When Clients Pay — Payment Timing Options

When a client pays isn’t a global setting you flip once — it’s a choice you make on each order form, and optionally on individual clients. One form can require full payment before the slot is held; another can bill a brokerage after the shoot. You set the timing per form or let it inherit your business default, then override it for the clients who need different terms.

For the bigger picture of how money moves through a shoot, start with the invoicing and payments overview, or compare the timings in how clients pay with Spatiko.

The three payment timings

Every form uses one of three modes.

Pay upfront

Full payment is collected to confirm the booking. This is your no-show protection: pair it with a cancellation policy and the slot only holds once the client has committed. Use it on public forms where you don’t know the client yet.

Pay on delivery

The booking is confirmed right away, but media downloads stay locked until the client pays — the pay-to-download gate. The client can see every photo in their gallery; full-size viewing and downloads open the moment the order is paid. No more delivering first and chasing the invoice after.

Invoice

You send an invoice after the shoot, due within your net terms. This suits repeat accounts and brokerages you already trust to pay on time. The invoice itself is a numbered document you create and send from the order — or, for a client billed weekly or monthly, one combined invoice covering all their shoots in the period. Once it’s out, automatic reminders chase it past the due date so you don’t have to.

Deposits work alongside the timings

There’s no fourth timing for deposits — a deposit is an invoicing action on an existing order, not a booking mode. Once an order exists, you can request a deposit and bill the remaining balance later whatever timing its form used: it’s the natural upgrade for invoice-terms work you’d rather not carry entirely on trust, and under pay-on-delivery it collects part of the money early while the download gate protects the rest.

What makes up the total

Whichever timing you use, the client sees the same breakdown on the booking form’s review step before they commit: the services or package they picked, the travel fee if the property is far enough out, any promo code discount, then sales tax, then the total.

If you’ve configured sales tax, each enabled rate is listed on its own line with its name and percentage — so a client owed two taxes sees both, not one blended number.

Account credit at checkout

Credit on a client’s account isn’t just something that sits there until you refund it — it’s spent at booking. When a returning client books from their client portal and has credit on file — from a credit note, credit you added, or a referral reward — the review step offers Use my account credit, showing how much is available. It’s ticked by default; with it on, the summary adds an Account credit line and a Pay today figure: the total, less the credit, is what they actually pay now.

What happens next depends on the order’s payment timing:

• Pay upfront — the card is charged only the remainder. If the credit covers the whole booking, there’s no card charge at all.
• Pay on delivery — the credit comes straight off the balance, so there’s less left to clear before the download gate opens.
• Invoice — the credit comes off the balance, so the invoice you raise covers only what’s left.

On your side, the order shows this as Account credit applied rather than as a card payment — it’s balance the client already had with you, not new money arriving. The rest of the order behaves normally: payment status, invoice, and gate all follow the remaining balance. If you later cancel the order and refund it, the credit portion goes back to the client’s account first and the card refund covers the rest.

The option only appears for a client Spatiko recognizes — someone booking through their own portal link with credit on their account. An anonymous booking that happens to use the same email address won’t see it.

If online payments aren’t connected

Bookings still go through. If you haven’t connected a card processor — Stripe or Square — the client is simply asked to arrange payment with you directly — and for the paid modes, the media stays locked until it’s settled. When the money arrives by cash, check, or transfer, record it on the order and the status and download gate update. You never have to leave the gate open just because you couldn’t charge a card.

What the client sees

On booking, the client gets a confirmation email with a payment-status line and an attached billing summary — a receipt if they’ve paid, or a quote-style breakdown of the job if a balance is due. The numbered invoice, when there is one, is a separate document you send with its own payment link. From there, the order carries a payment status you can track: unpaid, awaiting payment, partial, paid, overdue, refunded, or partially refunded.

Payment timing for one client

Some clients earn different terms from everyone else — the agent who books every week and always pays. Rather than building them a separate form, set the timing on the client: open their record, go to the Billing tab, and pick a Payment timing — Upfront, On Delivery, or Invoice. Leave it on Business default to follow the form like everyone else.

Spatiko picks an order’s timing in this order:

1. The client’s own setting, if you’ve set one.
2. The order form’s timing, if the form overrides your default.
3. Your business default from Settings → Payments.

The client’s setting applies whichever form they book on, as long as Spatiko knows who they are — they’re signed in through their client portal — and on orders you create for them yourself, where the new-order page notes “This client is set to invoice.” (or pay upfront, or pay on delivery). Net terms have no client setting; an invoiced client’s due date still comes from the form or your default.

The same Billing tab also holds the client’s Billing setting, for putting all their orders on one weekly or monthly invoice instead of one invoice per order.

Per form or one default

Set a business default so new forms start with your usual timing, then override it where a product line needs different terms — a form for rental media on invoice terms, say, alongside a public listings form paid upfront. Different terms for a particular client belong on the client, as above.

Different prices for a brokerage don’t need their own form either. A price list gives a company or a single client their own rates on any form they book signed in, and the client’s payment timing covers their terms. Separate forms are still the right tool when you want to show a different menu to a different audience.

Go deeper

• How clients pay and cancel a booking — what settling a balance looks like from the agent’s side.
• Deposits and balance invoices — part now, part later, on any of the three timings.
• Refunding a client — give money back in full or in part when a shoot falls through.
• How orders work — how payment timing fits the stages a shoot moves through.
• Delivering your media — what the client picks up once the balance clears.
• Order forms — where payment timing is set, alongside services, booking questions, and scheduling.