User stories: Recurring invoices
Author: Ben Hartley · Date: 2026-09-30
Epic
Freelancers on Tilbury Books can bill retainer clients automatically each month instead of recreating the same invoice by hand.
Story 1
As a freelancer with retainer clients, I want to set an invoice to repeat monthly, so that I stop rebuilding the same invoice on the first of every month.
Acceptance criteria
- Given a saved invoice, when I choose "Repeat monthly" and pick a start date, then a schedule is created and shown on the invoice with the next send date
- Given a start date on the 31st, when a month has fewer days, then the invoice is sent on that month's last day
- Given the client has no email address, when I try to save the schedule, then I see an error asking me to add one, and nothing is scheduled
Notes
Weekly and quarterly cadences are out of scope for now. Design: "Recurring invoice settings" frame in the billing file.
Estimate: 5 points
Story 2
As a freelancer, I want to pause or stop a recurring invoice, so that I can handle a client who goes on hold without deleting their history.
Acceptance criteria
- Given an active schedule, when I choose Pause, then no invoices are sent until I resume, and the next send date shows "Paused"
- Given a paused schedule, when I resume it after a send date has passed, then the missed invoice is not sent retroactively and the next one goes out on the following cycle
- Given an active schedule, when I choose Stop, then the schedule ends and all previously sent invoices remain in the client's history
Notes
Whether to offer "send the missed invoice now" on resume is left open for design; default is skip.
Estimate: 3 points