Set Up Recurring and Non-recurring Items

Recurrence is an Item property that indicates to Maxio that a Transaction must be renewed or canceled when it expires. This article explains how item recurrence impacts renewals, cancellations, and analytics, with examples showing when to use each type. It also covers how to safely change recurrence settings for existing transactions without affecting linked renewals.

For traditional subscription Items, set the Item to Recurring. Use Non-recurring for professional services, training, usage fees, physical goods, etc.

Only Recurring Item Transactions can be:

• Renewed
• Canceled
• Extended, Upgraded, Early Terminated

Certain Analytics reports include an option to include Recurring, Non-recurring, or both.

Recurrence has no impact on Invoicing.

Special cases and examples

• For a flat monthly fee, use Recurring.
• For a 100% variable monthly fee with no fixed component, use Non-recurring.
• For a flat monthly fee plus a variable fee, use Recurring for the Item that is the flat monthly fee and Non-recurring for the Item that is the variable fee.
• For a flat annual (or other term) fee plus a variable fee, use Recurring for the flat annual fee and a Non-recurring Item for the variable fee.

Changing item recurrence

An Item can be changed from Recurring to Non-recurring or from Non-recurring to Recurring, but any existing renewal relationships are unaffected.

In Maxio, you can create a renewal relationship between Transactions regardless of the recurrence property of the Item. For instance, you could have a Non-recurring Transaction renew a Recurring Transaction or a Non-recurring Transaction renew another Non-recurring Transaction. The Renewal and Cancellation functions, as well as functions such as Import Transactions and Autogenerate Transactions, will only renew (or Cancel) Recurring Transactions unless you specifically override the defaults. But generally speaking, you won't see Non-recurring Transactions with renewal linkages or cancellation information.

If you change the recurrence property of an Item, Maxio does not change any of the renewal-related fields on existing Transactions. Therefore, you may see the following:

Changing an Item from Non-recurring to Recurring

• Transactions that use that Item may now appear as expired or will expire when the Transaction End Date arrives.
• Transaction Classes remain unchanged.

Changing an Item from Recurring to Non-recurring

• Transactions that use that Item are no longer expired nor will they expire.
• Transactions with Renewal linkages to other Transactions remain intact.
• Transaction Classes remain unchanged.