Manual invoicing is one of those tasks that seems simple until you’re doing it for the fifteenth time. Open a template, update the client name, recalculate the balance, change the invoice number, set a due date, export to PDF, send the email. Every time. For every client. At every payment stage.
It’s not difficult — it’s just slow, and it’s easy to make mistakes. A wrong balance, a duplicate invoice number, a due date you set to the wrong month. Small errors that create confusion and delay payment.
There’s a better approach: having your invoicing happen automatically as part of your project workflow, triggered by the events that actually matter.
The two invoices every photography project needs
Most photography businesses use a two-invoice structure:
- Deposit invoice — sent at booking to secure the date
- Final invoice — sent after delivery, covering the remaining balance
These two moments — booking and delivery — are already built into your workflow. GigFlow Pro generates both invoices automatically when those moments happen, so you never have to create one from scratch.
Deposit invoice: auto-generated at booking
When you create a new project in GigFlow Pro and set it to Booked status, the deposit invoice is generated automatically. No manual steps required.
The deposit amount is configurable in Settings. By default it is set to 25% of the project total, but you can adjust it to any percentage or switch to a fixed amount if your pricing structure works that way. Whatever you set applies to every new project, so you’re not reconfiguring anything per client.
The invoice is populated with your business name, address, VAT number, and bank details — all pulled from the settings you configure once. Payment terms are also set in Settings (the default is 14 days), and the due date is calculated automatically from the invoice date.
Invoice numbers follow a sequential format — INV-2026-001, INV-2026-002, and so on — so your records stay organised without you managing the numbering manually.
Final invoice: auto-generated at delivery
When you move a project to “Delivered” status, GigFlow Pro generates the final invoice automatically. It calculates the remaining balance — total project fee minus any deposit already invoiced — and creates the invoice with the correct amount.
This matters because the balance calculation is done for you. If a client’s total is £1,200 and the deposit was £300, the final invoice will be for £900. You don’t need to do the arithmetic or check whether the deposit was actually the standard percentage.
The same payment terms apply, and the due date is calculated from the date the final invoice is created.
What your invoices include
Every invoice generated by GigFlow Pro includes the fields your clients and your accountant expect to see:
- Your business name, address, and VAT number
- Your bank details for payment (account number, sort code, or any other fields you’ve configured)
- Client name and project reference
- Line item with the invoice amount
- Invoice number in sequential format
- Invoice date and payment due date
- Payment status
You set your business details once in Settings under the Invoice tab. After that, every invoice — deposit or final — is built from those details automatically.
Sending and downloading invoices
Once an invoice is generated, you have two options. You can send it directly from the app by email — GigFlow Pro sends it to the client email address on the project, with the invoice details in the message body. Or you can download it as a PDF using print-to-PDF and send it through your own email if you prefer.
Either way, you are not building the invoice yourself.
Overdue tracking without manual checks
GigFlow Pro tracks payment status on every invoice. When a client marks a payment as received (or when you update it yourself), the invoice status updates. If a due date passes without the payment being recorded as paid, the invoice is automatically marked as Overdue.
You can see overdue invoices across all your projects from the dashboard — no spreadsheet required. The overdue flag also feeds into automated reminders, so clients can receive a prompt when their payment is late without you sending a manual chase.
Setting it up
Everything related to invoicing is configured in Settings under the Invoice tab. That includes:
- Business name, address, and VAT number
- Bank details (shown on every invoice)
- Deposit type — percentage or fixed amount
- Default deposit percentage
- Payment terms (number of days until due)
Set these once and GigFlow Pro handles the rest. From the next project you book, deposit and final invoices will generate automatically at the right moments.
If you want to see how automatic invoicing fits into a full photography workflow, GigFlow Pro is free to try for 14 days. No credit card required.