Feature Overview: Recurring Invoices

Feature Overview 

Recurring invoices in Inspect Point allow you to automatically generate (and optionally auto-send) invoices on a set schedule. This feature is helpful for those that provide ongoing services, such as monthly monitoring and other recurring services and are looking to streamline their billing process.

👉 Related Article: How to Create and Manage Recurring Invoices  

What is a Recurring Invoice?

A recurring invoice is an invoice that repeats on a defined schedule. Instead of manually creating the same invoice each billing cycle, you can set it up once and Inspect Point will handle the rest.

• Recurring invoices can be generated monthly, quarterly, yearly, or on a custom schedule.
• You can define when the recurrence ends—either after a certain number of invoices or on a specific date, or never.
• Invoices will auto-generate on the chosen schedule and can also be set to automatically send to your customer.

Key Features

• Enable Recurring Invoices: Admin users can enable the feature in Invoice Settings.
• Create Recurring Invoices: Set frequency and recurrence details. The months a series bills on come from the issue date of the invoice you build it from, not from a start date field. See How the schedule is set, below.
• Auto-Send: Choose whether invoices send automatically.

Important: Recurring invoices will only auto-send if the Auto-Send Invoice option is selected on the Recurrence Settings screen. If this box is not checked, the invoice will generate but remain unsent until a backend user sends it manually. 

• Edit Recurrence: Update the recurrence settings at any time from the invoice.
• Convert One-Time Invoices: Any one-time invoice can be converted to recurring.
• Filter Invoices: Easily view recurring and non-recurring invoices from the Invoices tab.

Important: 

• Recurring invoices are generated overnight, at about 3:00 AM Eastern.
• If a building or account does not have any associated contacts, the Auto-Send Invoice option will be greyed out. A contact must be added to the building/account before auto-send can be selected. Once added, you can edit the recurrence settings to enable auto-send.
• If the invoice is created directly from the Invoices tab, the auto-send option will also be greyed out. Save the invoice, then edit the recurrence details to access the auto-send option.

How the schedule is set

The months a recurring series bills on come from the issue date of the invoice the recurrence was built on. The month is used and the day is ignored. The date the recurrence was set up on is not used, and there is no start date field that sets the cycle.

A quarterly series built on an invoice dated anywhere in July bills in October, January, April and July. Built on an August invoice, it bills in November, February, May and August.

Set the issue date first, then switch on the recurrence. The next date is recalculated from the anchor invoice on every run, so the date can be edited before or after enabling. What matters is that it is not already in the past when the job next runs.

If the next date has already passed, the system does not skip to the following cycle and does not back-date. It generates a single invoice on the next overnight run, dated the day it runs, and that invoice becomes the new anchor, which moves the whole series onto different months. For example, a base invoice dated 30 June set to quarterly works out to 1 September. Enabled after that date has passed, it creates an unwanted invoice dated today and the series then bills in December, March and June.

Editing the anchor invoice keeps working until the series generates its first invoice. After that, the most recently generated invoice sets the schedule.

Recurrence settings including frequency, day of the month, active status and end conditions can be changed at any time. Changing them does not move the series onto different months, because that comes from the anchor invoice. Quarterly schedules accept days 1 to 28, or last day of month.

If you are setting up a large batch, set one up first and confirm it reads the way you expect before building the rest.