Recurring invoicing

📍 How do you access this feature?
Main menu > Sales > Customer orders > open an order > “Recurring invoicing” block

Recurring invoicing makes it possible to automatically generate customer invoices at regular intervals from a customer order. This mode is particularly suited to subscriptions, maintenance contracts, rentals, or any service billed periodically.

Recurrence is configured directly on the customer order: you define a frequency, a period and the content of the invoices, then Kafinea takes care of issuing them over time, without manual intervention.

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1. Enable recurrence #

1. Open the relevant customer order (Main menu > Sales > Customer orders)
2. In the Recurring invoicing block, enable the Enable recurrence option
3. Configure the basic settings:
   • Frequency: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly
   • Start / End: the period during which invoices will be generated
   • Due date: the payment terms applied to generated invoices (e.g.: net 30 days, net 45 days, net 60 days)
   • Invoice status: the initial status assigned to each generated invoice (e.g.: Automatically created, Sent, etc.)

Tip: recurring invoicing is based on a customer order. If you are invoicing a subscription, first create the order with the corresponding product or service lines, then enable recurrence on it.

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2. Dynamic invoice subject #

The Recurring invoicing subject field lets you define a subject template for generated invoices. This template can contain dynamic variables that will automatically be replaced with the corresponding values for the invoice date:

Example: the subject Abonnement {MMM} {YYYY} will generate invoices titled “Subscription March 2026”, “Subscription April 2026”, etc.

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

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3. Document date preference #

The Document date preference field lets you precisely control the date that will appear on each generated invoice. The available options are:

Good to know: the notion of “period” automatically adapts to the chosen frequency. For a quarterly recurrence, the period corresponds to a quarter; for a yearly recurrence, to a year, etc.

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4. Automatic addition of usage #

Recurring invoicing can automatically include usage (usage readings) recorded in Kafinea. Three settings let you configure this behaviour:

• Add usage: choose to add usage from the period of the invoice date, from the previous period, or not to add any
• Usage filtering: select a custom filter to restrict the usage to include
• Usage grouping: group usage lines by period or by month

Good to know: this feature is particularly useful for contracts of the “subscription + variable usage” type (e.g.: phone plan, equipment rental with a meter, etc.). To learn more, see Invoicing item usage.

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5. Invoice the parent company #

The Invoice parent company option automatically redirects invoicing to the customer’s parent account (parent company). When this option is enabled, invoices generated by the recurrence will be issued in the name of the parent account rather than the customer account on the order.

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6. Automatic generation and catch-up #

Once recurrence is enabled, the system automatically generates an invoice according to the defined frequency. Generated invoices are linked to the original order and use the same product lines, amounts and taxes.

Important: recurring invoicing runs via an automatic background process. If the process is interrupted, missing invoices will be automatically caught up the next time it runs: the system detects past due dates that were not processed and generates all corresponding invoices.

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7. Monitoring dashboard #

Kafinea provides a dedicated dashboard, Recurring invoicing analysis, accessible from the Customer invoices list (Main menu > Sales > Customer invoices, list actions menu). It lets you monitor all orders with active recurrence and displays, for each order:

• The customer, amount and frequency
• The next generation date and the adjusted date according to the preference
• Invoices already generated for the current period
• Automatically detected anomalies: missing invoice, duplicate, amount discrepancy, missing email address, account or organisation inconsistency

Good to know: this dashboard is a valuable tool to ensure recurring invoicing is working properly and to quickly identify situations requiring intervention.

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8. Stop recurrence #

To stop automatic invoice generation, open the relevant order and:

• disable the Enable recurrence option, or
• change the End date to set the end of the recurrence.

Good to know: even after the order is finalised, recurrence settings remain editable (activation, frequency, dates, preferences). This makes it possible to adjust recurring invoicing without having to create a new order.

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9. Frequently asked questions #

On which document is recurring invoicing enabled? #

On a customer order. Recurrence is configured in the Recurring invoicing block of the order record.

What happens if the server was down when an invoice was due? #

No invoice is lost. The automatic process catches up past due dates that were not processed the next time it runs and generates the missing invoices.

Can variable usage be included in recurring invoices? #

Yes. The Recurring invoicing block lets you automatically add usage for the period, with filtering and grouping options.

How can I check that everything is working properly? #

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

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Related references 🔗 #

• Standard invoicing
• Invoicing item usage
• Customer purchase orders
• Customer payments
• Tax configuration