Billing schedules
Bill in milestones or monthly instalments with Invoa billing schedules: the daily run, lead days, auto-issue, Invoice now, skips and start dates.
A billing schedule plans the invoices for one customer ahead of time: a deposit on signing, a payment at go-live, then twelve monthly instalments, for example. Invoa creates each invoice when it falls due, as a draft for you to check or issued and emailed automatically.
Billing schedules are part of the Pro plan, and of the 14-day Pro trial. If the company leaves Pro, existing schedules stay visible and can be paused or cancelled, but no new invoices are created from them until it upgrades again. See Plans, trial and billing.
Create a schedule
- Open Billing schedules and click New schedule.
- Pick the Customer and give it a Schedule name, for example "Lembah Bayu booking system".
- Set Lead days (default 3) — how many days before an item's date its invoice is created.
- Choose whether to tick Auto-issue and email (see below). It is off by default.
- Build the Items (next section), or click one of the Start from presets to fill them in, then adjust amounts and labels. The Expanded items panel shows every invoice the schedule will create and the total.
- Click Create schedule.
Start from a preset
| Preset | What it sets up |
|---|---|
| One-off | One invoice on a date. |
| Milestones | 50% on signing and 50% at go-live, each invoiced when you click Invoice now — useful when the date depends on the project. |
| Recurring | The same amount every month, 12 times (also known as recurring billing). |
| Milestones + recurring | A deposit and a go-live payment, then a monthly fee that starts the month after go-live. |
Coming from Bukku? Its recurring invoices are the Recurring preset here; milestones and their combination with recurring billing are extra.
Items: milestones and recurrences
A schedule is made of two kinds of item. Click Milestone or Recurrence to add one.
Milestone
A one-off invoice.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Label | Becomes the invoice title and line, for example "Deposit on signing". |
| Amount (RM, before tax) | The invoice amount before SST. |
| Tax | The SST type for the line. |
| Trigger | On date — invoiced automatically around the Due date. Manual — invoiced only when you click Invoice now, for example "on go-live" when you do not know the date yet. |
Recurrence
A series of equal instalments.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Label | Use {n} for the instalment number and {month} for the month, for example "Support fee {month}". |
| Amount (RM, before tax) and Tax | Per instalment. |
| Every (months) | 1 for monthly, 3 for quarterly. |
| Instalments | How many invoices in the series. |
| Starts | On a date — set the First due date. After a milestone — pick a manual milestone under After item and how many Months after it the first instalment falls. |
Instalments that start after a milestone have no dates until that milestone is invoiced: "Instalments anchored to a milestone get their dates when that milestone is invoiced."
The daily run
Every invoice a schedule creates lists the whole plan in its notes: each milestone with its amount, which are paid or invoiced, which one this invoice is, and the dates of the ones to come, plus the total. The customer always sees where the instalment sits.
Every day at your automation time (Settings → Reminders & automation; 09:30 Malaysia time unless you change it), Invoa looks at all active schedules. Each pending On date item whose date is within its schedule's lead days — that is, its date is today or earlier, or no more than the lead days ahead — gets an invoice.
| Auto-issue and email | What happens |
|---|---|
| Off (default) | A draft invoice is created. You find it under Invoices, check it and issue it yourself. |
| On | The invoice is issued and emailed to the customer's contact email with the PDF and payment link. If the contact has no email, it is issued but not sent. |
Each invoice has the item's label as its title and its only line, and the schedule name as Your reference. It is dated the day it is created. Its due date follows the customer's Payment terms (days), or 30 days if none is set — not the item's date in the schedule.
Issued invoices from schedules count towards your plan's monthly limit like any other.
Invoice an item now
To bill an item before its date, or to bill a Manual milestone:
- Open the schedule.
- Click Invoice now next to the item.
- Confirm. A draft invoice is created, or, with auto-issue on, the invoice is issued and emailed.
You see Draft invoice created or Invoice … issued and sent. If instalments are anchored to this milestone, they get their dates now.
Skip or move an item
- Skip marks a pending item Skipped. It will never be invoiced and drops out of the schedule total.
- To move a pending On date item, change the date in the When column. The new date is saved when you leave the field.
Items already invoiced cannot be changed; correct the invoice itself instead. See Invoices.
Pause, resume or cancel
On the schedule page:
- Pause stops the daily run for this schedule. Resume starts it again.
- Cancel schedule stops it for good.
- The Auto-issue and email box can be switched on or off at any time.
When every item is invoiced or skipped, the schedule becomes Completed.
| Schedule status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active | Items are invoiced when due. |
| Paused | Nothing is invoiced until you resume. |
| Completed | No pending items left. |
| Cancelled | Stopped. |
| Item status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Not invoiced yet. A date in the past shows in red. |
| Invoiced | The invoice exists; its number and status are shown. |
| Skipped | Will not be invoiced. |
The top of the schedule shows Schedule total, Invoiced, Pending and Collected (payments received on its invoices).
Watch your start dates
Important: The daily run invoices every pending On date item whose date has already passed, not just today's. If you create a schedule with a first due date in the past — for example to record a contract that started three months ago — the next daily run creates an invoice for each past item at once, all dated that day. With auto-issue on, they are all issued and emailed to the customer.
To avoid this, before the next day's run either Skip the items you have already billed elsewhere, change their dates, or leave Auto-issue and email off so you get drafts you can review.
From a quotation
Converting a quotation with Convert → Billing schedule creates a schedule with one Manual milestone for the quotation amount before tax, with auto-issue off. The schedule shows From quotation with a link back. To split the work into several milestones or instalments, create the schedule with New schedule instead. See Quotations and proposals.
Related
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