How to invoice subscriptions with automatic collection

What is it for?

A subscription (or retainer) issues the same invoice to a customer every period, for example every month, and prepares the collection by the means you choose: Multibanco reference, MB WAY, SEPA direct debit or Saved card. Each invoice issued is a normal certified invoice, with a number, ATCUD and signature.

When to use it?

• For monthly service retainers, rents and membership fees.
• For a service with a fixed amount and a regular period (weeks, months or years).
• Do not use it for a one-off sale: issue the certified invoice directly.

Where to find it?

Accounting › Record › Sales and collections › Subscriptions. For each subscription, the list shows the Amount per period, the Collection, the Next invoice, the State and the Attention column.

Before you start

• Your profile is Accountant or Certified accountant. Management, Auditor and Billing do not create subscriptions.
• The active tax series for invoices exists (see create and communicate a series).
• The customer exists. To collect by SEPA direct debit, the customer must have an active direct debit mandate. For Multibanco reference, MB WAY and Saved card, the company must have a payment provider configured: the demo has Eupago and ifthenpay.

How to use it

1. Open Subscriptions and click New.
2. In Customer, choose the customer. The Start comes with today's date, Invoice every with 1 Months and Collection with Multibanco reference. In Provider, choose Eupago or ifthenpay.
3. In the Lines tab, click Add a line and choose the Product (for example, 1 unit of €85.00 with 23 % VAT). The Amount per period becomes €104.55.
4. Click Save: the subscription gets the number SUB/… and stays in Draft.
5. Click Activate. The subscription becomes Active and the Next invoice shows the start date.
6. To issue the first invoice now, click Invoice now. The Next invoice moves one period later (from 03/11/2026 to 03/12/2026) and the Invoices button appears, with 1.
7. Click Invoices to see the issued invoice: FT D26/35, for €104.55, To pay.

Pause or cancel

• Pause sets the subscription to Paused, without issuing invoices and without the Invoice now button; the Next invoice is kept. Activate resumes it.
• Cancel asks “Cancel this subscription? No more invoices will be issued.”; with Confirm, the subscription becomes Cancelled, with no buttons, and cannot be reactivated. Invoices already issued do not change: to cancel them, see credit note.

Expected result

• The subscription is Active, with the Next invoice in the following period.
• Each invoice issued belongs to the Sales journal, even if the company has a training journal ahead of it, and has the line amount and the VAT.
• In the accounting, FT D26/35 posted: 2111 debit €104.55; 711 credit €85.00; 2433 credit €19.55 (2433 is the output VAT at 23 %). The income account comes from the product: 711 is the sales of goods account, so for a services retainer use a service product, linked to a services account (72). Pending validation by a certified accountant: income account for services invoiced by subscription.
• With Multibanco reference, the invoice history records the entity, the reference and the amount (in the demo, a simulated provider), and says the transaction is pending.
• The invoice is issued but not paid: the subscription prepares the collection, and the payment is only recorded when the provider confirms it. Pending validation on screen: completed collection, because the demo has no real connection to the providers.
• On the Next invoice date, a daily job issues the invoice and prepares the collection, without anyone clicking Invoice now. Current limitation: if that issue fails, nothing warns you on screen (see “Line … has no VAT tax”), so check in Invoices that the period's invoice was issued.

Important notes

Each invoice is a real tax document

An invoice issued by the subscription enters the tax numbering and the SAF-T like any other and cannot be deleted: it is corrected with a credit note. Check the Amount per period, the VAT of the lines and the customer before you Activate and Invoice now. Pending validation by a certified accountant: treatment of VAT and of retainer invoices for periods that span months or years.

• Saved card. Only with the ifthenpay provider. The subscription activates without the customer's authorisation, but Invoice now still issues the invoice and the collection fails: first register the authorisation in the Card authorisation tab (Register the authorisation button). See “The collection failed” below. Pending validation on screen: completed card collection, because the demo has no cards.
• Direct debit. The invoice is issued and goes into a draft direct debit batch, and the history says which one. Bank for direct debit is the account that receives the debits; if empty, the company's only bank with an IBAN is used. The customer is only debited when the batch is sent to the bank.
• In the Enterprise edition, the bridge module with Enterprise subscriptions is not covered by this article. Pending validation on screen: Enterprise edition.

Common problems

“The subscription has no lines”

• Symptom: when you click Activate without any line: “The subscription has no lines, so there is nothing to invoice. Add at least one line.”
• What to do: add the line in the Lines tab, as in step 3, and click Activate again.

“Choose the payment provider (eupago or ifthenpay)”

• Symptom: when you click Activate with Collection set to Multibanco reference, MB WAY or Saved card and Provider empty: “Choose the payment provider (eupago or ifthenpay) of this subscription. It is needed to collect by Multibanco reference.”
• What to do: choose the Provider and click Activate again.

“Fill in the customer's MB WAY mobile number”

• Symptom: with MB WAY, when you click Activate without a mobile number: “Fill in the customer's MB WAY mobile number. Without it the payment request cannot be sent.”
• What to do: type the mobile number in the field that appears when MB WAY is chosen. If you type 123, on saving: “The MB WAY mobile number must have 9 digits and start with 9. Correct the number and save again.”
• Current limitation: this refusal only exists in Activate. On a subscription that is already Active, changing Collection to MB WAY without a mobile number is accepted on saving, without a warning, and the subscription stays Active. If you change the collection means, check that the mobile number is filled in.

“The date of document … is later than the system date”

• Symptom: when you click Invoice now on a subscription whose Next invoice has not yet arrived: “The date of document "(no number yet)" (03/12/2026) is later than the system date (03/11/2026). Once issued, this document's series is closed to documents dated on or before 03/12/2026.…”
• What to do: normally, do not invoice yet: the next period is issued on the Next invoice date. Issuing now would close the series to documents before that date.

“Line … has no VAT tax”

• Symptom: when you click Invoice now: “Line "[DEMO015] Manutenção mensal" of the invoice to Escola de Condução Rota, Lda has no VAT tax. Choose a VAT tax (or a 0% VAT tax with an exemption reason, or a "not subject" tax).”
• What to do: choose the tax in Taxes, in the Lines tab. Activate does not check this. When the daily job issues the invoice, the subscription stays Active and In order, with no invoice and no warning on screen: check the VAT of all lines before you Activate.

“Eupago does not save cards for future charges”

• Symptom: when you click Activate with Saved card and the Eupago provider: “Eupago does not save cards for future charges, so the subscription cannot be collected by saved card with it. Choose ifthenpay for the saved card, or collect by MB WAY, direct debit or Multibanco reference with this provider.”
• What to do: change the Provider to ifthenpay or change the Collection.

The collection failed

• Symptom: the invoice was issued, the history says “Collection of FT D26/36 failed (attempt 1): Register the customer's authorisation of the recurring card charge before the first payment…” and the Failed collections tab shows Invoice being retried, Failed attempts and Next attempt (05/11/2026, two days later).
• What to do: fix the cause the history shows. The invoice is still valid and unpaid: do not invoice the same period again. According to the screen help, Attempts is how many times the collection is retried before the person responsible is warned; the retry runs in a daily job, on the Next attempt date. Pending validation on screen: collection retry, because it did not run (the next attempt date was in the future).

“has no active SDD mandate”

• Symptom: with SEPA direct debit, when you click Activate: “Clínica Dentária Sorriso, SA has no active SDD mandate: create and activate one before including it in a direct debit batch.”
• What to do: register and activate the customer's direct debit mandate and click Activate again: with the mandate active, the subscription becomes Active.