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Recurring Projects
Set a project up once and let Hidma generate each occurrence automatically, with names and codes that resolve themselves.
🎥 Video Tutorial
A full walkthrough of setting up a recurring project - the recurrence schedule, name and code placeholders, sequential numbering, and what the generated instances look like.
Overview
Recurring Projects let you configure a project once and have Hidma create each occurrence on a schedule you define. This removes a large amount of repetitive admin for engagements where most of the setup - jobs, teams, budgets, and even the billing arrangement - stays more or less constant from one period to the next.
Typical candidates are monthly bookkeeping, quarterly management accounts, annual compliance filings, and any other engagement your firm repeats on a predictable cadence. Because you can also define bills, recurring bills, and charges at the point of project creation, a recurring project can carry its entire billing arrangement forward with it - meaning the whole admin side of a predictable engagement runs itself.
Recurrence is available for both single client and multiple client (batch) project creation.
Key Concepts
Recurring Setup (the blueprint)
The Recurring Setup is the project you configure - the schedule, the name and code patterns, the jobs, teams, budgets, and billing. It is not a working project: no time is tracked to it and it accumulates no statistics. It exists purely to tell Hidma how to build the real projects.
In the Projects list a Recurring Setup carries a Recurring Setup badge in the top-right of its card, shows the raw pattern as its name (for example Audit review [Month]), and displays the schedule underneath (for example "Repeats every month on Monday for 2 times"). Its statistic tiles are empty.
Instances (the real projects)
Each time the schedule fires, Hidma creates an Instance - a normal, fully functional project with its placeholders resolved into real text. Instances carry an Instance badge, and apart from that badge they behave exactly like any project created by hand: time is tracked to them, budgets apply, bills are raised against them.
The Recurring Projects filter
The Projects page has filter chips at the top - All, Projects, and Recurring Projects. Click Recurring Projects to see only your recurring setups, separately from the instances they produce.
Setting Up a Recurring Project
Step 1: Start a New Project
- Go to Projects in the left sidebar
- Click + Add new
- On the Adding a New Project dialog choose Single Client (or Multiple Clients for a batch - see Recurring Projects in Bulk)
- Click Next
Step 2: Fill in the Project Details
Complete the usual details in the Project Details section:
- Client - the client the project belongs to
- Project Name - the base name (for example "Audit review"). This becomes the starting point for the name pattern
- Template (Optional) - apply a project template to pre-fill jobs, teams, budgets, and billing type
- Code - only shown if project codes are enabled for your tenant
- Status and Type
Project codes are optional
Manual project codes are a per-tenant setting and are switched off for most firms. If you don't see a Code field, skip every code-related step on this page. If your tenant uses Hidma-generated incremented codes, you don't need to specify a code either - Hidma assigns them automatically.
Step 3: Set the Recurrence
Scroll to the Date & Recurrence section:
- Start Date - the date the first occurrence should be created
- Recurrence - leave as Does not repeat for a normal one-off project, or choose a frequency to make it recur. Choose Custom to fine-tune the schedule
Custom Recurrence
Selecting Custom opens the Custom recurrence dialog - the same control used for recurring bills and recurring charges:
- Starts - the first run date (Start At)
- Repeat Every - an Interval and a Frequency of Day, Week, Month, or Year
- Ends - Never, On a specific date, or After a set number of occurrences
Once saved, the schedule is summarised in plain English next to an Edit recurrence button - for example "Repeats every month on Monday for 2 times".
Step 4: Define the Name and Code Patterns
As soon as a project is set to recur, two extra fields appear:
- Project Name Recurrence Pattern (required)
- Project Code Recurrence Pattern (only when project codes are enabled)
These patterns are what each generated instance is named and coded from. They are optional in effect - if you leave the pattern as plain text with no placeholders, Hidma still generates each instance, but it has to append a number to keep names unique (so "Audit review" is followed by "Audit review 1", and so on). Adding placeholders makes the output deterministic and far more readable.
To insert a placeholder, click the + icon at the end of the field (tooltip: "Add placeholder text") and pick from the list. See Dynamic Placeholders below.
Step 5: Complete the Rest of the Project
Everything below the recurrence section is standard project setup - Jobs & Teams, Project Budgets, Budget Notifications, and Billing. Whatever you configure here is inherited by every generated instance.
The Billing section is where you can attach Add Bill, Add Recurring Bill, and Add Charge items so that each occurrence arrives with its billing already in place. Learn about billing at project creation.
Step 6: Save
Click Save Changes. Hidma creates the Recurring Setup and immediately generates the first instance.
Dynamic Placeholders
Placeholders are tokens written in square brackets that Hidma resolves at the moment each instance is generated. They work in both the name pattern and the code pattern.
Date Placeholders
Click the + icon and pick from the menu. Each option shows a live example of what it resolves to, and Hidma inserts the correct token into the field for you - so there's nothing to memorise.
| Menu option | Resolves to | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Year | The four-digit year | 2026 |
| Year (short) | The two-digit year (inserted as [YY]) | 26 |
| Month | The month number, unpadded (inserted as [Month]) | 7 |
| Month (padded) | The month number, zero-padded | 07 |
| Day | The day of the month | 06 |
TIP
Pick placeholders that match your cadence. A monthly project wants the month in its name; an annual one usually only needs the year. Audit review [Month] generates "Audit review 7", "Audit review 8", and so on.
Sequence Placeholders
Sequences give each generated project an incrementing number and are most useful in project codes. Two forms are supported:
| Form | Meaning |
|---|---|
[Seq:padding] | A sequence padded to padding digits, starting at 1 |
[Seq:padding:startFrom] | A sequence padded to padding digits, starting at startFrom |
[Seq:4] produces 0001 on the first project, 0002 on the second, and so on - four digits wide.
[Seq:4:26] is also four digits wide but starts counting from 26, so the first project gets 0026, the second 0027.
You can use both forms in the same pattern, and combine them with date placeholders.
Worked example. The pattern AUDREV[YY][Seq:4][Seq:4:26] generates the code AUDREV2600010026 for the first project:
| Segment | Comes from | Value |
|---|---|---|
AUDREV | Literal text | AUDREV |
[YY] | Two-digit year (Year (short)) | 26 |
[Seq:4] | Sequence, 4 digits, from 1 | 0001 |
[Seq:4:26] | Sequence, 4 digits, from 26 | 0026 |
Sequence syntax
Use numbers in place of each amount. If you type the words instead of numbers - [Seq:length] or [Seq:padding:startFrom] - the field turns red and Hidma shows "Use [Seq:padding] or [Seq:padding:startFrom], with numbers in place of each amount".
Recurring Projects in Bulk
Recurrence also works when creating projects for Multiple Clients. Choose Multiple Clients on the Adding a New Project dialog, select the clients (or All Clients for your whole client base), and configure the recurrence exactly as above. Every selected client gets its own Recurring Setup, each generating its own instances on the schedule.
This is how you roll out something like "monthly management accounts" across an entire client base in a single action. Batches are queued and processed in the background - see Creating Projects in Bulk.
Check a batch before you save it
A recurring batch multiplies in two directions at once - across clients and across occurrences - so a small mistake becomes a large clean-up. Double-check the clients, the schedule, and both patterns before saving, because correcting a batch of recurring projects after the fact takes considerably longer than creating it.
Viewing and Managing Recurring Projects
- Go to Projects
- Click the Recurring Projects chip
From here you can open a Recurring Setup to review or change the schedule, patterns, jobs, teams, budgets, and billing. As with recurring bills, changes affect future instances - projects that have already been generated keep whatever they were created with, and you edit those individually like any other project.
Common Workflows
Workflow: Monthly Bookkeeping for One Client
- + Add new → Single Client → Next
- Client: the bookkeeping client. Project Name:
Monthly bookkeeping - Apply your "Monthly Bookkeeping" project template so jobs, teams, and budgets arrive pre-filled
- Start Date: the 1st of next month. Recurrence: Custom → every 1 Month, ends Never
- Project Name Recurrence Pattern: type
Monthly bookkeeping, then use the + icon to insert Month (padded), a/, and Year - Under Billing, add a recurring bill for the monthly fee
- Save Changes
Each month a new instance appears named "Monthly bookkeeping 09/2026", with its jobs, team, budget, and recurring bill already configured.
Workflow: Annual Compliance Across the Whole Client Base
- + Add new → Multiple Clients → Next
- Select All Clients
- Start Date: the start of your compliance year. Recurrence: every 1 Year, ends Never
- Project Name Recurrence Pattern: type
Annual compliance, then insert Year - Project Code Recurrence Pattern (if codes are enabled): type
COMP, insert Year (short), then type[Seq:5]for a five-digit sequence - Review the client list carefully, then Save Changes
Troubleshooting
Problem: Instances aren't being generated
- Check the Ends condition on the recurrence - it may have completed its set number of occurrences
- Check the Start Date hasn't been set to a future date you've forgotten about
- Confirm the Recurring Setup is still Active
Problem: Generated projects are named "Audit review 1", "Audit review 2"
The name pattern contains no placeholders, so Hidma is appending a number to keep names unique. Open the Recurring Setup and add a date placeholder to the Project Name Recurrence Pattern. Future instances will use it; already-generated ones keep their existing names.
Problem: The code pattern field is red
The sequence syntax is wrong. Use numbers, not words: [Seq:4] or [Seq:4:26], never [Seq:length].
Problem: I can't see a Code field
Manual project codes aren't enabled for your tenant, or your tenant uses Hidma-generated incremented codes. Either way there's nothing to configure - contact [email protected] if you want manual codes switched on.
Related Topics
- Creating Projects - The standard project creation flow and bulk creation
- Bills, Recurring Bills & Charges at Project Creation - Attach the billing arrangement up front
- Project Templates - Pre-fill jobs, teams, budgets, and billing type
- Recurring Bills - The same recurrence engine applied to bills
- Client & Project Codes - Coding conventions
Need Help?
If you don't see the Date & Recurrence section when creating a project, ask your administrator to review your project permissions.