# Recurring invoices

> The Markdown version of https://www.paylent.com/docs/recurring. Every page: [llms.txt](https://www.paylent.com/llms.txt).

Retainers and anything else billed on the same day each period, from a schedule that keeps its own place.

Work that repeats on a known rhythm — a retainer, a licence, a maintenance
agreement — is what **Recurring** is for. You describe it once and it raises the
invoice each period.

For work that repeats irregularly, a schedule is more machinery than the situation
needs. Duplicate the last invoice instead; [Invoices](https://www.paylent.com/docs/invoices.md) covers that.

## Setting one up

A schedule holds four things:

- **A description** — what you call it, like "Monthly retainer". Not the wording that
  goes on the invoice.
- **A cadence** — weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly.
- **A start date** — when the next invoice should be made.
- **Payment terms** — how long the invoices it makes give the customer to pay.

Its lines are the lines every invoice it raises will carry: description, quantity,
unit price, tax rate, the same as an ordinary invoice.

## What it produces is a draft

A schedule does not issue anything. When its day comes it makes an ordinary draft
invoice, which then behaves like any other: you look at it, change it if this month
is different, and issue it when you are happy.

That is deliberate. Issuing spends a number and freezes the content, and somebody
should see the first invoice of a new retainer before that happens. In practice the
work is a glance and a click.

## It keeps its own place

The schedule remembers one thing: the date the next invoice is due to be made. That
has two useful consequences.

It moves on from the date it billed, not from today, so a schedule that gets swept
late does not drift off the day of the month it bills on. And a schedule nobody has
swept for three months catches up one period per sweep rather than emitting three
invoices at once — but it does catch up, because the money is owed either way.

## Stopping and starting

Cancel a schedule and future billing stops. Nothing that has already been issued is
touched: those are real claims, numbered and sent and possibly paid, and they belong
to the invoices rather than to the schedule.

Resuming picks up from the next date already set, so a pause over a quiet summer does
not lose your place.

## Where to keep an eye on it

Upcoming invoices appear on the dashboard overview. A schedule that quietly stops is
money somebody stops thinking about, which is exactly why it is on the front page
rather than filed under a tab.

Each invoice a schedule generates says where it came from, so an invoice you do not
recognise can be traced back to the arrangement that made it.

---

Paylent · GBP, EUR, USD, AUD and CAD · hello@paylent.com