group – Allows you to add a group header for Recurring Invoice line grouping.
Creation Periods
As previously mentioned, Recurring Invoices can be thought of as 'Templates for Invoice creation', hence we can make use of $-variables for our Recurring Invoice lines.
This idea is similar to Email Templates, where we create an Email Template and include variables that are replaced on a Ticket-by-Ticket basis ($faultID, for example).
The most commonly used variables for Recurring Invoices describe the period that the services are covered for i.e. Invoices generated each month will specify the month for which the services are covered.
The period for which services are covered is presented via the 'Next Creation Period' (displayed in the Schedule section of the Recurring Invoice).
Fig 4. Next Creation Period for a Recurring Invoice
Note: This will only be displayed once you have saved your Recurring Invoice (including the Schedule).
The dates that are displayed in the 'Next Creation Period' are determined by the Invoice schedule + the option selected in 'Create Invoices this many periods ahead'. A worked example on how to use creation periods can be found in this Course.
Cloning Recurring Invoices
Recurring invoices can be cloned as of v2.176.1. This is a useful feature for creating similar recurring invoices for multiple customers, as they can be cloned and then edited for any fields that need to be different.
A "Clone" button will appear at the top of a recurring invoice.
Fig 5. Clone button on a recurring invoice.
Clicking this will then prompt selection of which customer you wish to assign the new cloned recurring invoice.
Fig 6. Selecting a customer to apply the clone to.
Pressing "Save" will generate the recurring invoice with all the same details as the original, except the customer change. The creation schedule will also transfer over for instance, and the product details also do. Customer-specific settings, like the agreement or address, do not transfer over.
Fig 7. Cloned invoice.
Tracking Changes
Changes to details within a recurring invoice are tracked within the "Change History" tab. It shows which changes have been made, when, and by who.
Fig 8. Change History tab on a recurring invoice.
Inactive Recurring Invoices
Recurring invoices can be set to an inactive status on the invoice schedule by disabling the "Active" checkbox.
Fig 9. Making a recurring invoice inactive.
(v2.176.1) You can restrict the view in the list of recurring invoices by hovering over the three dots and clicking "Show Inactive Recurring Invoices" or "Hide Inactive Recurring Invoices".
The inactive recurring invoice is shown in the list when "Show Inactive Recurring Invoices" was clicked.
Fig 10. Inactive recurring invoice showing in list.
Clicking "Hide Inactive Recurring Invoices" then removes it from the list.
Fig 11. Hiding inactive recurring invoice in list.
Recurring Invoices on a Customer
When in the customers area, you can view recurring invoices against a customer in the "Recurring Invoices" tab.
Hovering over the three dots (…) will allow you to switch between table and tile view. As of v2.180.1+, you also have the option here to show or hide inactive recurring invoices from the list.
Fig 12. Recurring invoices against a customer.
