Invoices, card payments, and manual payments
Professional invoices are included with ShootCal at no extra cost. Each job uses one USD invoice for the full amount, with an optional deposit inside that total. Clients can pay securely by card through your connected Stripe account or use the manual methods you configure.
ShootCal adds no payment or platform fee to Stripe invoice payments; Stripe’s standard processing fees still apply. ShootCal records business expenses and reports income less recorded expenses, but it is not full bookkeeping: it does not reconcile bank or card accounts, store receipt images, track mileage or depreciation, run payroll, or prepare, file, and remit tax returns.
Start an invoice from a client #
Open a client in Clients, then use the Paperwork card’s Create an invoice action. ShootCal opens a new invoice with the client’s name and email filled in and today as the initial due date. Because this action starts from a client rather than a calendar booking, it deliberately does not attach a calendar event; you can review and complete the invoice before saving or issuing it.
From a client-work appointment, use Send invoice in the appointment detail. That route carries the exact client, appointment, and local session day into the draft so confirmed payments can remain tied to the intended booking. Personal events show no invoice or contract actions. After creating or updating an appointment, the saved appointment stays selected so its paperwork actions are immediately available.
The native iPhone and iPad client views can hand the same client to the signed-in web editor through a short-lived, single-use browser handoff. On Android, Save & Create Invoice on a new event opens the web invoice editor for that event’s client the same way. The prefill is carried in the URL fragment and removed before parsing, so the client name and email never enter nginx or PHP access logs. A handoff remains bound to the same ShootCal account through sign-in or any required account setup and expires from browser session storage after 30 minutes. A verified provider identity can use the website without adding a password.
First-time invoice setup #
Open Payments > Invoices in the web app. The first time you use invoices, review and accept the invoice terms, then open Invoice settings.
- Business details & numbering: Add the business address and contact details invoices should show, and check the next invoice number. The studio name and logo come from Logo & studio name in Settings > Studio, the same name and logo your booking page and contracts use.
- Stripe card payments: Connect your own Stripe account and finish its onboarding if you want clients to pay by card.
- Manual payment methods: Offer Zelle, Cash App, Venmo, check, cash, and/or one custom method. Choose an example, replace every highlighted placeholder with your own details, and save. Unfinished examples cannot be used.
- Sales-tax defaults: Save the label and percentage you usually use and choose whether new invoices should start with tax on. New invoices start as Not taxable unless you have chosen a taxable default. You can change the saved choice on each draft.
Sales tax is optional and applies to the whole invoice in the current version; mixed taxable and non-taxable line items are not supported. You are responsible for deciding what is taxable, choosing the correct rate, and registering, reporting, and remitting tax.
Create one invoice for the whole job #
Choose New invoice, then:
- Select or enter the client. An email address is optional; without one, you can issue the invoice and copy its protected link yourself.
- Set the issue date and final-balance due date.
- Add products or services, or choose one of the same saved packages used for contracts.
- Optionally request a deposit inside the full invoice total. It is not a second charge and is not taxed twice.
- Optionally link the exact booking appointment if confirmed payments should update that booking’s deposit marker.
- Choose whether the invoice is taxable and which card or manual payment choices to offer.
- Save the draft, or save and issue it.
A draft can be edited or deleted. Once issued, its invoice number, client details, line items, tax, and payment instructions are frozen so the record cannot change behind the client’s link. If it is wrong, void it and create a replacement.
Product and service line items #
Each invoice line has an Item title, an optional Description, a Quantity, and a Unit price. Choosing a saved product or service copies its title, description, and price into that row. You can edit the copy without changing the saved product or service. Choosing it again adds another independent row; removing a row also removes its description.
Descriptions appear beneath their item titles on the invoice and email. Older invoices retain their existing shared Product or service details text, which you can still edit without automatically splitting it among rows.
Discounts on an invoice: a percent or amount off, like friends and family pricing #
In an invoice draft, choose Add discount below the line items. Add an optional label, such as Friends and family, choose Amount or Percent, and enter the discount. Percentages accept up to four decimal places. The totals and preview update as you edit.
Each invoice can have one discount. It must be greater than zero and less than the line-item subtotal. Sales tax applies after the discount. A percentage recalculates when you change the line items; an amount stays fixed. Choose Remove discount to clear it before saving.
The discount appears between Subtotal and Tax on the invoice and its copies. Once an invoice is issued, the discount follows the same financial editing restrictions as its line items. Reports count sales and income after discounts; cash reports still count confirmed payments and refunds on their received dates.
Issue, email, and share #
When an invoice has a client email, ShootCal can send a short notice with the protected invoice link through your account’s email delivery (ShootCal’s own mail, or Gmail sending for existing accounts). The client does not need a ShootCal account, and the page can be printed or saved as a PDF. Share the link only with the intended client.
Find an invoice and send a reminder #
Use Invoice number to narrow the full invoice history by all or part of a number. You can paste a number such as 1042 or #1042, and combine it with the client search and status filter. The centered Unpaid, Drafts, and All invoices switch changes which invoices appear.
Overdue invoices with a client email show Send reminder in the invoice list. Open it to review the recipient and remaining balance, then confirm Send reminder or cancel. ShootCal checks the current invoice before sending. Payment or delivery activity that needs attention must be resolved first. To record a payment on an overdue invoice, use the row’s More actions menu.
Stripe card payments and partial payments #
When card payments are enabled, the protected invoice page offers the amount currently due, such as the deposit or remaining balance, and the client can also choose Pay another amount to enter any partial amount up to the remaining balance. Stripe hosts the checkout, collects the card details, and settles the funds to the photographer’s connected Stripe account on its normal schedule. A confirmed Stripe payment updates the ShootCal invoice automatically, and partial card payments count toward the deposit and balance just like any other payment.
To offer tips, turn on Allow clients to add an optional tip in the invoice’s card payment settings. You can also turn it on in your invoice defaults for new invoices and edit the message shown above the tip amount. The default is “Tips are completely optional but appreciated.” Clients can leave the tip blank or enter an amount, and review the total before continuing to Stripe. A tip does not reduce the invoice balance or count toward the deposit. Existing invoices keep their saved settings. The switch preserves your checkout message and existing fee calculation. When both a fee and tip are enabled, the checkout labels their combined additional amount. Turning tips off restores your original fee calculation. If all three checkout fields are in use or you have a custom tip formula, use the checkout builder to adjust that setup.
The checkout builder also offers Use credit card fee example. This replaces only the additional-charge calculation and preserves your checkout fields and optional tip. The editable example uses 2.9% + $0.30 and calculates a fee for the invoice payment. Advanced checkout options stay collapsed until you open them. The rate is an example, not a statement of your provider’s rate; check and edit it before saving.
ShootCal adds no payment or platform fee. Stripe’s standard processing, refund, dispute, and other account fees remain governed by your Stripe agreement.
Getting told a card payment arrived #
A card payment is the one payment that happens while you are nowhere near the app, so ShootCal emails you as soon as one is confirmed. The notice names the client and invoice, separates the amount applied to the invoice from any extra charge added at checkout (a card fee, for example), and says whether the invoice is now paid in full or what balance remains. Your client is emailed a receipt at the same time, sent through your account’s email delivery so it matches the invoice they already received.
Both emails go out within about a minute of Stripe confirming the payment, and neither one can affect whether the payment itself was recorded. Recording a manual payment does not send you a payment notice. If the invoice has a client email, the receipt option is selected by default. Clear it before saving if you do not want to email the client.
The Stripe account ShootCal creates for you is a full Stripe account you can sign in to, so you can also turn on Stripe’s own payment emails under Settings → Communication preferences in the Stripe Dashboard if you want a second copy from Stripe directly.
Record a Venmo, cash, check, or bank payment #
For Zelle, Cash App, Venmo, check, cash, or a custom method, the invoice shows the client your payment instructions and nothing else: clients never enter manual payments themselves. When the money arrives, record the payment on the invoice with the received date and method. Only payments you record change the invoice balance, cash report, or linked booking.
Payments, refunds, and corrections #
- Card refunds: Use the Stripe refund action on the matching card payment. Partial and full refunds are supported.
- Manual corrections: Reverse part or all of a confirmed manual payment. The original payment remains visible and a separate negative entry records the reversal.
- Void: Resolve payment and refund states before voiding an issued invoice. A void tells the client it is no longer payable while preserving its history.
- Permanent deletion: Drafts can be deleted. A void invoice can be permanently deleted only when it has no payment, refund, client-report, Stripe, booking, or uncertain-delivery history. ShootCal asks you to type DELETE before the clean record is removed.
If a confirmed card payment needs review, Keep confirmed payment is available only when ShootCal can match it to an already recorded payment on that invoice. Review the details and confirm to clear the review notice. This records your decision; it does not charge or refund the client, add another payment, or reopen a void invoice.
If a card refund shows Refund needs manual review, verify the matching refund in your Stripe Dashboard and contact ShootCal support to reconcile it. Do not submit another refund while its outcome is unresolved. ShootCal stops retrying an uncertain request when it can no longer safely reuse it. Payment records and cash reports stay unchanged until Stripe confirms the refund. Ordinary recoverable requests still offer Retry exact Stripe refund.
Linking a deposit to one booking #
An invoice may point to one exact booking appointment. When net confirmed card and manual payments reach the invoice’s deposit amount, ShootCal marks that booking’s existing deposit marker received. The appointment stores only the paid/not-paid marker, never the invoice amount, and ShootCal does not guess by name or date; the marker stays in ShootCal and does not sync to a connected calendar.
Checkout fields and Google Drive invoice backups #
Checkout can collect extra details from the client with custom fields: short text, a number, or a dropdown choice, plus an optional calculated amount. Set your usual fields once in Invoice Settings and every new invoice starts with them; the fields a client sees are frozen when the invoice is issued, so changing your defaults later never alters an invoice that is already out.
If you want an off-site copy of your paperwork, ShootCal can also back up your invoices to your own Google Drive. Turn this on in Invoice Settings; backups are optional and use the Drive connection on your account.
Export payments, invoices, tax, and expenses as CSV #
Open Payments > Reports and choose a year. Income and expenses are reported on a cash basis: gross receipts, refunds or reversals, net base receipts, sales tax collected and refunded, outstanding invoice balances, expenses split between the ones you entered and card processing fees, and breakdowns by month and payment method.
- Cash-received CSV: payment and refund entries by effective date for accounting or tax work.
- Invoice-list CSV: invoice status, totals, payments, refunds, tax, and outstanding balances.
- Sales-tax CSV: the filing worksheet on both bases, with a line for every payment and every invoice.
- Expenses CSV: every recorded expense, with card processing fees flagged in their own column.
Choosing a sales-tax filing basis #
The Sales tax filing worksheet has a Filing basis selector: Invoice date or Cash received. It starts on Cash received, matching the rest of Reports, and remembers your last choice. Both totals stay on screen either way and both are in the sales-tax CSV, so the choice only decides which one leads. When they disagree, the difference is sales tax charged on invoices nobody has paid yet.
Neither date is always the right one. For a service the tax often follows the day the work is done, so a wedding invoiced now for next year may belong in next year’s return. Which basis and which period apply to you is a question for your state’s revenue department or your accountant.
The reports use only the ShootCal invoice ledger. A calendar deposit flag never creates a cash entry.
Payments in the worksheet are Taxable or Not taxable. Older payments without saved tax details default to Not taxable when no sales tax was recorded. If sales tax was recorded, the payment stays Taxable, with its exact recorded tax amount. Expand Older payment details to see the client, invoice number, date, payment method, amount, and classification of each affected payment or refund. These entries are included in the totals and the sales-tax CSV. When the original rate was not saved, ShootCal shows Rate not recorded rather than guessing a percentage.
When to use Wave or QuickBooks #
There is no Wave or QuickBooks connection or sync. ShootCal records business expenses and reports income less recorded expenses. If you need bank reconciliation, formal profit-and-loss statements, payroll, multi-currency accounting, or accountant-ready books, use Wave, QuickBooks, or another full accounting system. Download ShootCal’s CSV files when you or your accountant need these invoice records in a larger workflow.
Frequently asked questions #
Does ShootCal accept card payments? #
Yes. Connect your own Stripe account, choose card payments on the invoice, and the client can pay through Stripe’s hosted checkout.
What fees does ShootCal add? #
None. Professional invoices are included with ShootCal at no extra cost, and ShootCal adds no payment or platform fee. Stripe’s standard processing fees still apply.
Will I know when a client pays by card? #
Yes. ShootCal emails you within about a minute of Stripe confirming the payment, and emails your client a receipt at the same time. You do not need to configure anything in Stripe for this to work.
Can a client report a manual payment? #
No. Clients pay online by card only. For every other method they simply follow your payment instructions, and you record the payment once the money arrives.
Can I refund part of a payment? #
Yes. Stripe card payments and confirmed manual payments both support partial or full refunds or reversals.
Can I edit or delete an invoice after sending it? #
An issued invoice is frozen. Void and replace an incorrect one. Permanent deletion is limited to a clean void invoice with no financial, Stripe, client-report, booking, or uncertain-delivery history.
Does ShootCal handle my bookkeeping or taxes? #
Partly. ShootCal records its own invoice payments and refunds on a cash basis, records business expenses in 16 categories, and reports income less recorded expenses. That figure is a bookkeeping aid, not taxable profit: asset purchases and other expenses may be treated differently for tax. Sales tax is reported on whichever basis you select in the filing worksheet.
It is not a full accounting system. It does not reconcile bank or card accounts, store receipt images, track mileage or depreciation, run payroll or inventory, keep a general ledger, produce a formal profit-and-loss or balance sheet, or file and remit tax. Use Wave or QuickBooks for those. See When to use accounting software.
Overdue reminder #
When creating or editing an invoice, select Send an overdue reminder to email the client once the day after its due date if a balance remains. This is off by default. Save the invoice to apply the option. For an invoice that is already overdue, the reminder can send after you save.
The reminder uses the saved timezone shown in the editor and sends through your account’s email delivery with the remaining balance and payment link. Keep your email delivery connected and record payments promptly. Paid or void invoices do not get reminders; reminders wait while a card payment is being confirmed. Imported accounting invoices are excluded because their payment data no longer syncs.
The invoice detail shows when the reminder has been sent or delivery is uncertain. ShootCal does not automatically resend an uncertain reminder. Each invoice gets at most one automatic overdue reminder, even if you later change its due date or turn the option off and back on.
Send a payment reminder yourself #
Open an issued invoice with an unpaid balance and choose Send payment reminder. Review the recipient and remaining balance, then choose Send reminder or Cancel. The email includes the payment link and is sent through your account’s email delivery. You can send a reminder before or after the due date without enabling automatic reminders.
Automatic reminders are optional for each invoice. Leave Send an overdue reminder unchecked if you only want to follow up yourself, or clear it and save to stop an automatic reminder that has not already started sending.
Sort by invoice number #
In the invoice list, choose Invoice number · lowest or Invoice number · highest from Sort. Invoices are sorted numerically across the full list; drafts without a number appear last in either direction.
