Feature
Art invoicing software that knows what 1/5 means
A wrong dimension on an invoice is annoying. A wrong edition number is reputationally expensive: the collector's accountant flags it, the consignor sees a copy, and the gallery spends a Tuesday afternoon reissuing paperwork and apologising. Art invoicing software exists so the title, dimensions, edition, and price come from one place and stop being retyped.
What an art invoice has to contain
A correct art invoice is not a generic services invoice with a JPG attached. It contains the canonical artwork details (artist, title, year, medium, dimensions, edition info if any), the gallery's legal entity, the collector's legal entity, the price, the deposit and balance schedule, the applicable taxes, the shipping terms, and the seller's signature line for a deed-style record.
When all of that comes from the Inventory and CRM records, nothing on the invoice was retyped. When it is retyped, mistakes appear where they cost the most: in the field a collector's lawyer reads first.
The five invoicing scenarios every gallery actually sees
A real gallery does not have one kind of invoice. It has five, each with its own quirks. Pretending otherwise is how invoicing software ends up bolted-on later.
- Full payment on a single primary work. The simple case. One contact, one work, one Stripe checkout link, one PDF.
- Deposit + balance. A 50% deposit at reserve, the balance on collection or shipping. Both invoices reference the same work and the deposit appears as a credit on the balance invoice.
- Instalments over months. A six-month payment plan on a six-figure work. Each instalment is a real invoice with its own due date, with a single ledger view of what is paid and what remains.
- Bundle (multiple works, one invoice). A collector buys three works in one go, possibly across two artists. The invoice itemises each work cleanly without merging them into one line.
- Refund or partial refund. A sale falls through. The deposit refund must reference the original Stripe transaction so the books balance, not be a generic credit note that confuses the accountant six months later.
Where QuickBooks, Xero, and a Word template stop being enough
Most galleries start with a Word or InDesign invoice template, manual numbering, and the deposit reconciled into QuickBooks once a quarter. This works at low volume; it stops working as soon as deposits and instalments arrive in three currencies and the gallery cannot remember whether the 50% on the Mary Smith landed before or after the work shipped.
QuickBooks and Xero are great accounting systems and not invoice systems for galleries: they do not know about edition numbers, they do not know about consignor splits, and they do not connect a refund to the correct work. The fix most galleries reach for (let the accountant own invoicing) just moves the problem; the accountant now retypes everything from the gallery's spreadsheet, and the chain of custody lives in two places.
Art-specific invoicing connected to the catalogue and Stripe lets QuickBooks/Xero do what they do well (the books) while leaving the gallery with one clean record per sale.
How Art.industries handles invoicing
Invoices in Art.industries originate from the work record. Selecting one or more works, picking a contact from the CRM, and choosing the payment shape (full, deposit + balance, instalments, bundle) creates the invoice with the correct fields populated. Edition numbers, dimensions in both centimetres and inches, and the gallery's legal entity are not options to forget; they are baked into the template.
Stripe is the payment rail. The gallery connects its own Stripe account; we never take a percentage of the sale. The invoice can be sent as a Stripe-hosted checkout link (collector pays card, ACH, SEPA, or bank transfer), as a downloadable PDF for collectors who prefer a wire, or both. Refunds are issued from the same record and tied to the original transaction.
When a deposit clears, the work's status updates from "Reserved" to "Deposit paid"; when the balance clears, it becomes "Sold" and any private viewing rooms showing it update automatically. Consignor splits, if any, are calculated on the canonical retail price minus the agreed-upon discount, surfacing the consignor's share in the Consignment management statement view.
For multi-currency galleries (a New York gallery selling to a London collector with a Hong Kong fair contract), the invoice is denominated in the contract currency, the consignor split is calculated in the consignment currency, and the gallery's books see both in their reporting currency without manual conversion.
Tax, shipping, and the boring fields that keep the books clean
US sales tax is collected via Stripe Tax when the gallery enables it; UK and EU VAT (including the Margin Scheme for second-hand art) is supported as line-item adjustments rather than a guess. Shipping is itemised (CIF or DAP), with the actual carrier quote attached as a document so the collector can verify what they paid for.
Customs paperwork (commercial invoice, ATA Carnet support for fair shipping) is generated from the same record. The gallery does not retype the dimensions for the customs broker; the broker reads from the same data the wall label did.
Permissions: who can invoice what
In a small gallery, everyone can invoice. In a larger one, that is a problem: an associate accidentally sending a 30% discount invoice on a work the consignor has reserved is a bad day. Art.industries lets the gallery configure who can draft, who can send, who can void, and who can refund, by role.
A common setup: associates draft, directors send and approve discounts above a threshold, the finance lead handles refunds. The audit trail is permanent; every action on every invoice is attributed and time-stamped, which is what the bank wants to see when a chargeback arrives six months later.
Reconciling with the accountant
At the end of the month, the gallery exports the invoice ledger to QuickBooks, Xero, or whatever the accountant uses. The export includes deposit, balance, refund, currency, gross, net, and consignor share per transaction. The accountant gets the bookkeeping picture; the gallery keeps the operational picture.
Most galleries we talk to find that the export reduces month-end reconciliation from a half-day to about an hour, mostly because deposit-to-balance matching no longer involves cross-referencing three spreadsheets.
FAQ
- Does Art.industries take a percentage of the sale?
- No. Stripe takes its standard processing fee (currently around 2.9% + 30¢ for cards in the US, less for ACH and SEPA), but we never insert ourselves into the money flow. The gallery connects its own Stripe account and the funds settle directly to the gallery's bank.
- Can we send a Stripe payment link without a full invoice?
- Yes. For deposits during a fair conversation, a Stripe payment link tied to the work is one click from the inventory record. The collector pays from their phone and the work moves to "Reserved with deposit" without anyone opening the invoice editor.
- How do you handle the European VAT Margin Scheme for second-hand works?
- The Margin Scheme is supported as a configurable VAT mode on the invoice, with the margin calculated from the cost basis the gallery records on the work. The invoice presents the price net of VAT to the collector while the books retain the margin VAT line for the accountant.
- Can the consignor see their statement directly?
- Yes. The consignor can be invited (with view-only access) to a private statement view that shows their consigned works, sales, splits, deductions, and a settlement balance. They cannot see other consignors' works, contacts, or other parts of the gallery's operations. See Consignment management for the model.
- What happens to an invoice if a sale falls through?
- Void it (no money has moved) or refund the deposit through the same record. The work returns to "Available" automatically, the Inventory updates, and the original Stripe transaction is linked to the refund for the gallery's books and the collector's.
- Can we invoice in a currency different from our gallery's base currency?
- Yes. Each invoice has its own currency. The invoice is sent and settled in that currency through the gallery's Stripe account; the gallery's reporting view converts to the base currency at the day's rate so the consolidated books are clean.
- Does invoicing work without Website Studio or the storefront?
- Yes. Invoicing is included on Core, alongside Inventory, CRM, and private viewing rooms. Website Studio and the public storefront are Advanced features and are independent of the invoicing flow.
Invoice a real sale on the trial workspace
Connect your Stripe account, pick a real work, send a real deposit invoice to a real collector. The trial does not gate Stripe, so you can prove the loop end to end before committing.