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Create a recurring purchase

Automate repeating supplier costs in Invoice Office with recurring purchases — set the cycle, amount and supplier once and let them generate automatically.

Updated 7 min read

A recurring purchase in Invoice Office records a supplier cost that comes back every period — rent, a software subscription, insurance, a phone contract. You enter the supplier invoice once, give it a Cycle, and from then on Invoice Office creates each purchase automatically on its date, so the same recurring supplier invoice never has to be typed in again.

A recurring purchase is its own document type, set up under Procurement → Recurring purchases. It is the buy-side twin of a recurring invoice.

Recurring purchases need a Pro license. Without one the Cycle, Create on and Create until fields are disabled, and the scheduled run creates nothing — you get the notification “A pro license is required to use this feature!” instead.

Step 1 — Create the recurring purchase

  1. Open Procurement in the menu bar and click Recurring purchases — or the plus icon beside it to go straight to a new one.

    The Procurement menu open in Invoice Office listing Purchases, Recurring purchases and Purchase orders, each with a plus icon, and Payments; Recurring purchases and its plus icon are outlined in red

    On the list, choose Create recurring purchase.

    The Recurring purchases list in Invoice Office with Supplier Name, Reference, Cost Category, Subtotal, VAT, Total, Status and Action columns and six series such as Contoso office rent and Northwind broadband; the Create recurring purchase button is outlined in red

  2. Pick the Document type: Invoice (the default), Receipt or Credit Note.

  3. Choose the Supplier. If they are not in your list yet, first add a new supplier.

  4. Add a Reference if you want one — it shows in the Reference column of the list, so something like “IT support contract” makes each series easy to find.

    A new Invoice Office recurring purchase with Document type Invoice, Supplier Proseware, Reference IT support contract, Cycle Monthly, Create on 01-10-26 and Create until 30-09-27; the Supplier field is outlined in red

  5. Add the lines as you would on a normal purchase: the Cost Category, a description, the Quantity, the price and the VAT rate. The amount you enter here is the amount every purchase in the series gets.

    The line table of the recurring purchase, outlined in red, with Managed IT support (monthly) 1 × 350.00 and Microsoft 365 Business licences 12 × 10.50, both under the IT and software cost category at 20% VAT, and totals of €476.00 excluding VAT, €95.20 VAT and €571.20 including VAT

Step 2 — Set the cycle and dates

The schedule sits beside the supplier, in three fields:

  • Cycle — how often the purchase repeats. A new recurring purchase starts on Once, so change it if the cost comes back.
  • Create on — the date the first purchase is created. It is prefilled with tomorrow’s date and cannot be earlier.
  • Create until — the date the series stops. Leave it empty for a cost with no end date.
The recurring purchase form with the Cycle, Create on and Create until fields outlined in red, set to Monthly, 01-10-26 and 30-09-27

The Cycle list has nine options:

Once · Weekly · 2 Weeks · 4 Weeks · Monthly · 2 Months · Quarterly · Half yearly · Yearly

The Cycle list open on a recurring purchase, showing --Select--, Once, Weekly, 2 Weeks, 4 Weeks, Monthly, 2 Months, Quarterly, Half yearly and Yearly, with Monthly highlighted and the Cycle field outlined in red

Once creates a single purchase on the Create on date instead of repeating it.

Step 3 — Save and finalize

  1. Click Save in the top-right of the card. The recurring purchase is now a Draft.
  2. When it is right, click Finalize.
The top of a Draft recurring purchase in Invoice Office with the Save and Finalize buttons outlined in red

Only a Finalized recurring purchase is picked up by the schedule — a Draft is never run. The Status column on Procurement → Recurring purchases shows which series are which.

What happens on each date

On each date the Cycle reaches, Invoice Office:

  1. Creates a new purchase from the recurring purchase, dated that day, with the same supplier, lines and attachments.
  2. Leaves it as a Draft, without a document number, so you can check it against the supplier’s actual invoice before it goes into your books.
  3. Adds a “Created recurring purchase” notification, and records the run under Action → View history on the recurring purchase.

There is no setting that finalizes the new purchases automatically. Open each one under Procurement → Purchases, adjust the amount if the supplier’s bill differed this time, and finalize it there. Purchases created by a series carry a small ↻ icon beside their number, and their row’s Action menu has Open recurring purchase and Modify recurring purchase, so you can jump straight back to the series.

The Purchases list in Invoice Office with a Draft Northwind broadband purchase at the top that has no number yet, and earlier purchases marked with a recurring icon; the row's Action menu is open with Open recurring purchase outlined in red

Follow your recurring purchases on the dashboard

Go to Dashboards → Recurring purchases, or on the recurring purchase list click the Dashboard chart icon and choose Recurring purchase. The tiles along the top — Scheduled this month, Last 30 days, Expiring soon, Paused, Active and Total value — show what is coming up and what has run, and Recent documents further down lists the purchases the schedule created, with their Status and Payment.

The Recurring purchases dashboard in Invoice Office with the Scheduled this month, Last 30 days, Expiring soon, Paused, Active and Total value tiles and the incl. VAT / excl. VAT switch

Edit a recurring purchase

A finalized recurring purchase is read-only — the Cycle, Create on and Create until fields are locked too. To change anything:

  1. On Procurement → Recurring purchases, open the row’s Action menu and choose Modify purchase, then click Save in the window that opens.

    The Action menu open on the finalized Proseware recurring purchase in the list, listing Open Purchase, Create duplicate, Create credit note, Modify purchase, Delete Purchase and View history; the menu button and Modify purchase are outlined in red

  2. It returns to Draft. Change the supplier, lines, Cycle or dates.

  3. Save and Finalize it again.

While it is a Draft the schedule skips it, so do not leave it there longer than you mean to.

Stop or cancel a recurring purchase

There is no separate pause switch. A series ends in one of three ways:

  • It reaches its Create until date. Use Modify purchase, set Create until, and finalize it again.
  • You leave it in Draft. Modify purchase alone stops new purchases being created until you finalize it again.
  • You delete it. Action → Delete Purchase on the recurring purchase’s row removes the series.
The same Action menu on the Proseware recurring purchase with Delete Purchase outlined in red

Turn an existing purchase into a recurring one

If a supplier bill you already registered turns out to come every month, you do not need to rebuild it. On Procurement → Purchases, open that purchase’s Action menu and choose Create recurring purchase. Invoice Office saves a new recurring purchase straight away, as a Draft with the supplier and lines copied over, and opens it — set the Cycle and dates, then Save and Finalize it. Until you finalize it, the schedule ignores it.

The Purchases list with the Action menu open on a finalized Tailspin window cleaning purchase and Create recurring purchase outlined in red

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