Knowledge Base

How Monthly Invoice Generation Works

The invoice generator for monthly billing creates one invoice per student per billing period (a period can be a month, or a longer interval if you've set one — see Billing Interval and Anchor Day). The amount is taken directly from the student's billing contract — the system doesn't consult the lesson schedule.

When generating manually, you pick which billing round(s) — i.e. which month(s) — you want to invoice, using the billing-round selector. The system bills whatever's due within the round(s) you select and hasn't been invoiced yet; it never bills anything outside the selected range. Each recipient's own actual billing period is shown next to their name, since different students can be on different intervals or anchor days. Each resulting draft shows the rate and the exact billing period it covers.

For a new contract that starts part-way through its first billing period, the opening amount is rounded to the nearest half-period. If a very short opening period rounds to no charge, the preview moves on to the first chargeable period. Octavia records the short period as no charge rather than creating a $0 draft, so it will not block later invoice generation or keep being retried.

If a student is more than one period behind (for example, you haven't generated in a while), selecting a wide enough round bills them fully caught up in one click — you don't need to generate separately for each missed period.

If an enrolment has Show lesson dates on monthly invoices enabled, the draft and PDF also show the eligible scheduled dates under Lessons scheduled this month:. This helps families understand the month covered without changing the monthly amount or lesson count.

Manual Collection: Generating Invoices Yourself

If your enrolments are on manual collection, navigate to the Billing area when you're ready to invoice. The generation flow works as follows:

1. Select billing type — choose Monthly (Flat Subscription) from the billing type options.
2. Select the billing round(s) — pick which month(s) you want to invoice, using the billing-round selector. This bills whatever's due within the selected round(s) that hasn't already been invoiced.
3. Set your scope — choose whether to generate for individual enrolments, group enrolments, or both.
4. Select recipients — the system shows students on monthly billing contracts who are due for a new invoice, along with their own actual billing period. Select all or choose specific students. Students on automatic collection aren't shown here by default — turn on Include students on auto mode if you need to manually invoice one of them (for example, to fix something or handle a one-off case).
5. Generate — the system creates draft invoices, one per student, at the contracted rate.
6. Review — enter review mode to check each draft. You can adjust amounts or due dates on individual drafts if needed before sending.
7. Send — once satisfied with the drafts, send them. This delivers the invoices to families.

See Generating Invoices: The Review-and-Send Flow for a full walkthrough of the review mode interface.

Automatic Collection: Platform-Generated Drafts

If a student's contract is on automatic collection, the platform generates the invoice ahead of the billing period based on your configured lead time, and can optionally send it automatically too. See Automatic Invoicing, Lead Time, and Auto-Send: Full Guide for the full timeline — generation doesn't simply happen "on the anchor day," it happens far enough in advance for you to review it first.

By default, automatic collection still only creates drafts — not sent invoices. You review and send them yourself, the same as a manually generated draft. If you'd rather not do that step, each enrolment has its own automatic sending option, which emails the invoice to the family as soon as its send date arrives, with no review step from you. See Automatic Invoicing, Lead Time, and Auto-Send: Full Guide for how to turn this on and what we recommend before you do.

Reviewing and Editing Drafts

Whether invoices were generated manually or automatically, the review step works the same way. In the draft review panel you can:

• Check the amount and billing period on each invoice
• Edit the amount or due date on individual drafts if the standard rate doesn't apply this period
• Delete drafts you don't want to send
• Send all or selected drafts to families

Drafts can sit in review as long as you need. If a draft already exists for a student's next due period and you run generation again — for example, after selecting a wider billing round, or because a student was behind by more than one period — the system adds the newly due period as an extra line on the existing draft rather than creating a second invoice, so you never end up with duplicates. To amend an existing draft directly, edit it from the review panel.

Sending the Invoice

When you send a draft, the platform delivers it to the student's family according to their notification preferences. If the student has billing access enabled in the Family Hub (for adult or older students), the invoice goes to them directly rather than to a parent. See Sending Invoices and Receipts.

What Happens After Sending

The invoice status moves from draft to sent. From this point, the normal payment and receipt flow applies:

• Families can view the invoice in the Family Hub
• If the student has a Stripe payment link enabled, they can pay online. See the Stripe guide
• You can record a manual payment at any time. See Recording a Payment
• If the invoice needs to be cancelled, see Voiding an Invoice

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