Setup decisions needed to run recurring invoices

In order to run recurring invoices in the Billing application, you need to make three setup decisions that are directly related to recurring invoice processing:

  • Control Recurring Charge Entry

  • Use Recurring Bill Date as Invoice Date

  • Use a Recurring Invoice Prefix

See Setting up the Billing application.

Control Recurring Charge Entry

The Control Recurring Charge Entry option lets you authorize specific users to maintain billing charges as a new billing cycle approaches. You can use this option if the quantities (that you bill for) change from one billing cycle to the next and you manually control the charge you bill each billing cycle.

Use Recurring Bill Date as Invoice Date

Note: The invoice date determines which general ledger period a particular transaction posts to.

The Use Recurring Bill Date as Invoice Date option lets you base the invoice date on the date that you actually create the invoice. If you decide you want the invoice date to be the date you create the invoice, then the date may vary from one month to the next.

For example, if you run invoices the third Thursday of every month, then one month may have an invoice date of the 17th, and the next invoice date may be the 20th.

If you decide that you do not want to use the recurring bill date as the invoice date, then you can pre-define a date, such as the 15th of every month.

Use a Recurring Invoice Prefix

The Recurring Invoice Prefix option lets you define a unique two-character prefix to identify the recurring invoices.