Recurring invoicing

📍 How do I access this feature?
Main Menu > Sales > Customer Orders > Open an Order > " Invoicing " section

invoicing allows you to automatically generate customer invoices at regular intervals based on a sales order. This feature is particularly well-suited for subscriptions, maintenance contracts, leases, or any service billed on a periodic basis.

Recurring invoices are set up directly on the customer order: you define the frequency, the billing period, and the invoice details, and then Kafinea handles issuing them over time, without any manual intervention.

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1. Enable recurring payments #

1. Open the relevant sales order (Main Menu > Sales > Sales Orders)
2. In the Invoicing section, select the " Enable Recurrence" option
3. Configure the basic settings:
   • Frequency: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual
   • Start / End: the period during which invoices will be generated
   • Due date: the payment term applied to generated invoices (e.g., net 30 days, net 45 days, net 60 days)
   • invoice status: the initial status assigned to each invoice (e.g., Automatically created, Sent, etc.)

Tip: invoicing is based on a sales order. If you're billing for a subscription, first create the sales order with the corresponding product or service lines, then enable recurring billing for it.

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2. Dynamic Invoice Subject #

The " invoicing Subject" field allows you to define a template for the subject line of generated invoices. This template can contain dynamic variables that will be automatically replaced with the values corresponding to the invoice date invoice

Example: the topic Abonnement {MMM} {YYYY} will generate invoices titled "March 2026 Subscription," "April 2026 Subscription," and so on.

Good to know : You can force the language of the month name by adding {lang_xx_xx} in the subject line (e.g., {lang_en_us} (to get the months in English).

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3. Document Date Preference #

The "Document Date Preference" field allows you to precisely control the date that will appear on each invoice . The available options are:

Good to know: The term “period” automatically adjusts to the selected frequency. For a quarterly recurrence, the period corresponds to a quarter; for an annual recurrence, to a year, and so on.

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4. Automatic addition of consumption entries #

invoicing can automatically incorporate usage data (usage reports) recorded in Kafinea. Three settings allow you to configure this behavior:

• Add sales: Choose to include sales from the invoice period, the previous period, or none
• Filtering consumption data: Select a custom filter to limit the consumption data to be included
• Consumption aggregation: group consumption lines by period or by month

Good to know: This feature is particularly useful for “subscription + variable usage” contracts (e.g., cell phone plans, equipment rentals with meters, etc.). For more information, see invoicing Item Usage.

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5. Bill the parent company #

The " Invoice Parent Company " option allows you to automatically redirect invoicing the customer's parent account (parent company). When this option is enabled, recurring invoices will be issued in the name of the parent account rather than the customer account associated with the order.

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6. Automatic Generation and Catch-up #

Once the recurring billing is enabled, the system automatically generates an invoice the defined frequency. The generated invoices are linked to the original order and include the same product lines, amounts, and taxes.

Important: invoicing is performed via an automatic background process. If the process is interrupted, any missing invoices will be automatically generated during the next run: the system detects any past due dates that have not been processed and generates all corresponding invoices.

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7. Monitoring Dashboard #

Kafinea offers a dedicated dashboard, invoicing Analysis,” accessible from the Customer Invoices list (Main Menu > Sales > Customer Invoices, list actions menu). It allows you to monitor all orders with active recurring billing and displays the following for each order:

• The customer, the amount, and the frequency
• The next generation date and the date adjusted according to preference
• Invoices already generated for the current period
• Automatically detected issues: invoice , duplicate invoices, amount discrepancies, missing email addresses, account or organizational inconsistencies

Good to know: This dashboard is a valuable tool for ensuring that invoicing is working properly and for quickly identifying situations that require attention.

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8. Stop the recurrence #

To stop the automatic generation of invoices, open the relevant command and:

• uncheck the " Enable Recurrence" option, or
• Change the End Date to set the end of the recurrence.

Good to know: Even after the order has been finalized, you can still modify the recurring settings (activation, frequency, dates, preferences). This allows you to adjust invoicing without having to create a new order.

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9. Frequently Asked Questions #

On which document is invoicing enabled? #

For a customer order. Recurrence is configured in the " Invoicing " section of the record .

What happens if the server is down when an invoice is due invoice #

No invoice lost. The automated processing catches up on past due invoices that were not processed during its previous run and generates the missing invoices.

Can variable charges be included in recurring invoices? #

Yes. The Invoicing module allows you to automatically add usage data for the period, with filtering and grouping options.

How can I check that everything is working properly? #

Use the invoicing Analysis dashboard, which lists active recurring orders and automatically flags anomalies.

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Related references 🔗 #

• Classic invoicing
• Item consumption invoicing
• Customer purchase orders
• Customer payments
• Tax Settings