If you bill the same client the same amount every month, you already know the pain: open the last invoice, duplicate it, update the dates, update the invoice number, check the line items, issue it, generate the PDF, send the email. Every. Single. Month.
Recurring invoices eliminate this routine entirely. You define the schedule once, and com1 generates draft invoices automatically. You review them, issue them when you're ready, and send them to your client. No more forgetting, no more copy-paste errors, no more invoices going out late.
Three billing patterns, one feature
We built recurring invoices around the three patterns we actually see in agency billing:
1. Fixed monthly billing
You charge a client a flat fee every month for hosting, maintenance, or a retainer. The line items never change. The amount is always the same. You pick a template invoice, and com1 copies its line items into each new draft.
Example: you host a client's web application for $25 per month. Set up a recurring invoice with the hosting invoice as the template, choose "Monthly" and "Current period", and you're done. On the first of each month, a draft appears ready to issue.
2. Fixed yearly billing
Domain renewals, annual licenses, yearly support contracts. Same idea as monthly, just on a yearly cycle. The service period spans a full year, and com1 generates the draft on the anniversary date.
3. Time-log based monthly billing
This is where it gets interesting. For clients billed by the hour, com1 pulls all billable time logs from the previous month and imports them as invoice line items. Your team logs time against tickets throughout the month, and at the start of the next month, those hours automatically become an invoice.
You choose whether to import as a single summary line ("46 hours of development") or broken down by ticket ("12 hours on ticket A, 8 hours on ticket B, ..."). The hourly rate, item classification, and tax scheme are all pre-configured in the recurring invoice definition.
Drafts, not surprises
A recurring invoice never issues automatically. It never sends an email without your say-so. Every generated invoice starts as a draft. You open it, review the line items and amounts, make any adjustments you need, and then issue it yourself.
This is intentional. Invoices are legal documents. A time-log invoice might need a note about a specific task. A hosting invoice might need an extra line item for a one-time setup fee. You should always have the chance to review before anything goes to a client.
Current period vs. previous period
Not all billing works the same way. Hosting is typically billed in advance — you're invoicing for the current month. Consulting is billed in arrears — you're invoicing for work already completed last month.
Each recurring invoice lets you choose: bill for the current period or the previous period. This determines which month (or year) appears as the service period on the generated invoice, and for time-log invoices, which date range is used to pull billable hours.
You'll know when drafts are waiting
When the system generates a new draft, you get a notification — both as an in-app toast and optionally via email. The notification tells you which invoice was created and for which client, and clicking it takes you straight to the draft for review.
No more checking manually whether it's time to invoice. The system tells you.
Setting it up
You can create a recurring invoice definition from scratch via the "Recurring" section in the sidebar, or directly from any issued invoice by clicking "Create Recurring". The second option pre-fills all the fields — supplier, customer, bank account, currency, payment terms, and template invoice — so you're usually just choosing the frequency and clicking save.
Each recurring invoice shows you its schedule, next run date, and a full history of every invoice it has generated. You can pause it at any time, resume it later, or use the "Generate Now" button to test before the scheduled date.
Stop doing what your software should do for you
Recurring invoices are one of those features that save a small amount of time each month — but that time compounds. Twelve clients, twelve months, that's 144 invoices a year you don't have to create manually. More importantly, it's 144 invoices that can't be forgotten or delayed.
Set it up once, review when notified, send when ready.