---
title: "Auto-generate invoices on a schedule"
description: "Turn on automatic invoice generation so every family is billed on their plan's cadence without you clicking anything."
type: guide
updated: 2026-09-14
canonical_url: https://help.nestlicare.com/owners/billing/auto-invoice-generation
roles: ["center_admin", "super_admin"]
platforms: [web]
---
Once every enrolled child has a billing plan, NestliCare can create invoices for you automatically, on each plan's cadence. You set it up once and there's nothing to click each cycle.

## Turn it on

1. Go to **Billing & Payments → Invoices**.
2. Find the **Auto-Invoice Generation** panel near the top.
3. Turn on **Enable Auto-Generation**.

Three settings appear when you enable it:

- **Generate Ahead (days)**: how many days before a billing period starts its invoice is raised. 0 raises it on the period's first day; 3 raises it the Friday before a Monday to Sunday week. Weekly and bi-weekly only; monthly always generates on the 1st.
- **Due After (days)**: how many days after an invoice is generated it's due.
- **Auto-Send to Families**: on sends each invoice to the family as soon as it's generated; off leaves it as a draft for you to review and send. Read [the section below](#auto-send-sends-real-emails-treat-it-with-respect) before turning this on.

Once it's on, the **Upcoming** filter appears on the invoice list: a forecast of exactly what the next 30 days of runs will create, run by run, computed with the same logic the job uses. Make it a habit, especially after changing plans or discounts. See [See and skip upcoming invoices](/owners/billing/upcoming-invoices).

<ScreenshotWithPointers
  src="/screenshots/owners/billing/auto-invoice-panel.png"
  alt="The Auto-Invoice Generation panel with the Enable toggle and helper text about morning generation"
  caption="Auto-Invoice Generation. When on, invoices are created each morning for whichever plans are due."
/>

## When it runs

The job runs **each morning from 9:00 AM in your center's timezone** and creates invoices for whichever billing intervals are due that day:

- **Monthly** plans generate on the 1st of the month.
- **Weekly** plans generate every Monday.
- **Bi-weekly** plans generate every other Monday. Every family shares the same fortnight unless you give one a different [bi-weekly cycle start](#families-on-the-other-bi-weekly-week).

With **Generate Ahead** set, weekly and bi-weekly invoices are raised that many days before their Monday instead (the period on the invoice stays the same Monday to Sunday week). Monthly plans ignore Generate Ahead and keep to the 1st.

So turning it on midweek won't produce weekly invoices until the next Monday. It bills each family based on their child's plan, and it never creates a second invoice for a period **it** already billed, no matter how many times the morning job re-checks. Any active discounts and subsidies are applied automatically when the invoice is generated.

<Callout kind="warning" title="Manual invoices don't count as 'already billed'">
The duplicate check only sees invoices the generator itself created. An invoice you created by hand for the same period is invisible to it, so the run will bill that family again, and with Auto-Send on, email it. While auto-generation is on, don't also invoice its periods manually: use <a href="/owners/billing/upcoming-invoices">Skip</a> for the family first, or let the run produce a draft and adjust that. See <a href="/owners/faq/can-auto-invoicing-double-bill-a-family">Can auto-invoicing double-bill a family?</a>
</Callout>

## Hourly plans bill after the period, not before

Everything above describes fixed plans, which are billed **in advance**: the Monday run covers the week that's starting.

[Hourly plans](/owners/billing/bill-by-the-hour) can't work that way, because the hours don't exist until the period is over. They're billed **in arrears** on the same schedule: the Monday run covers the week that just finished, and the 1st covers the month that just ended.

Two consequences worth knowing:

- A family with one child on a fixed plan and another on an hourly plan gets **two invoices** on the same morning, covering different periods. That's correct, not a duplicate.
- **Auto-Send never applies to hourly invoices.** They always land as drafts, because their amounts come from attendance records that may need a correction first. See [Review before sending](/owners/billing/bill-by-the-hour).

[Late pickup fees](/owners/billing/late-pickup-fees) ride the same weekly arrears run and follow the same rule: always drafts, never auto-sent. A family with no hourly plan but a late pickup that week gets a small draft with just the fee.

## Auto-Send sends real emails. Treat it with respect

With Auto-Send **off** (the default), every generated invoice lands as a draft. A wrong amount in a draft costs you nothing: fix it, or void it, and send when it's right.

With Auto-Send **on**, every generated invoice is emailed to its family the moment it's created. There is no draft stage and no review step, so a wrong billing plan becomes a wrong invoice in a parent's inbox, at scale, before you've had coffee.

That's why turning it on asks you to confirm: the dialog shows you what the next run would email and asks you to attest that you've reviewed the [Upcoming view](/owners/billing/upcoming-invoices) and the amounts are correct. Don't tick that box as a formality. Open Upcoming, read the runs, and only come back when every family, amount, and date is exactly what you expect.

Two guardrails apply even with Auto-Send on:

- **Hourly and attendance-fee invoices are never auto-sent.** Their amounts come from attendance records that may need a correction first, so they always land as drafts. See [Review before sending](/owners/billing/bill-by-the-hour).
- **Skipped invoices are never created at all**, so nothing is sent for them either.

<Callout kind="tip" title="First cycle? Leave Auto-Send off">
For your first run, turn Auto-Generation on but leave Auto-Send off. The invoices land as drafts so you can check a few before sending. Once a full cycle has come out right, turn Auto-Send on.
</Callout>

## Families on the other bi-weekly week

Bi-weekly billing runs one fortnight for the whole center by default. If a family's contract started on the other week, you do not have to move them or invoice them by hand: give that family its own cycle start.

1. Open the family from **Billing & Payments → Accounts**.
2. Under **Recurring billing**, find **Bi-weekly cycle**. It reads **Standard cycle** until you change it, and only appears for families with a bi-weekly plan.
3. Click **Change**, pick the Monday their fortnight starts on, and read the preview. It lists their next three invoices with the real generation and due dates under your current Generate Ahead and Due After settings.
4. Click **Save**.

From then on that family is billed every 14 days from that Monday, and the [Upcoming view](/owners/billing/upcoming-invoices) shows their runs on their own dates. Everyone else stays on the standard cycle. Choose **Use the standard cycle** on the same row to put a family back.

<Callout kind="info" title="Two guardrails">
The date must be a Monday, because bi-weekly periods always start on one. And if the family already has a live invoice whose period does not line up with the new cycle, the change is refused and the invoice is named: void it, or wait for that period to end, so the same days are never billed twice.
</Callout>

## Skip a family, or skip a cycle

- **One family, one run** (an agreed absence, a family that paid another way): use **Skip** on the [Upcoming view](/owners/billing/upcoming-invoices). Every other family bills as normal, and the skip only covers that single run.
- **Everyone, one run** (a closure week, say): turn **Enable Auto-Generation** off before 9:00 AM on the run's morning, then turn it back on afterward. Nothing generates while it's off.

## Troubleshooting

**Nothing generated this morning.** Check the date. Weekly and bi-weekly plans run on Mondays (or the Generate Ahead day before them), and monthly plans on the 1st. If today isn't one of those, there's nothing to generate. Generation also runs from 9:00 AM in your center's timezone, so before then there's nothing to see. The [Upcoming view](/owners/billing/upcoming-invoices) shows the exact day of every run in the next 30 days.

**One family generated nothing while everyone else did.** Check the Upcoming view for a **Skipped** badge on that family; someone may have skipped them for the run. Undo the skip before the next run, or [bill them manually](/owners/billing/generate-and-send-an-invoice) for the missed period.

**One family wasn't billed.** Make sure their child has an active enrollment with a billing plan attached, and that a matching interval was due that day. See [Create a billing plan](/owners/billing/create-a-billing-plan).

**A line-item amount looks off.** The job uses whatever plan, discount, and subsidy are active at run time. Confirm the family's current plan and any discounts are correct.