A subscription is a recurring billing relationship — and the invoices it produces are how that billing actually happens. Cornerspot generates those invoices for you automatically, on a schedule, so you don't have to raise each one by hand. This guide explains how a subscription turns into invoices over time, and where on the subscription's detail page you can watch it.
How a subscription generates invoices
Open any subscription from the list under Members & Billing → Subscriptions to reach its detail page at /dashboard/billing/subscriptions/{id}. From there, here's the full invoice lifecycle.
1. The first invoice
The very first invoice is created on the subscription's start date. If that date is today or earlier, the first invoice is generated immediately when you create the subscription; if it's in the future, the first invoice is scheduled for that day. The Recurring revenue card and its lifecycle steps show where the subscription is in its cycle from the start.
2. Each recurring invoice
After that, Cornerspot issues a new invoice each billing period on the Next Invoice date. The Upcoming invoice card previews exactly that: when the next invoice will issue, its estimated total, and the charge method that will collect it. How often this happens follows the subscription's billing frequency — Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-annual, or Annual.
3. The period advances
As each billing period closes, the subscription advances to the next period and schedules the next invoice on the new Next Invoice date. The Current period progress bar and lifecycle steps on the Recurring revenue card track exactly where you are in the current cycle and what's coming next.
4. Issued vs. draft: the Auto-finalize setting
The Auto-finalize generated invoices setting decides what happens to each invoice as it's created. When it's on, every initial and recurring invoice is issued (status “open”) immediately on generation. When it's off, invoices are created as drafts so you can review them before they're sent. You can see this setting as Auto-finalize invoices in the subscription's metadata, alongside the Next invoice date.
5. Where the invoices land
Every invoice a subscription generates — the first one and every recurring one — appears in the Invoices card on its detail page. You can filter the list by status and click any row to open that invoice. (Working with the invoices themselves — sending, paying, voiding — is covered in the Invoices and Payments tutorials.)
When invoicing stops
- Open-ended subscriptions (no term set) keep invoicing on schedule indefinitely until you pause or cancel them.
- Auto-renewing subscriptions keep invoicing past their fixed term — the term simply renews.
- Fixed-term subscriptions without auto-renew stop generating invoices at the end of the term and move to the Expired status.
- Paused or cancelled subscriptions stop generating new invoices, while existing invoices remain in place.
Tips
- Watch the Upcoming invoice card to know exactly when the next charge will be raised and roughly how much it will be.
- Turn Auto-finalize off if you want to review each invoice as a draft before it goes out; leave it on to issue invoices automatically.
- If you set a start date of today or earlier, expect the first invoice to be generated right away.
- To stop future invoices on a subscription, pause or cancel it rather than deleting it, so its historical invoices and reporting stay accurate.