Subscriptions | General

With a subscription you let Robaws create an invoice or an order by itself at set moments. Choose an invoice if your customer pays an agreed amount at set times, and an order if you have to schedule a service at set times. The subscriptions module is included in the Go and Pro licences. You give a user access via the permissions on subscriptions in their user role.

Examples:

• You offer an on-call service for which your customer pays 50 euros every month. You create a subscription of the Invoice type that creates an invoice every month.
• You maintain a customer's garden twice a year. You create a subscription of the Order type that creates an order every six months, which you then schedule.

Navigate quickly to:

• the overview of the subscriptions
• creating a new subscription
• when Robaws creates an invoice or order
• creating an invoice or order yourself
• stopping a subscription
• the subscription file
• a subscription for maintenance
• the action buttons

Overview screen

You can adjust the overview of the subscriptions via the settings: which columns you want, in which order, which quick filters? In addition, every user can create their own overviews and personalise them. For example, you create an overview of all active subscriptions of the Invoice type. Via the overview screen you can make bulk changes to several subscriptions at once.

Views

Besides the table view, the subscription overview has a Kanban view: your subscriptions as cards, in a column per status. At the top of every column you see the total excluding VAT.

Creating a new subscription

Every subscription starts from a template. So first create at least one template via Settings > Subscriptions. As long as there is no template, you do not see the button to add a subscription.

Then complete the subscription:

1. On the left, in the Subscription card, fill in the customer and the other details.
2. In the Subscription info card, choose the Type: Invoice or Order. If you choose Invoice, also fill in the Diary.
3. Tick Active. Only then do the Recurrence rule and Next execution fields appear.
4. At Recurrence rule, choose how often the subscription recurs, and at Next execution fill in the date of the first invoice or the first order.
5. In the Items tab, add the lines that have to appear on the invoice or the order.

When does Robaws create an invoice or order?

Every hour Robaws checks which subscriptions are due: all subscriptions on which Active is ticked and whose Next execution is today or has already passed. The status of the subscription plays no role in this.

• Invoice type: Robaws creates an invoice in the journal of the subscription, with the customer, the contact, the customer reference and the lines of the subscription. If Automatic booking is switched on for the journal, the invoice immediately gets its number, otherwise it becomes a pro forma. Robaws does not send the invoice: you do that yourself.
• Order type: Robaws creates an order with the Default template of the Order type from the orders settings. If there are different projects on the lines, you get one order per project. The installations that are linked to the subscription are included on the order. You then put the order in the dayplanning yourself.

After that:

• the Next execution becomes the first recurrence after today;
• the subscription gets the Invoice status or the Status after making order, if you filled them in in the settings.

If it fails, for example because the journal is missing, every administrator gets the notification 'Subscription execution failed'. Robaws then tries again every hour, until the problem has been solved.

Creating an invoice or order yourself

Don't want to wait, for example to create a first invoice straight away? Then click the Make invoice or Make order action button on the subscription. Or, in the Overview block, click the plus sign next to 'Invoices' or 'Orders'. In the overview of the subscriptions you select several subscriptions and, with the same action buttons, create an invoice or order for each of them.

This also works on a subscription that is not active.

Stopping a subscription

On the subscription, untick Active. Robaws then no longer creates invoices or orders.

• Do you know in advance when the subscription stops? Then choose Custom at Recurrence rule and fill in Ends on or or after … times. After that end date, Robaws sets the subscription to not active by itself. After the last time, it no longer creates invoices or orders.
• Archiving a subscription or setting it to another status does not stop it. Only the Active tick counts.

The subscription file

Subscription

If you work with extra fields, they also appear in this block. If there is an extra field with the same name on the invoice or the order, Robaws takes over the content.

Subscription info

You only see Next execution and Recurrence rule if Active is ticked. If you tick Active or choose another recurrence, Robaws recalculates the next execution.

Overview

Here you see how many invoices, orders and installations belong to this subscription. Click a word to open the list. With the plus sign you create an invoice, an order or an installation for this subscription.

Items

Here you find the lines that appear on the invoice or the order: items, posts or free descriptions. Per line you can also fill in a project, equipment and a GL account. You switch on the Post and Nr columns via the settings, and the Discount column via the general settings.

Besides the Price per time, every line shows the Annual price: the price times the number of times per year according to the recurrence. You fill in one or the other, and Robaws calculates the other one. If you later choose another recurrence, the price per time stays the same and Robaws adjusts the annual price.

Example: a monthly subscription of 50 euros has an annual price of 600 euros. If you set the recurrence to every three months, the price stays 50 euros and the annual price becomes 200 euros.

Tarifs, Remarks, Documents, Tasks

In the Tarifs tab you record deviating item prices for this subscription. In the other tabs you communicate internally about the subscription, add files and create a task.

A subscription for maintenance

With a subscription you invoice, for example, a fixed price for the annual maintenance of a boiler. Robaws does not schedule the maintenance itself from the subscription, but from the maintenance schedule of the installation. The subscription does three things:

• You link the installation to the subscription. As long as the subscription is not active, Robaws does not create maintenance services for that installation.
• The subscription appears on every maintenance order of that installation.
• With the Maintenance invoicing strategy and Service invoicing strategy cards you determine whether the hours and the material of those orders are still invoiced on top of the fixed price.

Per card you choose between To be invoiced and Do not invoice for Employee hours and for Material. If the material is already included in your fixed price, set it to Do not invoice. Via Discounts and surcharges you determine which surcharges and discounts appear on the invoice of those orders.

This strategy only works if you invoice via the execution of the order. You can read the complete flow, from installation to planning item and invoice, in How does service and maintenance work in Robaws: from installation to planning item?

Action buttons

In the overview screen

For most action buttons in the overview, you first tick the subscriptions on the left on which you want to perform the action.

On the subscription file

At the top of the subscription file there is a row of action buttons. The name of an action button appears as soon as you hover over it with your mouse.

Updated on: 06/11/2026