What an invoice contains

Every deal on Handsel ends in an invoice, and nobody types it. The deal writes it when the work is approved, from the terms both sides accepted. It is the least glamorous page in the product and the one we argued about most, because it is the page a creator will screenshot when something goes wrong.

What is on it

Top to bottom:

• The agreed fee. The number both sides accepted on the offer, not the number on the brief or the number in a chat.
• Tax, on its own lines. GST when the creator is registered for it. TDS, named as withheld, so the gap between the fee and what lands is explained, not discovered.
• The schedule. If the deal pays a share to start, or pays piece by piece, each part has its own invoice, raised when that part is due.
• Who said what about the money. The brand marks it paid. The creator confirms it landed. Two separate facts, because they are.

If a manager is on the deal, their share sits on a card of its own, with the percentage the creator agreed with them. When the creator pays it, they record it, and the manager confirms. Nobody’s cut is a surprise.

Why paid needs two people

An invoice is not a bank settlement, and it does not pretend to be. It records what each party declared and when. When a brand marks a payment as made, the status says exactly that: brand marked paid. It becomes creator confirmed only when the creator says the money arrived. That gap is information. Hiding it behind one tick would be the old system with better fonts.

An invoice is not a receipt. It is the deal, with the money filled in.

Both sides, one status

The creator and the brand read the same status on the same deal. A creator who sees brand marked paid does not need to ask whether the brand paid. A brand who sees creator confirmed does not need to ask whether the money arrived. On the brand’s side, every month’s payments roll up into a monthly statement, so Accounts finally has something to meet.

The argument we had

Should the deductions be one line, to keep the page clean, or itemised? We itemised. A clean page that hides where the money went is exactly the page that ends up in our stories. Clean is for the brief. The invoice is allowed to be long.