Deposits & Balance Invoices

A luxury listing books a $600 shoot for three weeks out. You don’t want to hold the date on a handshake, and the client doesn’t want to pay the whole job before you’ve shot a frame. The middle ground is old as invoicing itself: half now, half on delivery.

In Spatiko, “deposit now, balance on delivery” is simply two ordinary invoices on one order. There’s no special deposit mode and no fourth payment timing — each invoice drafts, issues, sends, and gets paid like any other, and the order keeps score of what’s billed and what isn’t.

Request a deposit

On the order’s Billing card, choose New invoice → For a deposit…. The dialog asks what the deposit is worth:

• % of total — the default, starting at 50%. A deposit can’t exceed 100% of the order.
• Amount — a fixed figure, when you quote deposits as flat numbers.

Creating it gives you a normal draft invoice for that amount — edit it, then issue and send it like any other. The invoice is marked as a deposit in its details, so your records show what it was for.

Bill the remaining balance

When the job’s done, choose New invoice → For the remaining balance. It bills everything on the order that no invoice covers yet — and the dialog says exactly where you stand first: “$300.00 of $600.00 is already invoiced.”

That “what’s not covered yet” framing matters more than it looks. If you edited the order between the two invoices — added a rush fee, swapped a service — the balance invoice picks up the difference automatically. Nothing falls between the two documents.

The worked example

That $600 luxury shoot, start to finish:

1. At booking — request a 50% deposit. A draft for $300.00 is created; you issue and send it, and the client pays it online. The date is locked in with real money behind it.
2. You shoot and edit. The order’s Billing card shows $300 collected of $600, with a note that $300 of the total isn’t on any invoice yet.
3. On delivery — bill the remaining balance. A second invoice for $300.00 goes out with the delivery, due on your net terms.
4. The order reads paid once both invoices are settled — and if the balance invoice goes quiet, automatic reminders chase it for you.

Deposits and payment timing

Deposit and balance invoices complement the three payment timings rather than replacing them. A form on invoice terms is the natural fit — the deposit invoice replaces waiting until after the shoot to bill anything. Under pay on delivery, a deposit collects part of the money early while the download gate still protects the rest. Under pay upfront there’s usually nothing left to split — the booking already collected everything.

Guardrails

• No over-billing by accident. A deposit is capped at 100% of the order, and the balance action only offers what’s still unbilled. If invoices ever exceed the order total — say the order shrank after billing — the Billing card says so in plain terms.
• Nothing forgotten. If part of the order total isn’t on any invoice, the card flags it with a one-click Bill it shortcut.
• Different payers welcome. On an order with several participants, both dialogs offer a payer picker — the deposit can bill the agent while the balance bills the brokerage. Billing a second payer needs a plan with split billing; see the pricing page.

Go deeper

• Creating and sending an invoice — the draft → issue → send flow both invoices go through.
• When clients pay — payment timing — the three timings a deposit works alongside.
• Invoice reminders and overdue invoices — what happens when the balance invoice goes unpaid.
• Pay-to-download — gate the files while a balance is still open.
• Agents, sellers, and billing contacts — billing the deposit and the balance to different people.