Recurring invoices allow you to save time, plan ahead, and help you get paid on schedule. They are often the most convenient solution for your regular or subscription customers. Here you'll find a guide to creating Recurring Invoices, and scheduling your cash flow well into the future. 

Create your recurring invoice

Set your schedule

Select the payment method

Select the sending method

Review the details

Sending a payment receipt

Ending a recurring invoice

Create your recurring invoice

In the left navigation menu, choose Sales & Payments, then Recurring Invoices. You'll be brought to a list where you can see any recurring schedules you have already created. Click Create a recurring invoice to get started.

On the next page, you can customize your invoice. In the first section, you can edit the invoice title, your business information, and logo.

Next, you can add your customer, products or services and any associated sales taxes, payment due date, currency, and any other details in your notes. There is extra space in the footer if required.

New products and services and customers can be added from within their respective sections under Sales & Payments in the left menu, or during the invoice creation process.

Click Save and Continue to move to the next step.

You can also customize your invoice from the Settings menu, where you can choose a template and accent colour, edit your columns, and upload your logo.

Set your schedule

This sets the rule for when Wave will create and send the invoices to your customer. You choose the frequency, start date, end timing, and your time zone, to ensure your customer receives your invoice on the correct day. For more information about the Scheduler and the customizations available, take a look here.

Click Save and Continue to move to the next section.

Select the payment method

You can choose between Automatic or Manual payments. This depends on whether you would like your customer's card to be charged automatically, or if they would prefer to pay each invoice every time one is created. Once you've made your selection, Save to proceed.

Automatic Payments allow you to seamlessly bill your customer and receive payment for each sale. For more information, see our Help Center article on Automatic Payments.

Select the sending method

Next, you can choose whether you'd like to automatically have your invoice sent to your customer each time it is created, or manually send the invoice each time Wave generates one for you.

If you have selected Automatic payments, the option to send invoices manually will not be available. Instead, your customer will be billed automatically, and will receive a receipt of payment with a link to the relevant invoice each time.

If you choose Send Automatically, you will then be able to select your Send From and Send To addresses, and customize your email message. If you choose Manual Sending, you can update this information when you send your invoice.

To send the individual invoices generated from a specific recurring invoice schedule manually, click the dropdown arrow to the right of the recurring invoice, then select View created invoices. Find the unsent invoice, then click Send. You can also find the individual invoices on the Sales & Payments > Invoices page.

Click Save to move on.

Review the details

Review the details you have selected, and scroll down to see a preview of your invoice. When you're ready, click Approve and Start Recurring Invoice to activate the schedule.

You can review the details of your recurring invoice at any time, by heading to the Sales & Payments > Recurring Invoices page. Here, you can view details such as the start and end date, schedule, and invoice amount.

To edit these details, click on the invoice, then click Edit in the section you want to make changes to, for example, the Set schedule section.

You can also modify any recurring invoice schedules you create directly from the Recurring Invoices page. Click the drop-down menu to the right of an invoice schedule to find ViewEdit, End, View created invoices, and Duplicate options.

Sending a payment receipt

Once your customer has paid an invoice, they may ask for a payment receipt as proof of purchase. With Automatic payments, your customer will be sent a receipt automatically. With Manual payments, you will need to send them the receipt yourself. To do so, follow these steps:

  1. Head to Sales & Payments > Recurring Invoices.
  2. Click the dropdown arrow next to the recurring invoice for the specific customer.
  3. Select View created invoices.
  4. On the next page, find the paid invoice you’re sending a receipt for, and click on it.

    If the invoice has not yet been marked as paid, you can do so from the Invoices page, by clicking on the invoice, then selecting Record payment. Alternatively, if you’re importing bank transactions into Wave, wait for the payment transaction to import, then categorize it as Payment received for an invoice in Wave > Invoice #.

  5. In the Get paid section, click Send a receipt. You can change the sender and recipient email address, add an additional recipient, and edit the email’s subject and message.
  6. Click Send.

If your customer would like a receipt before the payment transaction has been imported into your Wave account, follow the steps in this Help Center article.

Ending a recurring invoice

Recurring invoices automatically end based on the date, or number of invoices set when creating the schedule. However, you may want to end the recurring invoice early. In this case, you can do so by following these steps:

  1. Head to Sales & Payments > Recurring Invoices.
  2. Click the dropdown arrow next to the recurring invoice you want to end.
  3. Select End.

It’s not possible to delete recurring invoices.