Plan availability: this feature depends on your subscription. Each recurring type (invoices, sales receipts, bills, expenses, journals) is enabled separately by your plan — if a type doesn't appear in your menu, your plan may not include it. See Subscriptions & billing, or ask your workspace owner.
A recurring template generates the same document on a schedule — a monthly retainer invoice, a quarterly rent bill, a weekly expense, or a standing journal entry. You define the template once; SolaBooks creates fresh documents automatically on each due date.
What can recur
The Recurring Transactions page manages templates for five document types, each depending on your plan:
| Type | Produces |
|---|---|
| Invoice | Customer invoices |
| Sales Receipt | Sales receipts |
| Bill | Supplier bills |
| Expense | Expenses |
| Journal Entry | Journal entries |
You'll also find type-specific shortcuts in the sidebar — "Recurring Invoices" under AR (Sales), "Recurring Bills" and "Recurring Expenses" under AP (Purchases), "Recurring Journals" under Journal Entries — all leading to the same templates, pre-filtered.
Two ways to create a template
From scratch. On the Recurring Transactions page, click New Template and choose the type. The real document form opens in Recurring Template Mode, with a banner reminding you: "This saves a recurring template only — no document, number, payment or posting is created now." Fill in the customer/supplier, line items, amounts and taxes exactly as you would a one-off document — you're just describing what each generated document should look like.
From an existing document. Open any eligible invoice, sales receipt, bill, expense, or journal entry and choose Make Recurring. The template is seeded from that document — line items, accounts and tax codes are inherited.
Either way, you then set the schedule.
The schedule
- Repeat — Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly.
- Every — the interval (e.g. every 2 weeks, every 3 months).
- On day … of the month — for monthly-style schedules, the day documents are generated.
- Use last day of month — tick this instead for month-end runs; it handles short months (28th/30th/31st) correctly.
- Start date and End date ("Leave blank for no end date").
- Max occurrences — stop after a fixed number of runs, as an alternative to an end date.
- Timezone — the timezone the schedule runs in.
- When generated — "Create as Draft" (a draft is created each cycle for you to review and post) or "Create & Auto-Post" (the document is created and posted automatically).
- If period is closed — what to do when a run date falls in a closed accounting period: "Fail (manual resolution)" (the run is recorded as Failed and you sort it out) or "Shift to next open period" (the document is generated in the next open period instead).
Statuses explained
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active | The template is generating documents on schedule. |
| Paused | Generation is suspended; the template and its history are kept. Resume any time. |
| Cancelled | The template was stopped permanently. Generated documents remain. |
Each run in the Run History shows a result: Success (document generated), Failed (something blocked it — e.g. a closed period with "Fail" selected), Skipped, or Pending (queued to run).
Managing templates
Each row on the Recurring Transactions page offers: View, Edit, Run History, Generate Now (create the next document immediately, without waiting for the schedule), Pause, Resume, and Stop.
Stop is irreversible — you'll be asked to confirm: "Stop this recurring transaction? This cannot be undone." Use Pause unless you're certain.
Editing a template changes only future generated documents — already-created documents are untouched.
Example
Modern Furniture LLC invoices a maintenance client JOD 150 every month. Sara opens the client's last invoice and clicks Make Recurring. She sets Repeat "Monthly", Every 1, "On day 1 of the month", Start date 1 August, no end date, When generated "Create as Draft", and If period is closed "Shift to next open period". On the 1st of every month a draft invoice appears for review; she posts it after a quick check. When the contract ends next year, she'll use Pause first — and Stop only once she's sure it will never resume.
Common scenarios
- Failure notifications. If a run fails, the people responsible are notified so a failed invoice run doesn't go unnoticed. Check Run History for the reason.
- Auto-post into a closed period. Governed by your "If period is closed" choice — either the run fails for manual resolution, or the document shifts to the next open period. See Fiscal years and lock dates.
- Archived contacts. A customer or supplier with an active recurring template is protected — you can't archive them while the template would keep generating documents for them. Pause or stop the template first.
- Numbering. Generated documents draw numbers from the normal sequence — if a manual invoice claimed INV-00050 between two scheduled runs, the next run gets INV-00051.
Common mistakes
- "I edited the template but my generated invoice still has the old amount." Edits only affect future documents. To fix an already-created document, edit the invoice / bill itself.
- Pausing vs Stopping. Pause keeps the template (and its history) and can be resumed. Stop is permanent and cannot be undone — generated documents remain, but the template is finished.
- "My run shows Failed." Open Run History for the reason — most often a closed period with "Fail (manual resolution)" selected, or a required account/tax that's no longer available. Fix the cause, then use Generate Now.
- "I don't see a recurring type I expect." Each type is plan-dependent. If a type is missing, check your plan or ask your workspace owner.
Tips
- Prefer Make Recurring from a real document when one exists — everything is inherited, so there's less to re-enter.
- Use "Create as Draft" for anything customer-facing until you trust the template's output; switch to "Create & Auto-Post" once it's proven.
- Use Generate Now to test a new template immediately instead of waiting for the first scheduled run.
- Add the template's next-run dates to the Calendar view so you can see what's about to land.
Related
- Invoices, Sales receipts, Bills, Expenses, Journal entries — the five document types you can recur.
- Calendar — next-run dates show on the calendar timeline.
- Workflow & approvals — generated documents still go through any configured approval rules.
- Fiscal years and lock dates — how closed periods interact with generation.
- Settings — numbering sequences; "All Templates" under Recurring Transactions.