In Business Central you can setup recurring sales lines to reduce the data entry required to create sales invoices that are recurring in nature. Once you have created the recurring sales lines you need to assign them to a customer and complete some simple setup. Once the setup is complete you can run a batch job that creates all the recurring sales invoices for a nominated period.

First, you need to create the Recurring Sales Lines

Search for Recurring Sales Lines

Create a new recurring Sales Line Template

1. Select New
2. Type in a Code
3. Type in a Description

Add the line details to the template. (Some of the fields displayed in the screen shot below were added to the page via personalisation, you may need to personalise the page if you cannot see the same fields.)

1. Type
   • Select the Line Type, in this case we use a G/L Account, but you could also setup and use Inventory/Non-Inventory Items.
   • Use Comment lines to add any additional text details if required.
2. N0.
   • Select the No for this recurring invoice, in this case a G/L Account Number.
   • If Line Type is Item then this will be the Item Number
3. Description
   • Type the line description for this sales line
4. Unit of Measure Code & Variant Code
   • If Line Type is Item, select the Unit of Measure and if applicable, a Variant Code
   • Leave blank for all other Line Types.
5. Qty
   • Enter the Quantity for each sales line
6. Amount Excl GST
   • Enter the GST Exclusive Amount for each sales line
   • If Line Type is Item, you are not able to enter the Amount Excl GST as the selling price will be calculated by Business Central when the sales invoice is created.
7. Dimensions
   • Populate any dimensions required for this sales line, if appropriate

Create as many Recurring Sales Lines templates as required.

Once you have finished setting up the Recurring Sales Line templates, you can then assign them to your customers & complete some additional setup to facilitate the recurring sales invoice creation.

Navigate to the first Customer that requires a recurring invoice setup.

1. Select the Customer in the list
2. Select Related
3. Select Sales
4. Select Recurring Sales Lines

You can create multiple recurring sales lines for each customer to create multiple invoices for the customer. In this example we will setup a single recurring sales line for a single invoice to be created.

1. Select the dropdown list in the Code field and select from the list of available Recurring Sales Line Codes
2. Enter a Description for this recurring sales invoice
3. Enter the Valid from and Valid to dates for this recurring sales invoice. (Sales invoices will only be created when the Order Date is within in this range (see section on Create Recurring Invoices)
4. Select the Payment Method Code for this Invoice for this Customer
5. Select the Payment Terms Code for this invoice for this Customer

You can check the details of the recurring billing card, by selecting Card from the Ribbon.

Complete the Recurring Sales Line setup for any other Customers that require it.

Create Recurring Sales Invoices

To create the recurring sales invoices, search for the Create Recurring Sales Invoices batch.

Enter the Order Date, Posting Date and apply any filters required to only create invoices for certain Customers/Recurring Sales Codes or leave blank to create all recurring Sales Invoices for that Order Date.

1. Order Date
   The order date is checked against the recurring Sales Lines Valid From and Valid to dates. If the order is within this range then a Sales Invoice will be created
2. Posting Date
   The posting date is the date that is entered on the Sales invoice for posting date and document date.
3. Apply any filters on the Standard Customer Sales Code Table, in this case we are creating recurring invoices for “RENT1500” recurring invoices only

Select Ok

Go to the list of Sales Invoices (unposted) and check your invoice(s) that were created.

Post the Invoice or you can use ebs-plus Post & Email function or the batch post & email function to post and email multiple invoices at the same time.

The standard recurring sales line functionality does not have any checks on what has been invoiced previously, so if you re-run the Create Invoices function with the same order date, BC will create the same invoices, so you need to keep track yourself and make sure you don’t reinvoice the same order date.

If you are looking for more control and extended features for your recurring billing, you can look at our ebs-plus Scheduled Sales Invoice app. Features of this app include the ability to keep track of what’s been invoiced and what’s left to invoice for a defined contract period. You can also define billing periods (monthly, quarterly) and you have an option to always use the last day of the month or a nominated day of the month. You can see all these features on the Recurring Schedule page pictured below.

Scheduled Sales Invoice (ebs-plus) – Recurring Schedule Page