Recurring Bills

Recurring Bills are templates that create a new vendor bill on a schedule — monthly rent, annual insurance, a quarterly software subscription — so your finance team never has to re-enter the same bill from scratch. Each generated bill lands in your regular Bills list in Pending status and still goes through your approval chain before any money moves.

If you pay the same vendor roughly the same amount on roughly the same day every cycle, this is the screen that takes that cycle off your team’s manual to-do list.

How Recurring Bills Fit Together

Recurring Template → Auto-Generated Bill (Pending) → Approval → Pay or Payment Run

Surface	What It Does
Recurring Bills	Templates you configure once — vendor, amount, cadence, start/end dates
Bills	Generated bills arrive here in Pending status for normal approval
Payment Runs	Batch-pay several approved recurring bills together on your AP cycle

---

When to Use Recurring Bills

Reach for a recurring bill template when the bill is predictable in all three dimensions:

• Vendor is the same every cycle
• Amount is stable (or close enough that you’ll notice a drift and update the template)
• Cadence is regular (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly)

Typical recurring templates:

• Office rent
• Subscription software (Google Workspace, Slack, accounting tools)
• Insurance premiums
• Retainer agreements with legal or accounting firms
• Utilities with a flat-rate plan

Stay with one-off bills when the amount or vendor varies cycle to cycle.

---

Setting Up a Recurring Bill

1. Navigate to Finance > Recurring Bills
2. Click New Recurring Bill
3. Fill in the template:
   • Vendor — pick an existing vendor or create one
   • Amount — the default amount for each generated bill
   • Category — the GL code or category the bill should post to
   • Cadence — weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly
   • Start date — when the first bill should generate
   • End date (optional) — the last cycle, if known (e.g. a fixed-term contract)
4. Save

The next bill generates automatically on its cycle date. Generated bills appear in your normal Bills list so your approval chain and payment workflow stay the same as for one-off bills.

---

Reviewing Generated Bills

Generated bills always land in Pending — nothing auto-pays. Your approval chain still runs:

1. The generated bill appears in the approver’s inbox
2. The approver reviews amount, vendor, and category against the template
3. The approver Approves — the bill moves to Approved and becomes eligible for a Payment Run
4. Or Rejects — the bill returns with a rejection reason (usually a signal that the template needs updating)

See Bills and Payables for the full approval flow.

---

Editing a Template

Templates drift — a vendor raises their retainer, a subscription tier changes, a rate card updates. To edit a template:

1. Navigate to Finance > Recurring Bills
2. Open the template
3. Edit the amount, cadence, or end date
4. Save — the next generation uses the new values

Edits to a template do not rewrite already-generated bills. If a bill has already been generated with the old amount, update that bill directly or reject and regenerate.

---

Pausing and Deactivating

If a vendor relationship ends or a cycle needs to stop mid-stream:

• Pause — temporarily stops generation; you can resume later and the next cycle date advances accordingly
• Deactivate — permanently stops the template; reactivating is possible but treated as a new schedule

Deactivated templates stay visible for audit — you can see every recurring contract you ever ran without polluting your active list.

---

Tips

1. Set up a template the first time a vendor bills you. Don’t wait for the third cycle to automate — the second bill is where manual entry starts costing time.
2. Include an end date when you know one. Annual contracts and fixed-term retainers should end on their own, not after an extra month of manual cleanup.
3. Put the contract number in the notes. If a vendor disputes an auto-generated bill, the contract number on the template surfaces the source-of-truth fast.
4. Review recurring bills quarterly. A 10-minute review of active templates catches drift before it becomes a real variance in your budgets.
5. Let Payment Runs do the payment batching. Recurring Bills handle the “when does the bill exist” problem; Payment Runs handle the “when does the money go out” problem. Keep them separate and they compose cleanly.

---

Common Issues

Issue	Cause	Solution
Recurring bill did not generate	The schedule end date has passed or the template was deactivated	Review the recurring template’s cadence and active status
Amount is wrong on the generated bill	The vendor changed their rate and the template hasn’t been updated	Edit the template amount; correct or regenerate the current bill
Template is generating too often	Cadence is set shorter than your billing cycle	Edit the cadence and save
Approvers did not see the generated bill	The approval chain has no approver with Finance Process on this category	Reconfigure approval routing for this category or amount
Duplicate bills this month	Two overlapping templates cover the same vendor	Deactivate one and keep the canonical template active

---

Related Features

• Bills and Payables — The approval and payment workflow that every generated bill enters
• Payment Runs — Batch-pay recurring bills alongside one-off bills in a single wizard
• Budgets — See how recurring obligations draw down department budgets over time

---

Need Help?

If a recurring bill is not generating or an auto-generated bill looks wrong:

1. Check that the template is Active (not Paused or Deactivated)
2. Verify the cadence matches the real billing cycle from the vendor
3. If the amount has drifted, edit the template before the next cycle so future generations are correct
4. For approvals that never route, confirm an approver with the Finance Process permission covers this category or amount
5. Contact support through the in-app help widget for further assistance