AWRA Help Center

Open Sales → Invoices and choose Recurring invoices in the row of links at the top. Each schedule names a customer, a set of lines and a cadence. Every morning the system raises the invoices that are due. A recurring invoice is built by the same code as one you type, so it gets the same numbering, tax, credit check and eTIMS filing.

Setting Up A Schedule

1. Click New schedule. Give it a name (for example Office rent — Block B) and choose the customer.
2. Choose Every: weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually.
3. Set First invoice on — the date of the first period — and, optionally, Last invoice on or before. Leave the end empty to run until you end it.
4. Set Due after (days); 14 by default.
5. If the lines include stock items, choose the Ship from warehouse and, optionally, a location in it.
6. Add the lines. Leave a line's unit price blank to have it priced from the customer's price list on each invoice date, or type a price to fix it. A discount is an amount off the whole line.
7. Choose how each invoice is delivered (below), add any Notes on each invoice, and click Save schedule.

Periods are counted from the first invoice date, not chained from the last run. A schedule that starts on the 31st bills on the last day of February and then on the 31st again, rather than drifting to the 28th.

Draft, Issued Or Emailed

• Neither box ticked — each invoice is raised as a draft for someone to review and approve.
• Issue automatically — each invoice is approved as it is raised, which is when it files to eTIMS where that is switched on.
• Issue automatically and Email it to the customer — once issued, the invoice PDF is emailed to the customer's address on file. Emailing needs automatic issue, because a draft is not final.

Automatic issue never bills stock that is not free. If the goods for a period are short at the schedule's warehouse, after other orders' reservations, the invoice is still raised on time but left as a draft, and whoever created the schedule is notified with what was short. An invoice that would take the customer over their credit limit goes on credit hold like any other and waits for an override.

How The Daily Run Works

• One invoice per schedule per period, ever. A second run, a retry or a double click cannot raise a duplicate.
• Catch-up after downtime. Periods missed while the system was down are raised when it is back, each dated to its own period, up to 12 per schedule per run.
• A failure does not skip a month. If a period cannot be raised, the error is recorded on the schedule, the schedule stays where it was, and the period is retried on the next daily run. The schedule's creator is notified the first time.
• If an issued invoice cannot be emailed — for example the customer has no valid email address — the invoice stands and the schedule's creator is notified.

Managing A Schedule

• Raise next now raises the next period's invoice today, whatever its date. It is the same period the daily run would have raised, so it is never raised twice.
• Pause stops billing. Periods that fall while a schedule is paused are skipped, not billed; on Resume it picks up at its next date from today.
• End schedule is final. An ended schedule cannot be edited or resumed — start a new one. A schedule also ends by itself once its last invoice date has passed.
• Edit changes the lines, delivery and dates. Once a schedule has raised an invoice, changing its start date or cadence recounts the next date from the last invoice raised.
• The schedule page lists every period raised, with its invoice, total and status, and the error for any period that failed.

What Reaches The Ledger

A recurring invoice posts exactly as a typed one does. An invoice of service lines only — the usual case for rent, retainers and subscriptions — books its revenue (receivable, sales revenue and tax payable) when it is issued. An invoice with stock lines books its revenue and cost of sales when its stock is checked out. A draft posts nothing until it is approved.

Permissions

Anyone who can view invoices can see schedules and their history. Creating, editing, pausing, resuming, ending and Raise next now need the permission to manage recurring invoices. A user tied to one warehouse can only set their own warehouse on a schedule.

Common Mistakes

• Backdating by accident. A first invoice date months ago raises an invoice for every missed period. Read the warning on the form before saving.
• Pausing to delay a bill. A pause skips the periods inside it; use Raise next now later, or adjust the schedule, if you mean to bill them.
• Ticking email without issue. The schedule is refused: only an issued invoice is emailed.
• A customer with no email on file. Issued invoices are not emailed; add the address on the customer record.
• Stock lines on an auto-issue schedule. If stock runs short the invoice waits as a draft; check your notifications.

Related

• Invoices — approving, checking out and collecting payment.
• Price Lists — how lines without a fixed price are priced.
• eTIMS & Tax — filing at issue.
• Recurring invoices — the feature overview.