Recurring work suits freelancers and sole traders — OSVČ in Czech. It brings predictable income, a cash flow you can plan around and a steadier relationship with the client. Whether you bill a monthly marketing retainer, a flat rate for looking after IT infrastructure or a consulting subscription, the invoicing has to be right. This article covers how to do it accurately and with as little repeated work as possible.
Types of recurring work and how to name them on the invoice
Not every regular invoice is the same thing. The main kinds:
Retainer — a monthly fee for availability
A retainer is an arrangement where the client pays a fixed monthly amount for your availability and an agreed volume of work. It is common with marketing agencies, consultants, lawyers and IT specialists. The invoice description should be specific:
- Good: "Monthly retainer — marketing services, April 2026 (social media management, 4 posts, 1 report)"
- Not good: "Services, April"
A specific description is not only about clarity for the client. During a tax inspection, the tax office has to be able to tell from the invoice what service was actually supplied.
Flat-rate management
Typically ongoing maintenance: a website, servers, bookkeeping, grounds maintenance. On the invoice, state:
- the exact period you are billing for, for example "Website maintenance www.client.cz — April 2026"
- the scope covered by the flat rate
- any work beyond the flat rate, as separate line items
Subscription
If you supply the service as a subscription — SaaS, database access, regular deliveries — the invoice should carry:
- the exact subscription period
- the name of the service and the plan, where there is one
- a note about automatic renewal, where that applies
DUZP on recurring services: when the tax point falls
DUZP — the date of the taxable supply — is a key field, above all if you are registered for VAT. Recurring services have their own rules.
Distinct services billed on a regular cycle
If you supply a specific service that happens to repeat — a monthly clean, a single consultation each month — the DUZP is the day the service was supplied, meaning the day it was finished.
Continuous supplies
For recurring and continuous supplies — server maintenance, a monthly retainer, a lease — the DUZP is set under Section 21(9) of the VAT Act at the latest on the last day of each tax period: the last day of the month for a monthly payer, the last day of the quarter for a quarterly one. Note that Section 21(8), which puts the DUZP on the last day of the calendar year, covers only services running longer than 12 months with no partial supplies — it does not apply to an ordinary monthly retainer or lease.
Billing in advance or in arrears
- In arrears, after the service is supplied — the DUZP is the day it was completed, or the last day of the period. This is the simpler and more common approach.
- In advance, before the service is supplied — the DUZP is the day the payment is received or the day the invoice is issued, whichever comes first. It makes no difference if you are not registered for VAT; if you are, it moves the tax point.
For VAT payers: if you bill a retainer in advance at the start of the month, the DUZP is the invoice issue date, or the payment date if the client pays sooner. Consider whether billing in arrears at the end of the month is simpler, since it puts the DUZP inside the period the service covers.
Payment terms for regular clients
With recurring invoices you can usually afford shorter terms, because the client already knows the payment is coming:
- Usual terms: 7 to 14 days with a regular client. The standard 30 days slows your cash flow for no particular reason.
- A fixed due date: agree that the invoice always falls due on, say, the 15th. The client gets used to it and your income becomes predictable.
- Payment up front: for retainers and subscriptions it is entirely normal to ask for payment at the start of the period, with the service supplied once the payment arrives.
When you invoice the same client repeatedly, put a written framework agreement in place covering the scope, the price, the payment terms and how either side ends it. The invoice then refers to that agreement.
Automating it in Taxorio: a recurring invoice rule
Creating the same invoice by hand every month is wasted time, which is what Taxorio's recurring invoices are for. You set up a rule once — the client, the line items, the wording and the schedule — and Taxorio issues full invoices from it: a number from your own sequence, a variable symbol and a PDF, exactly as if you had issued them yourself.
Frequency, billed period and variables
A rule runs monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly. The date of the first issue also fixes the day of the month for every later one; if that is the 31st, Taxorio handles the shorter months, or you can choose "always the last day of the month" instead.
You also choose which period the invoice bills for — the current one, the previous one or the next one — and that choice drives the variables you can put in the line item text. Write {period} and it resolves to "August 2026", or to "Q3 2026" on a quarterly rule; {month_in_words}, {month}, {year} and {quarter} give you the parts individually. The Czech spellings {obdobi}, {mesic_slovem}, {mesic}, {rok} and {ctvrtleti} resolve to exactly the same values, and the resolved wording comes out in the document language set on the rule.
If you invoice on the 1st for the month just gone, set the billed period to "previous": the line item "Website maintenance — {month_in_words} {year}" resolves on 1 September to "Website maintenance — August 2026", and for a VAT payer the DUZP can be set to the end of the billed period, 31 August. No editing the description by hand and no arithmetic at the turn of the year.
Two delivery modes
The rule also decides what happens on the issue date. Issue and notify me is the default: the invoice is created and you get an e-mail with a link, so you can check the document before it goes anywhere. Issue and send to the client goes a step further and e-mails the invoice to the client with the PDF attached, with delivery and open tracking.
Recurring invoices are part of the PRO plan and cover ordinary invoices only, not proformas or advance invoices. The rule carries its own currency and document language, and every invoice it issues takes both over. You can pause, resume or end a rule at any time, and Taxorio pauses it by itself — and tells you why by e-mail — when something makes it unsafe to keep issuing, for example a change in your VAT status, a deleted client or a move off the PRO plan.
Duplicating and the item price list: for the irregular cases
Not every repeated invoice needs a rule. For a one-off repeat, or a client you bill on no particular schedule, the manual route is still there:
- Duplicating an invoice creates a copy with the same client and the same line items. You change the issue date and the DUZP, the period in the service description — "April 2026" becomes "May 2026" — and anything that has shifted in scope. The invoice number is assigned automatically from your sequence.
- The saved item price list helps when you bill the same services to several clients in different amounts: pick the service from the list instead of retyping the name, unit price and the rest each time.
Issuing through an AI assistant
Taxorio also has an MCP connector (Model Context Protocol), so a connected AI assistant such as Claude can create an invoice from a written instruction — useful mainly for the one-off or irregular documents that do not justify a rule. You might write: "Create an invoice for client ABC for a consultation on 15 May, 5 000 Kč." The assistant still has to identify the right client and the right VAT treatment, so check the details it proposes before it issues the document. The connector is on the PRO plan.
Keeping track of the payments
With recurring invoicing the thing to watch is who has paid. One missed month is easy to overlook; six of them are not a small amount.
- Check invoice status regularly — the dashboard shows the total outstanding and how old it is.
- Build it into a routine — at the start of the month, confirm every invoice from the previous one has been paid.
- Send reminders promptly — if a client misses the due date, react straight away. The longer you leave it, the harder the money is to collect.
Common mistakes
- A vague description — "services per the agreement" is not enough. Give the period and a short description of the scope.
- The wrong DUZP — for a VAT payer this feeds straight into the control statement.
- A forgotten invoice — without a system it is easy to miss a month. That is lost income and a gap in your records.
- Prices left stale — if the agreed price has changed, through indexation or a wider scope, update the invoice as well as the agreement.
- No written agreement — for ongoing work, always have a framework agreement. It protects both sides.
Checklist for recurring invoicing
- Have a written framework agreement with the client.
- Describe the service and the period specifically on the invoice.
- Set the DUZP correctly, particularly as a VAT payer.
- Use a recurring rule for the fixed schedule and duplication for the rest.
- Check the payment status every month.
- Send a reminder as soon as an invoice goes past due.
- Keep prices in line with what you have agreed.
Taxorio scope: Taxorio provides invoicing and income/expense records for Czech sole traders. It is not full accounting or personalised tax advice. For an unsupported or unusual case, verify the treatment with a Czech accountant or tax adviser before filing.