Monthly retainer invoicing at most agencies is a manual ritual: pull client list, create invoice in accounting software, email it to the client, follow up if it's not paid by the due date, reconcile payment in the spreadsheet. Every month, every client. A Make.com scenario triggered by a monthly schedule eliminates every step of this process.
How the Automated Billing Scenario Works
On the 1st of each month, a Make.com schedule trigger fires. The scenario fetches all active client records from Airtable — filtering for Status equal to Active. For each client record, it creates a Stripe invoice using the client's stored Stripe Customer ID, with line items pulled from the Deliverables table in Airtable. The invoice is sent via the Stripe API (which triggers Stripe's own hosted invoice email, or via Gmail for a branded template). The scenario then updates the Airtable invoice record with the Stripe Invoice ID and sets status to Pending. The Softr portal immediately reflects the pending invoice in the client's billing tab.
Automated Payment Reminders
A second scheduled scenario runs 7 days after invoice creation and checks for any unpaid invoices. For each overdue invoice, it sends a payment reminder via Gmail with the invoice link embedded. If the invoice is still unpaid at 14 days, it posts a Slack alert to the #billing-alerts channel for human review. Payment confirmation from Stripe fires a webhook to Make.com that updates Airtable to Paid, updates the Softr portal status, and sends a payment receipt email. The full billing automation is demonstrated at omnionlinestrategies.com/client-portal-demo.