Invoicing
StudioFlow produces Swiss-compliant invoices with a QR payment slip, a full VAT breakdown, and a pay-by-card link — and it keeps track of what's been paid.
Invoice Types
A project may have one or two invoices depending on the offer's deposit setting:
| Type | When to send | Typical amount |
|---|---|---|
| Deposit | At booking, once the offer is accepted | The deposit share of the offer total |
| Final | After delivery | Remaining balance (or full total when no deposit) |
| Credit Note | Correction of a paid invoice | Negative amount (refund or adjustment) |
Deposit and Final invoices are linked back to the source offer so the amounts match what was agreed. A Credit Note is always linked back to the specific invoice it corrects — it's a negative invoice that offsets an already-paid amount, and Swiss VAT rules require one whenever you need to change, refund or reverse an invoice that has been paid. See the Credit Notes section below.
Auto-generated invoices on offer acceptance
When a client accepts an offer, the system creates draft invoice(s) based on the offer's Deposit field (configured on the offer; see the Offers guide):
- No deposit → a single Final draft invoice for the whole amount.
- A deposit (a percentage, or a fixed amount) → a Deposit draft invoice for that portion, plus a Final draft for the remainder.
Both carry the offer's VAT rate. Both arrive as Draft invoices, so you can check and adjust them before anything goes out.
The studio's default deposit is on Settings → Studio setup → Studio profile → Default Deposit (%). Leave it blank for no default; set 30 and every new offer starts at 30%. An individual service can carry its own deposit — see Services & prices — and any offer can override both.
Creating an Invoice
Open a project, go to the Invoices tab, and click New Invoice. Select:
- Type — Deposit or Final Invoice
- Template — optional; fills the notes, payment terms and due date
- Net Amount — the amount before VAT. An invoice from an accepted offer is created for you with the offer's amounts, so you only type this for an invoice with no offer behind it.
- Currency — defaults to your studio's currency
- Due Date — defaults to your studio's payment term
- Artist — optional, internal only
Currency
An invoice is normally in your studio's currency, set on Settings → Studio setup → Studio profile. You can put a single invoice in a different one — choose it in the Currency field when you create the invoice, and it carries a badge reading In EUR (or whichever you picked).
"Finance totals show this document in its own currency, next to your CHF figures — nothing is converted. Your VAT return counts CHF documents only."
So an invoice in euros is not in your VAT return. Convert it and add it there by hand. On the Finance page, totals that mix currencies say so: "These totals are shown per currency: CHF and EUR. Nothing is converted between them." See Finance.
VAT Breakdown
Every invoice shows a mandatory Swiss VAT breakdown:
Net Amount: CHF 2,400.00
MwSt (8.1%): CHF 194.40
Gross Amount: CHF 2,594.40
The VAT rate is taken from Settings → Studio setup → Studio profile when the invoice is created and copied onto it — later changes to the studio rate don't touch invoices you already made.
Swiss QR-Bill
Invoices are generated as PDFs with an embedded Swiss QR-bill (Zahlteil / QR-Einzahlungsschein) at the bottom. The QR code contains:
- Your IBAN
- The invoice amount and its currency
- The payment reference
Clients scan it with any Swiss banking app and pay in seconds.
If your bank details aren't filled in, the invoice says so before you send it: "No QR-bill on this invoice — your bank details aren't set up yet." And a QR-bill needs a Swiss or Liechtenstein IBAN, in CHF or EUR — with anything else the invoice still prints your bank details, just without the slip.
If there is no IBAN and no card payment, the send dialog stops to tell you: "This invoice carries no QR-bill and no payment link. Your client will have to ask you how to pay unless you include the details in the email yourself." You can still Send anyway.
Sending an Invoice
Click Send Invoice. StudioFlow shows you a confirmation first:
Send this invoice? Anna Meier gets an email straight away with the invoice PDF and a link to pay it.
Goes to anna@example.com Written in German — the language Anna Meier reads Amount due CHF 1,222.61 Due by 14 October 2026 How they can pay By card from the link, or by bank transfer Reminders after sending every 7 days
The client's email carries the invoice PDF and a View & pay invoice button.
Copy the link instead
Under the Send button, Copy the link instead:
No email goes out. We put the link on your clipboard and mark this as sent, so you can share it however you like.
The invoice moves to Sent exactly as if you'd emailed it.
The payment link
Every invoice has one payment link, and it is the same link for the life of the invoice:
The payment link stays the same for this invoice, so your client can always use the one you emailed them.
- Copy pay link — gives you the link your client already has. Nothing changes.
- Revoke & reissue link — the destructive one, and Owner/Admin only. "This creates a brand-new payment link… The link in your client's invoice email — and in any reminder already sent — will stop working straight away, and they would see a 'not found' page. Only do this if the old link went somewhere it should not have."
A payment reminder points at the same link as the original invoice email. The only thing that breaks it is you pressing Revoke & reissue link — and then you have to send the new one yourself.
Online Card Payments
On top of the QR payment slip, clients can pay an invoice online by card. When that's switched on, the invoice link shows a pay button — studios billing in CHF also get TWINT. The client pays on a secure page: no login, no app, in their own language. When the payment succeeds the invoice marks itself Paid. You never click Mark as Paid for a card payment.
Turning it on, once per studio. The Owner connects the studio's payout account under Settings → Finances → Payments & VAT, following the short setup with our payment provider. Fill in the studio's country on Settings → Studio setup → Studio profile first. When setup is done, the panel says so and every sent invoice offers online payment.
A studio-wide switch offers or hides card payment across all invoices, and each invoice has its own Online payment for this invoice toggle. If the studio-wide switch is off, an individual invoice says so: "No card payment on this invoice — card payments are currently switched off for the whole studio."
Money paid by card lands in the studio's connected payout account. Bank transfers and QR-bill payments still work exactly as before — online card payment is simply an extra, faster option for the client.
Payment Tracking
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Being prepared, not yet sent |
| Sent | With the client, awaiting payment |
| Overdue | Past its due date and unpaid |
| Paid | Payment received |
| Superseded | The offer behind it was replaced, so this invoice was too. Unpaid invoices only — a paid one is never superseded quietly. |
Click Mark as Paid when a bank transfer or a QR-slip payment arrives — StudioFlow doesn't watch your bank account, so those are yours to confirm. Invoices paid by card mark themselves.
Overdue Invoices
An invoice whose due date has passed and which hasn't been paid becomes Overdue on its own. The invoice itself says how badly — "12 days overdue · Due date was 4 September 2026" — and it shows up in the Pending Invoices widget on the Dashboard.
Payment Reminders
StudioFlow can send automatic reminder emails to clients for invoices that haven't been paid. Configure the reminder frequency on each invoice from the Reminders section in the invoice sidebar:
| Frequency | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Standard | Follows the studio's default schedule (once at due date, once a week after) |
| Every 3 days | A reminder every 3 days while the invoice is unpaid |
| Weekly | Once per week |
| Daily | Every day (use sparingly) |
| Never | No automatic reminders |
Hard cap: the system sends a maximum of 3 reminders per invoice, regardless of frequency. After the third send, reminders stop automatically.
Reminders stop when the work is confirmed. Once a project reaches Confirmed or beyond, every document reminder on it switches to Never. If you move the project back — to Proposal Stage, say — StudioFlow asks whether to start them again. See Projects.
Previewing an Invoice
Click Preview on any invoice to see a read-only rendered view of the PDF before downloading or sharing it with the client.
Bulk Delete
On the Invoices list, tick one or more Draft invoices and a Delete selected button appears. Only drafts can go this way — a sent or paid invoice has to go through one of the correction flows below. The confirmation offers Undo for a few seconds.
Viewing All Invoices
The Invoices page lists all invoices across all projects. Filter by status (Draft, Sent, Paid, Overdue) and export data to Excel for accounting.
Creating, editing, sending and marking an invoice paid is open to every access level — Owner, Admin, Bookkeeper and Crew. A photographer raising the invoice for the job they just shot is normal studio life. Undo payment (mistake only), Revoke & reissue link and deleting a draft are Owner-and-Admin actions. Issuing a credit note is finance work: Owner, Bookkeeper, and an Admin who has Can open Finance switched on.
The Invoices page — the studio-wide list — is in the sidebar for Owners, Admins and Bookkeepers. Crew work from the project instead: a Crew member on a job sees that job's invoices and amounts on the project page. What no Crew member ever sees is Finance: revenue, VAT and expenses across the whole studio.
Correcting or Reversing an Invoice
Which flow to use depends on the invoice's current state. Do not delete or silently void a sent or paid invoice — Swiss VAT rules require an audit trail.
Revise & Re-send — sent, not yet paid
The client hasn't paid and you've spotted a mistake — wrong amount, wrong due date, a typo in a line:
- Click Revise & Re-send.
- "This will move the invoice back to Draft so you can edit it. When you re-send, a fresh PDF goes out to the client."
- Edit it, then Send Invoice again.
Same invoice number, no new version. Open to every access level. The payment link does not change.
Undo payment — marked paid, but it wasn't
If you logged a payment by mistake — reconciled the wrong transfer, or the bank reversed it:
- Click Undo payment (mistake only).
- "This will mark the invoice as unpaid. Use this only if the payment was logged by mistake."
The invoice goes back to Sent.
This clears the evidence that a payment happened, so it's Owner-and-Admin only.
If the money did arrive and it's the amount that's wrong — a partial refund, a price adjustment, a service cancelled after payment — use a credit note instead.
Credit notes — correcting a paid invoice
Swiss VAT rules don't let you quietly reverse a real cash flow. Once VAT has been reported, an invoice is corrected with a credit note, not voided.
- On a paid invoice, click Create credit note.
- StudioFlow creates a new draft invoice with negative amounts, crediting back the full value of the paid one. You can edit it before sending.
- Adjust the lines to what you're actually crediting — a full refund, a partial discount, a reduced scope.
- Send the credit note to the client and make the refund however you normally would.
- The original invoice stays Paid. Both documents stay in the record, and Finance nets the credit note against the original when it works out revenue.
The credit note is numbered separately (CRN-…) and the original shows a banner pointing at it. Marking the credit note as paid is what records the refund.
Creating a credit note is open to Owners, Bookkeepers, and Admins who have Can open Finance switched on. Asking twice never creates a second one: the invoice already has its credit note, and you are taken to it. A credit note can never credit more than the invoice.
When an offer is replaced and it had invoices
If you used Create new version on an accepted offer, its invoices follow:
- Draft invoices are deleted.
- Sent and Overdue invoices become Superseded, with a notification asking you to issue the new ones.
- Paid invoices are left alone, with a notification saying they need a credit note if the amount changed.
Deleting an invoice
Only a Draft can be deleted, and it asks you to confirm. Once an invoice has been sent it cannot be deleted at all — use one of the flows above.
Quick decision guide
- Typo, not yet paid → Revise & Re-send.
- Marked paid by mistake → Undo payment (mistake only) (Owner / Admin).
- Paid invoice needs correcting or refunding → Create credit note (Owner / Admin).
- The offer was revised → let the invoices follow it, then issue a credit note only if a paid amount has changed.
Related
- Offers — where the deposit and final invoices originate
- Contracts — normally sent before you invoice
- Finance — studio-wide revenue and VAT, across every invoice
- Settings → Payments & VAT — connecting a payout account and setting the VAT rate