Recurring transactions

Automate repeating income, expenses and transfers with templates that generate entries on a schedule.

What recurring transactions are

A recurring transaction is a template Qontab uses to create the same entry over and over on a schedule — your monthly rent, a quarterly subscription, the standing transfer that sweeps cash between two accounts. You define it once: the type, the amount, the accounts, and how often it repeats. From then on Qontab generates the entry on each due date and posts it to the general ledgerautomatically, so a predictable cost or income never depends on someone remembering to type it in.

It’s the difference between bookkeeping that drifts and bookkeeping that runs itself for the routine part. Templates cover income, expenses and transfers — the three movements that most often repeat on a fixed cadence.

What a template holds

Each template carries everything needed to build the entry without further input. Set it up like a one-off transaction, but with a frequency instead of a single date:

• Type — income, expense or transfer. This decides which two accounts the generated entry debits and credits.
• Amount & currency — a fixed figure in the currency you choose (Mauritian rupee by default).
• Bank account — the account the money moves through; for a transfer you also pick the destination account.
• Category — the income or expense account to book against (required for income and expense templates).
• Contact — an optional supplier or customer to tag each generated entry with.
• Schedule — a frequency, a start date and an optional end date.

The amount is fixed on the template, so recurring transactions suit predictable, equal payments. For a bill that changes every period, generate the entry and edit that single posting — the template keeps its own figure for next time.

Frequencies & scheduling

Pick from five cadences: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly. The start date sets the first occurrence; after each one Qontab advances the next due date by the chosen interval.

• Month-end safety — a monthly or longer template anchors to its start day and clamps to the last day of shorter months. Start on the 31st and it lands on 28/29 February, then returns to the 31st — it never drifts permanently.
• End date — optional. Once the next occurrence would fall past it, the template deactivates itself; leave it blank to repeat indefinitely.

Generating entries

Generation can happen three ways, and every one produces an ordinary posted transaction you can find on your transactions list:

1. Automatically — a daily sweep generates every template whose due date has arrived, across the whole account, with no action from you.
2. Process all due — a single button generates every template that is currently due at once, so you can catch up on demand.
3. Generate now — fire one specific template ahead of its schedule when you need that entry early.

After each generation Qontab moves the template’s next due date forward and records the date it last generated, so you always see what’s coming. The upcoming view lists templates due within the next stretch of days — a short calendar of what your books are about to do.

Recurring with AI (MCP)

Through the Qontab MCP connector, an AI assistant manages recurring templates in plain language. Use create_recurring to set one up, update_recurring to change its amount or cadence, get_recurring and list_upcoming_recurring to inspect what’s scheduled, generate_recurring to fire the next entry on demand, and delete_recurring to stop it.

FAQ