Due dates in templates
The four ways a template task can get its due date, and which one you actually want.
This is the setting that decides whether a template is useful or annoying, and it's the one most often set wrong.
A template task gets its due date from one of four rules.
Fixed date
A specific calendar date, the same every time.
Right for a genuine statutory deadline that doesn't move — and almost nothing else. A fixed date in a template you apply next year is a date in the past.
Use it sparingly. Most things that feel fixed are actually period-relative.
Period-relative
N days after the period ends.
This is the right answer for most recurring work. A bookkeeping task due 10 days after month end is due on the 10th of January for December's books and the 10th of February for January's, without anyone editing anything.
Because it's anchored to the period rather than to when you started, a job applied late still carries its real deadline. That's what you want — applying December's work in February shouldn't quietly move December's deadline to April.
Apply date
N days after the apply date.
Anchored to when the template was applied rather than to any period. Right for onboarding and for anything where the clock starts when the work starts.
Send engagement letter, 2 days after apply behaves correctly whenever you onboard, which is the point.
After predecessor
N days after the task it depends on completes.
Available where the template builds a multi-task job, and it's what makes a realistic chain — review due 3 days after prep finishes, delivery due 2 days after review.
Its strength is also its risk: if the predecessor slips, everything behind it slips, and no absolute deadline pulls it back. Use predecessor dates for internal handoffs and an absolute rule for anything with a real deadline at the end.
Choosing
- Real statutory deadline → Fixed date
- Recurring work tied to a period → Period-relative
- Onboarding or one-off work → Apply date
- Internal handoff inside a job → After predecessor
A well-built tax template usually mixes them: the filing task is period-relative, the internal prep and review steps run on predecessor offsets behind it.
A test worth running
Apply the template twice — once with today's date, once with a period two months in the past.
If the second one produces sensible dates, your rules are right. If everything lands next week, you've used apply-date where you meant period-relative.
Notes and limits
- Offsets can be negative, for something due before a period ends.
- Changing a rule doesn't change dates on work already created.
- A predecessor date has no due date until its predecessor completes.
- Weekends and holidays aren't accounted for automatically.