Recurring Customer Invoices
Set up automatic invoice generation on a weekly, monthly, or custom schedule. Muin creates and optionally sends each invoice without manual intervention.
Recurring Customer Invoices let you define a billing schedule — monthly retainer, weekly service fee, annual subscription — and have Muin generate each invoice automatically. You set it up once, review the output, and the billing cycle runs without manual intervention.
How Recurring Invoices Work
A recurring invoice is a template with a schedule. Muin generates actual invoices — with their own invoice number, PDF, and payment link — on each occurrence.
Template (schedule + line items) → Occurrence 1 (Invoice #INV-0045) → Occurrence 2 (INV-0046) → ...Each generated invoice is independent. You can edit or void a single occurrence without affecting future ones. The template itself controls the schedule; changes to the template apply from the next generation onward.
Creating a Recurring Invoice Template
Navigate to Finance > Recurring Invoices and click New Recurring Invoice.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Customer | Person or organization to bill |
| Line items | Same as a regular invoice — description, quantity, unit price, tax rate |
| Frequency | Weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual |
| Start date | First generation date |
| End date | Optional. Leave blank for indefinite. |
| Auto-send | When enabled, Muin emails the invoice automatically after generating it. When disabled, the invoice is created as a Draft for your review. |
| Due days | How many days after generation the invoice is due (e.g., Net 30) |
Generation Behavior
Muin generates the next invoice on the scheduled date. Idempotency guarantee: if the generation job runs twice on the same date (for example, after a server restart), only one invoice is created. The system detects the existing occurrence and skips the duplicate.
You can see upcoming generation dates on the template detail page. The Next occurrence field shows exactly when the next invoice will be created.
Auto-Send vs. Draft Review
- Auto-send enabled: Invoice is created, finalized, and emailed to the customer in one step. The payment link is immediately active.
- Auto-send disabled: Invoice is created in Draft status. It appears in the Customer Invoices list for your review. Open it, adjust if needed, then click Send manually.
Draft review mode is recommended when line items or amounts vary between cycles (for example, a time-and-materials engagement where you add hours each month before billing).
Managing an Existing Recurring Schedule
Open a recurring invoice from the list to see its detail page. From there you can:
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Pause | Stops future generation without deleting the template. Resume later. |
| Resume | Restarts generation from the next scheduled date. |
| Edit template | Updates schedule, line items, or customer for future occurrences. |
| Generate now | Creates the next occurrence immediately (regardless of scheduled date). Useful for testing or billing a partial month. |
| Deactivate | Permanently stops the schedule. Cannot be reactivated — create a new template if needed. |
Pausing and resuming is preferred over deactivating when you expect the billing to restart (for example, a project on hold).
Viewing Generated Invoices
Every invoice generated from a recurring template appears in the main Customer Invoices list with a Recurring badge. The template detail page also shows a history of all generated occurrences with their current status.
If a generated invoice fails to send (for example, an email bounce), it stays in Sent status on the Muin side. Use Resend from the invoice detail to retry delivery.
Permissions
Recurring invoice templates follow the same permission model as regular invoices:
| Action | Required permission |
|---|---|
| View recurring templates | finance:read |
| Create and edit templates | finance:write |
| Pause / resume / generate now | finance:process |
| Deactivate | finance:process |
Common Questions
Can I change the line items on a recurring template mid-year? Yes — editing the template updates future occurrences. Already-generated invoices are not affected.
What if generation fails (e.g., the server was down on the scheduled date)? A catch-up mechanism generates the missed occurrence on the next run. If more than one period was missed, only the most recent missed occurrence is generated to avoid flooding the customer with back-invoices.
Can I set different rates for different months? Not on a single recurring template. Create separate templates for each rate period, each with its own start and end date.
How do I stop billing a customer permanently? Deactivate the recurring template. Outstanding invoices already sent remain active until paid or voided.