Sometimes when you do work for a client, you are doing the same work on repeat on a certain schedule. That could be a monthly bookkeeping job or a quarterly VAT job, as an example. You can set these work items up on a schedule in Karbon, so they create automatically when you need them.

To create a repeating schedule, select 'Setup Repeating work' from the work options menu '...' on a work item or click on 'Setup Repeating Work' straight from the work items header. This will open up your Repeat Settings, where you can set your work schedule.

There are a few things to consider when setting up a work item on a repeating schedule and these can be divided into eight steps:

When setting up repeating work, the first step is to select how often the work will repeat. Begin by choosing your preferred time period (monthly, weekly, daily, etc.) and the frequency of the repetition. You also have the option to define how long the work should repeat, either by setting a specified end date or allowing it to repeat indefinitely.

You can also control the number of times the work will repeat. For example, if you're setting up a monthly task but need it to repeat for only six months, you can specify this number of instances. The options for repetition are as follows:

Please Note:

The due date inherits the current due date of the work item you are setting the schedule up from (if it has one), as an offset from the start date of the work (for example, 15 days after the work start date). This can be adjusted in the Repeat Settings.

You also have an option to avoid weekends. If you check this option, any work start or due date will move to the Friday before if it falls on a Saturday or Sunday. This only applies to the work items' start and due date, not the task's start and due dates.

Note: If you wish to create semi-monthly work, you will have to set the start date to be the 1st of the month and the due date on the 15th, for the first work item. Set the work item to repeat semi-monthly and the titles will be as you desire.

If you would like to update the due date for the schedule, just go to the options menu "..." and select 'Edit schedule' and update the due date.

Just below the due date, you have the option to set a deadline date. This allows you to indicate when work must be completed by. Examples of deadlines are statutory filing dates, compliance deadlines or dates contractually agreed delivery dates. This is opposed to a Work due date which is an internal date for your practice that defines when the work should be completed by.

Schedule work items will be assigned to the assignee of the current work item by default. At this step, you can change that assignee if necessary.

Finally, you have the option to set the name of future work items in the schedule, using a range of dynamic names, timeframes and date formats. This is designed to be flexible and suit a range of services and requirements.

Click any of the placeholders to add them to your work title. You can choose between using the Repeat Period, Start Date or Due Date placeholder.

When you choose a placeholder, you will then be able to choose the Date Formula (before or after the variable selected) and the Date Format.

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You can make as many changes as you like, and add multiple placeholders to the one Work Title.

For example: if you are trying to achieve the following naming convention, 'Annual Accounts 2021/2022', and the start date of the work item is in 2022, you can input 'Annual Accounts' and then choose Start Date - XX days and chose 365 in the format of YYYY to get 2021, then insert a / and then another placeholder for Start Date in the format of YYYY.

If you are unsure how the titles for your next scheduled work items will look, you can preview them in the top right of this page.

You can specify the Connect Folder setting for a repeating work series. If enabled, Karbon will automatically connect new work in the series to the specified folder in your Document Management System (e.g. Dropbox, OneDrive) and start copying files across.

In the Connected Folder section of Repeating Settings, specify the DMS folder to connect to and if you would like the files to be automatically copied across.

For existing work items in the series, the setting will be applied if a connected folder has not been set up yet. If an existing work item is already connected, it will not be overwritten by the repeating work settings.

As a new work item is created in the series, it will be connected when tasks and budgets are created for the work. This schedule can be adjusted in the repeating work setting so the connection is not used before the work starts.

When setting a work item up on a schedule you can decide how far in advance work and tasks within those work items should be created.

The default is that the work is created three months in advance and tasks are created two weeks before the work start date. When choosing the creation date for the tasks within the work item, we recommend that you consider how far in advance you will need the tasks and how likely it is that something will change on a task level.

The reason is that if you change something in the work template, the changes will not carry through to work items, where tasks have already been created and you will then have to reset them manually.

Keep in mind that the task creation option is dependent on how far out the work is set to create, meaning you cannot have tasks created before the work item is created.

You can have your repeating work items and associated tasks appear in My Week automatically by updating the Resource Planning in the Repeating Schedule of that work item.

Whether you've already created your repeating schedule or are just setting it up, at the bottom of the screen you will see a section called 'Resource Planning'.

Once the settings are open, scroll to the bottom of the screen and you'll see the option to update your resource planning. Here you can choose if you'd like it to move into your My Week or not. This will appear the same way if you're creating your repeating schedule for the first time.

The default option will be 'Week of Work Start Date'. With this selected, the new work items will appear in the 'Later' bucket, until the work start date falls in the following week when it will automatically move into the 'Next Week' bucket, and finally 'This Week'. The same holds true if you choose 'Week of Work Due Date', here it's just based on the due date of the work instead of the start date. If you choose 'Don't Add Planned Week' new work items will stay in the 'To Plan' bucket and you will need to move it out manually.

The work will be planned for the Work Assignee when the work is created and will be planned for the rest of the Work Team when the Tasks and Budget are created.

Keep in mind that if you update this setting to a different planned status on an already existing repeating schedule, this will only apply to work that has not yet been created. This means that if you've set the work creation to be 3 months, this setting will not update until the next 3 months of work items have passed.

If you wish to edit a repeat schedule, simply click on the frequency of the repeat in the work items header where it says 'Repeats' or use the options menu '...' and click 'Edit Repeating Schedule'.

Either of these options will open the Repeating Work settings page, which will let you adjust dates, work assignee, naming conventions and other details.

Please note: If you change the client for a repeat schedule, it will change all work including completed work to the new client.

Keep in mind you cannot change how often the work item will recur; however, you can delete the schedule by selecting 'Delete repeat' and start over. Before doing this, we recommend reviewing the details around deleting a work schedule.

The 'Work' tab on this page will display all created work items in the current series, sorted by start date.

It will also display details of the tasks within each work item, including whether or not they have been created.

If you have set a work item on a repeating schedule, future work items will be created automatically containing some information from the previous work item in the schedule.

Data that is carried across includes:

Keep in mind, there is an exception to these carry-over rules. If you are using Tasklist Automators to assign tasks and/or task due dates, those Tasks assignments will not be copied from a previous work item. Instead, they will be created unassigned or given a due date and updated when the Automator is triggered.

You will sometimes need to make updates or changes to a work item that you have set to repeat on a schedule. Some of these changes will carry over to all future work in the schedule, while other changes may only affect the current piece of work.

You can choose when your work and tasks will be created for a scheduled piece of work ahead of its start date. These tasks will be replicated from the work item immediately preceding it in the schedule. Additionally, if you click on the task section for any future work, Karbon will ask if you are ready to work on it and adopt the checklist from the previous work item at that point.

If the future tasks have not yet been created, the following changes will be carried over to future work:

Tasks

Time & Budgets

Details section

Changing any of these items on a piece of work will only affect the current piece of work:

Data that is not carried forward:

There are some important rules you should pay attention to, which may affect the items that are carried forward.

If you edit details that can be carried forward (like task descriptions) after the tasks in the following item in the series have been created, you can manually sync your updates to the more recent work item by using the Reset Work option.

If you change the work assignee to someone else, this does not carry over to scheduled work. To change the work assignee for all work on a schedule, you'll need to update the schedule.

You can delete a work schedule but consider the note below before following the steps to delete. Deleting the schedule will also delete future work items (if any have been created).

Note: If there is any work in the schedule that you do not want to be deleted (including the work item you are currently viewing), make sure that each work item's start date is the current date or earlier.

All work in the schedule that has a start date in the future will be deleted. Any task comments will be permanently lost. Items on the timeline will not be lost, but you'll want to consider first adding them to alternate timelines. When a work item is deleted it is gone forever; deleting is different from changing work status.

Instead of deleting a work schedule, consider simply ending the work schedule. By Identifying an end date, you will be able to keep work items previous to that "end date". All future work after the end date will be deleted.

You can end a work schedule by:

You can delete a work schedule by:

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