Create recurring invoices and other transactions in QuickBooks Online

by Intuit •

860 •

Updated 8/5/2026 01:10

Create templates for recurring invoices, estimates, and expenses to automate your bookkeeping tasks. Setting up these templates allows you to schedule automatic credit card or ACH payments through Merchant Services, ensuring you get paid on time automatically.

Note: Automate credit card payments with a recurring sales receipt, schedule recurring payments to automatically charge your clients, or help your clients set up autopay for recurring invoices.

If you have a customer you need to invoice every day, week, month, or year, you can set up a recurring invoice in QuickBooks to save time. This video will go over how to set one up and how to enable autopay so your customers will have the option to automatically pay your recurring invoices.

Schedule invoices ahead of time and manage all your payments in one place with QuickBooks Payments.

Video transcript

[0:00] Hi, this is Jason from the QuickBooks team. If you have a customer you need to invoice every week, month, or year. You can set up a recurring invoice in QuickBooks to save time. Let's go over how to set one up and how to enable autopay. Your customers will have the option to automatically pay your recurring invoices. To start - go to new and invoice. To make your invoice recurring, select manage.

[0:27] If you don't see this menu open already, then scheduling. This is where you can choose to make an invoice recurring. Note that if you use QuickBooks payments, you can instead create a recurring payment.

[0:42] With a recurring payment, your customer approves the payment terms by entering and submitting their payment information through our secure online portal, so you receive their on time payments automatically on the schedule you set. Recurring invoices work differently.

[0:58] With recurring invoices, the customer chooses to pay each invoice individually, and you'll need to wait for the customer to pay each one before you receive their payment. Check out this video to learn more about recurring payments. In this case, select Make Invoice. Recurring. Name your recurring invoice series.

[1:20] Then from the type dropdown, select Scheduled for QuickBooks to automatically create invoices in this series. If you want to create a template that is saved with partial or complete data and without a schedule, select unscheduled. If you only want QuickBooks to remind you to create your invoice, select reminder. We'll select scheduled for this example.

[1:47] If you want, QuickBooks can create the invoice before it sends it so you can review it. Next, select automatically send emails. Note that you also have the option for QuickBooks to include any unbilled charges for your customer, and you can set the invoices QuickBooks creates to print later so you can print them along with other forms in a batch.

[2:11] Under interval, tell QuickBooks how often to send this invoice. In our example, QuickBooks will send our invoice on the first of the month starting next month. You can also add an end date if you want. Fill in the rest of your invoice details. If you need help filling out invoices, check out this video for more info.

[2:40] To allow your customers to use autopay, you'll need a QuickBooks payments account, but you can set up an account here if you don't have one. If you have a QuickBooks payments account, you'll just need to select the payment methods you want to accept on these invoices. AutoPay works for both card and ACH transactions. Once everything looks good. Select save template.

[3:04] When your customer receives your invoice via email, they can set up autopay by selecting Review and Pay, then set up autopay. They can cancel this any time to manage individual invoices. Go to your invoices page. All your recurring invoices have this symbol next to them. Select an invoice to see details on the invoice activity or to edit the invoice.

[3:31] For those set to be auto paid, you'll see its auto pay scheduled status. If you need to manage your recurring invoice series, select settings, then Recurring transactions. Choose the invoice series you want to change and select Edit. That's it. Now you can save time sending invoices and getting paid with recurring invoices.

What you’ll need

An active QuickBooks Online subscription.
Access to the new QuickBooks Online experience.
QuickBooks Payments (Merchant Services) if you want to automate online customer payments.

Create a new recurring transaction from scratch

You can create templates for a variety of repeat transactions to save time and reduce errors.

Go to All apps , then Accounting, then Recurring transactions (Take me there).
Select New.
Select the type of transaction you want to create and select OK.
Enter a Template name.
Select a Type: Scheduled, Reminder, or Unscheduled.
1. Scheduled transactions other than invoices can be sent automatically without any changes. Examples include rent payments, loan payments, and depreciation.
2. Reminders are created at regular times, but you need to edit and send them yourself. An example is a utility bill that changes each month.
3. Unscheduled transactions need to be created and sent each time. Use this to copy a transaction when needed on a case-by-case basis.
For Scheduled and Reminder templates, set the Interval to decide how often the transaction repeats.
Choose whether to include unbilled charges, automatically send emails, or mark the transaction to print later.
If you use Merchant Services for scheduled or reminder transactions, find the Online Payment section to choose how customers can pay you online.
Fill out the transaction details and select Save template.

Note: We save each recurring transaction invoice as a draft. You need to review and finalize them yourself.

Use an unscheduled recurring transaction

Create unscheduled transactions when you need them.

Go to All apps , then Accounting, then Recurring transactions (Take me there).
For the template you want to use, in the Action column select Use.
Fill out the rest of the transaction normally.

Copy ‌an existing recurring transaction

You can duplicate an existing template to quickly create a new one with the same settings.

Go to All apps , then Accounting, then Recurring transactions (Take me there).
Find the template in the list.
In the Action column, select the Edit ▼ dropdown and then select Duplicate.
All settings will be copied except for the title, which you must update for the new template.

Make an existing transaction recur

Most active transactions can be changed to a recurring template while you’re editing them.

To make an invoice recur, select Manage ⚙, then select Scheduling. Turn on Make invoice recurring and fill out the details, then select Save template.
To make a receipt, bank deposit, credit memo, or credit statement recur, select Make recurring.

Note: You can’t turn an existing estimate into a recurring estimate. Create a new recurring estimate from scratch, as described above.

Results

Once saved, your recurring templates will appear in your list of Recurring transactions. Depending on the type selected, QuickBooks will either record the transaction automatically, provide a reminder to send it, or keep it ready for you to use manually.

Next steps

Review your recurring transaction templates regularly to ensure payment methods, prices, and intervals remain accurate for your customers and vendors.