Recurring Vendor Detection, Docs

DocuClipper looks at the last 12 months of invoices in your account and tags any new invoice from a vendor that has billed you across 3 or more distinct months. The blue Recurring badge tells you "this vendor is on a regular cadence" so you can plan AP without having to reconstruct vendor history by hand.

The matching rule

A new invoice is marked as recurring when:

The vendor name (case and whitespace insensitive) matches another invoice's vendor.
That vendor has invoices in 3 or more distinct calendar months in the last 365 days.
The current invoice's own month is not counted toward the 3, so a brand-new vendor's first invoice never qualifies.

The rule is intentionally conservative. Biweekly and quarterly vendors will only earn the badge after they've been active long enough to land in 3 calendar months in your account.

Where the badge shows up

In the invoice inbox. A Recurring column shows a blue badge with a refresh icon. Hover the badge to see the count: "Vendor billed across 5 distinct months in the last 12."

In the invoice editor. The badge sits in the header row above the document type, alongside the consistency badge. Same hover tooltip.

How to use it

The badge is a planning signal. A few practical ways to put it to work:

AP forecasting. Filter the inbox by the Recurring column to see all your "expected every month" vendors. Use it as a weekly or monthly check that the bills you expect are arriving.
Vendor categorization. Recurring vendors are excellent candidates for invoice rules. Set the GL category once and it applies forever after.
Spot one-offs. A vendor with no recurring badge that still bills frequently might be a duplicate of a vendor name spelled slightly differently. Use it as a prompt to clean up vendor names.

What the badge does NOT do today

The signal is read-only and informational. It does not:

Send an alert when an expected recurring invoice doesn't arrive in a given month.
Predict the amount of the next invoice.
Auto-create a bill in QuickBooks or Xero in advance.
Affect duplicate detection in either direction.

These could be added later if there's demand. For now, the badge tells you the vendor is recurring; the action is yours.

Independent from duplicate detection

Recurring detection and duplicate detection run as separate passes and don't gate each other:

A recurring monthly bill almost never trips the duplicate flag, because the duplicate rule requires dates within ±3 days, and consecutive monthly invoices land 28 to 31 days apart.
An invoice can be flagged as a duplicate and carry the recurring badge at the same time. That usually means a re-upload of an expected monthly bill: the recurrence is real, the new row is the dup.

If you see both flags on the same row, treat the duplicate alert first.