A subscription, a maintenance contract, a monthly package: the invoice is always the same, and that is exactly the problem. Recurring revenue does not disappear in one go, it erodes — an invoice forgotten one month, a contract that expired and nobody re-read, a price frozen for four years. None of those losses triggers an alert.
The essentials in five points
- The cycle is built once: period covered, issue date, due date, payment method.
- Billing in advance or in arrears changes cash flow, not turnover.
- Four leaks eat recurring revenue: the missed invoice, the expired contract, the frozen price, the unbilled work.
- Attachment follows the period covered, which produces adjustments at the close.
- An annual review of the book returns more than any sales initiative.
1. Building the cycle
A recurring contract is set up once and runs for years. That is what makes it profitable, and what makes an error at the outset a lasting one.
| Parameter | What to fix | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Period covered | The 1st to the 30th, or the 15th to the 14th | Determines the accounting attachment |
| Issue date | Before, during or after the period | Sets the cash advance or lag |
| Payment due date | A term both parties calculate the same way | Avoids disputes about the date |
| Payment method | Direct debit, transfer, cheque | Determines how much chasing is needed |
| Term and renewal | Expiry, notice, revision conditions | This is what expires without warning |
| Indexation or revision | A written rule, or its deliberate absence | Without it the price is frozen forever |
The last two lines have no effect in month one and determine everything after three years. A contract with no revision clause is a contract whose price falls in real terms every year, without anyone having decided it.
2. In advance or in arrears
The choice looks technical. It actually determines who funds the service during the period covered, and it is settled in the contract, not at the first late payment.
- Billing in advance: You collect before you have served. Cash is better and the risk of non-payment lower, but part of what you collect is not yours yet.
- Billing in arrears: You serve first and invoice after. It is easier to justify, and you fund the customer for the whole period.
- The accounting consequence: Billed in advance, collection precedes performance: the unperformed part is deferred income at the close.
- The VAT consequence: Collection makes VAT due, even for a period not yet served, according to your chargeability regime.
The third line is discovered at the first balance sheet. A subscription model billed in advance structurally carries a liability: what you have collected and not yet delivered. Ignoring it shows a flattering result and a misleading cash position.
3. The four leaks
Recurring revenue is rarely lost by losing a customer. It is lost through silent leaks that no system flags, because nothing is visibly missing.
- The missed invoice: a skipped month is only caught if someone compares the number of invoices to the number of contracts.
- The expired contract: the service continues and so does the billing, but with no contractual basis if the renewal was never formalised.
- The frozen price: with no revision clause, the 2022 price still applies, and nobody took a decision to that effect.
- Work outside the package: extra interventions carried out and never billed, because they were not logged when they happened.
- The departed customer: a cancelled subscription whose service carries on for months.
The fourth line is the most profitable to fix and the simplest: it is work already done, whose cost has already been borne, that never reached an invoice. Logging it at the moment of the intervention costs thirty seconds; reconstructing it a quarter later is impossible.
A contract with no revision clause cuts its own price
This is the slowest and widest leak. A package set four years ago, tacitly renewed each year, costs the customer the same today while your costs have moved. Nobody decided that reduction, and nobody sees it in the accounts because turnover does not fall — it is margin that shrinks. The revision clause is negotiated at signature, almost never mid-contract.
4. The annual review of the book
Once a year, the recurring book is read line by line. It takes half a day, and it is generally the most profitable action of the year.
- Count the active contracts and compare with the number of invoices issued over twelve months.
- List the contracts that have expired and were not formally renewed.
- Spot the prices unchanged for more than two years.
- Identify customers whose scope has grown while the package has not.
- Check that every cancelled contract has actually stopped being served.
- Verify that the deferred income account matches the periods not yet served.
The first point alone often justifies the exercise. A gap between the number of contracts and the number of invoices is arithmetic, takes minutes to establish, and surfaces whole months of work delivered and never billed.
Mistakes to avoid
- Never comparing invoices issued against active contracts.
- Letting a contract renew without ever re-reading its terms.
- Leaving out any price revision clause.
- Not logging out-of-package work at the moment it happens.
- Ignoring deferred income on billed but unserved periods.
- Continuing to serve a customer whose subscription was cancelled.
Frequently asked questions
Should billing be in advance or in arrears?
In advance improves cash and reduces the risk of non-payment; in arrears is easier to justify. The choice is fixed in the contract. Billed in advance, remember the deferred income at the close.
How do I avoid missing an invoice?
By an arithmetic check: the number of invoices issued in the period must match the number of active contracts. It is the only check that catches a skipped month, because nothing else signals it.
Is a tacitly renewed contract a problem?
Mainly a pricing problem: with no revision clause the price stays at its original level indefinitely. On the documentary side, formalise the renewal rather than letting the service continue with no written basis.
How is a billed but unserved period treated?
The unperformed part at the close is deferred income: it leaves the year’s result and returns in the next one, as the work is performed.
Does BelloPOS handle recurring billing?
BelloPOS has no automatic subscription engine. Customer records exist from Lite and commercial documents with Pro; a recurring cycle is kept alongside, in a tracked schedule, and controlled by reconciling contracts against invoices.
What to take away
Recurring revenue is managed by discipline rather than by selling. Fix the period, the due date and the revision clause in the contract; log out-of-package work the same day; and once a year, compare the number of contracts with the number of invoices. That single comparison usually recovers more revenue than a month of prospecting.
Sources
The figures and rules quoted above come from these pages, read on the date given in the article.
- Moroccan Tax Administration, 2026 General Tax Code
- Ministry of Economy and Finance, General Code of Accounting Standardisation, read 1 September 2026
Your customers and your documents in one place
BelloPOS keeps customer records from the free Lite licence onward and commercial documents with Pro. There is no automatic subscription engine: the recurring cycle is tracked alongside, and checked by comparing contracts with invoices.
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