Recurring purchases is a Gem that you can activate from the Holded Store. Learn more about this feature in this article or keep reading to find out how to use it once you activate it.
Get there
- Go to Expenses in the navigation bar
- Select Expenses from the drop-down menu
- Go to the Recurring purchases tab
- Click on the + button in the upper right corner
Create a recurring purchase
1. Fill in the basic data

- In Contact, select an existing contact or create a new one
- In Interval, indicate how often the invoices will be issued (Daily, Weekly, Biweekly, Monthly, Bimonthly, Quarterly, Biannual, Annually)
- Enter the date when the first invoice will be issued in the Start field
- Enter the date on which invoices will no longer be issued in the End field
- From Due date, select the default due period, i.e. the date by which payment is due (No due date, 3, 7, 15, 20, 20, 30, 45, 45, 60, 60, 75, 75, 90, 105, 120, 180 days)
2. Complete the elements of the table

- In the Concept field, include an item by entering its name or searching for it using the magnifying glass or the @ symbol
If you click on the magnifying glass, you can access a detailed search, with filters by type of product or service, and columns that you can show or hide to facilitate your search.
- Add the explanation with the details of the product or service by means of the Description field
In the case of products already created, this field will be filled automatically
- Specify the number of units in Amount so that it can be used in the calculation of the Total (Units x Price + Taxes)
- In Price, indicate the amount excluding taxes
This field will be automatically filled in for products that have been previously created on the platform.
- In the Tax field, select a tax from the database
By default, the following will be displayed in order of preference: contact, product, and account taxes.
- The amount in the Total field will be calculated automatically when adding price and units
- Use the Visible message on Recurring purchase field to add a specific comment for this document to appear on the invoice PDF
- You can add additional information using the Custom fields
Existing information about due dates, payment methods, numbering lines, taxes, expense accounts, discounts, tags, or currencies for specific contacts, products, or companies will be automatically populated on new invoices by means of the Autocomplete function. In addition, this data will be populated in the following order of priority: Preferences of contact > product > company. That is to say, if there is no predefined information for the contact, it will be passed to the product, and if not, to the company.
3. Using the advanced options

- Under Discount, fill in the box with the % you want to discount, and it will be applied to the invoice total
- From Currency, select the currency that will appear on the invoice from the drop-down menu
If you choose a different currency than the one assigned to the company account, the exchange rate will be applied. If you need to, you can edit the exchange rate manually.
- Depending on the option you choose in Display mode, more or fewer fields will appear in the invoice PDF: Items will activate the Amount column, Time will activate the Hours and Price/Hour columns, Total will make the Amount column disappear, and finally, No taxes will not show the tax amount broken down in the invoice summary
- Check the Account per item box to be able to assign one expense account per invoice line
- Activate Tags by item to be able to assign an expense account per invoice line
- Use Discount per product to add a new column in the table where you can apply a discount for each product line
- The Show discount option is enabled by default, when disabled it will not show the detail of the discount applied in the final summary of the invoice
- With the option Display supplied you can add substitutes to the invoice
- Click on Electronic invoice fields to fill in the fields, which you can download in .xml format for uploading to the corresponding organization's website
This option is more suitable for sales invoices
These fields come predefined with whatever you have entered in Configuration > Preferences. If you think the numbering line or currency on an invoice is not correct, it may be because the contact has different information than what is in the account settings. Click on the contact and click Edit to check.
4. Assign an expense account

- Open the drop-down menu under Categorization
- Select one of the accounts belonging to the Purchases and Expenses group (60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, or 67)
By default, the account indicated is Other services (62900000)
The assignment of the expense accounts allows you to analyze the evolution of each of them from the Reports section.
5. Add tags and an internal description

- In the Internal description field, add information that you think is relevant to remember or take into account about this recurring purchase
- In Tags, search for existing tags or create new ones if necessary
6. Activate the automatic creation option

- Use the toggle to activate or deactivate this option
By turning the toggle on, purchases will be created on their dates and will be marked as drafts so that they can be reviewed.
7. Assign projects

- Go to the Projects section
- Click on Assign projects
- Assign specific projects globally using the Assign to one project option or use Per item to assign projects to specific recurring purchase items
- Hit Save
8. Review, save and convert

When you save the recurring purchase, a new side panel will open, from which you can review the purchase data and access different editing options.
Review the data of the recurring purchase created
From the summary view in the side panel, check the following information:
- Contact name
- The indicated interval
- The start and end dates
- Whether the automatic creation option is enabled
Access editing options
- Go to the three-point menu in the upper right corner
- Select one of the options as you need (Edit, Duplicate, Delete, Close)
Convert to invoice
- Under the Date section, click on one of the lines in the listing
- Hit Convert
If you want to know more about how to convert recurring purchases to invoices, check this article.