Invoices, estimates, sales receipts, credit memos, bills, checks, expenses, purchase orders, and journal entries can all be saved as recurring templates in QuickBooks Online. Click the gear icon, then Recurring Transactions, pick a transaction type, and choose whether it should post automatically, remind you first, or just sit ready as an on-demand template. Here's the full setup, using a recurring invoice as the example.
1. Open Recurring Transactions. Click the gear icon, then Recurring Transactions under Lists, or search "recurring" in the top search bar.
2. Start a new template. Click New, then choose the transaction type you're templating, invoice, bill, expense, journal entry, or any of the others the feature supports.
3. Name it and pick a template type. Give it a name you'll recognize later, then choose Scheduled (creates, and can send, automatically on the interval you set), Reminder (QuickBooks reminds you it's due, you approve and create each one yourself), or Unscheduled (a saved template you reuse on demand, with no schedule attached at all).
4. Fill in the details and set the schedule. Add the customer or vendor, line items, and amounts the same way you would on a one-off transaction, then set the interval, weekly, monthly, and a start date. Add an end date or a number of occurrences if it shouldn't run forever.
5. Save it, and check in on the list occasionally. A Scheduled template runs without anyone opening QuickBooks, which is the point, but it's worth reviewing the Recurring Transactions list every so often to confirm each one still matches reality.
QuickBooks Online calls this feature Recurring Transactions. QuickBooks Desktop has its own, separately named version of the same underlying idea, Memorized Transactions, with its own menu and its own list. The two live in different products, but they eventually hit the same wall: a Scheduled template posts a fixed amount on a fixed date, whether or not that number is still right.
The feature works well when the amount and the timing genuinely never change, a flat monthly retainer, a software bill you're re-entering as a bill every period. It starts to break down the moment either one depends on something QuickBooks has no way to check on its own: hours a contractor actually logged, units shipped last month, or whether the client is even still under contract.
Instead of a fixed amount on a Scheduled invoice, we've built templates that check actual hours, usage, or units in another system right before the invoice generates, so the number is correct every cycle, not just the month it was first set up.
When a contract or subscription ends somewhere outside QuickBooks, we've built checks that pause the matching recurring template automatically instead of letting it keep posting on autopilot after the reason for it is gone.
Tell us what it's for and what actually determines the number, and we'll tell you if it can pull that number itself instead of running on a fixed template nobody's double-checking.
Tell us what the real number depends on, hours, usage, a contract that might end, and we'll tell you whether QuickBooks can check that automatically before it posts. Recurring invoices are one example; the same question applies to anything else in your business running on a schedule instead of on what's actually true that day.
Let's talk →Invoices, estimates, sales receipts, credit memos, bills, purchase orders, checks, expenses, journal entries, and bank transfers can all be set up as Recurring Transactions templates. Transactions that depend on an action someone has to confirm in the moment, like receiving a payment, aren't offered as recurring templates.
Open an existing invoice, or start a new one, and click Make recurring at the bottom of the screen. Give the template a name, choose Scheduled, Reminder, or Unscheduled, set the interval and start date, and save. You can also start from Recurring Transactions > New > Invoice directly without opening one first.
Go to Recurring Transactions, find the template in the list, and click Edit. You can change the amount, the line items, or the schedule itself; the change applies to every future occurrence the template generates from that point on.
There's no separate "recurring ACH" feature; it's the same Recurring Transactions mechanism applied to a recurring sales receipt or invoice, paired with QuickBooks Payments autopay so the customer's bank account gets charged on the schedule you've set.