Recurring invoice statuses
A recurring invoice has four statuses. Only Active generates invoices.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active | Running. An invoice is generated on each run date. |
| Inactive | Not running. A new recurring invoice starts here, and an active one comes back here when you deactivate it. The next run date is cleared, and nothing is generated until you activate it. |
| Completed | The schedule reached the number of invoices set under Expires. |
| Expired | The schedule passed its end date. |
Statuses change through the Activate and Deactivate actions, or on their own when a schedule reaches its end condition. There is no way to set a status directly — activating validates the schedule and works out the next run date, and deactivating clears it.
Completed and Expired schedules can be reactivated, but only after their end condition is extended: raise the invoice count or move the end date first, otherwise activation is refused.
The recurring invoices list carries the same statuses. Its Status filter narrows the list to one of them, and its Change status bulk action moves several recurring invoices to Active or Inactive at once, under the same rules. See Filtering and customising list views and Bulk status changes on invoices and estimates.
What activation requires
Activation is refused unless all of the following hold:
- Repeat every is at least 1, and a Start date is set.
- The end condition has not already been met.
- For Send via email delivery, either the recurring invoice sets a Recipient or the customer has an email address.
- For Send as e-invoice delivery, e-invoicing is enabled for the business and the customer accepts e-invoices.
The reason is shown when activation fails.
Generation
Invoices are generated around 8:00 in the morning on each run date, in the timezone set on the recurring invoice. The run date advances only on scheduled generation — Generate now creates an extra invoice without moving it.
A schedule that generates its final invoice moves to Completed or Expired by itself.
Plan limits
The Free plan allows one active recurring invoice at a time; paid plans have no limit. Activating past the limit is refused with a prompt to upgrade.
Downgrading to a plan with a lower limit does not delete anything — the recurring invoices over the limit are deactivated, and can be activated again after an upgrade. See Subscription plans, upgrades and downgrades.
Deletion
Deleting a recurring invoice keeps every invoice it has already generated. Those invoices remain in the invoice list and stop linking back to the deleted schedule.