Settlement figures usually come out wrong for one of a few common reasons — a stale document, a mis-set toggle, or a record that doesn't match what actually happened. Work through the scenario that matches what you're seeing.
Why is Total Due to Artist too high on my settlement?
If the settlement is paying tax across to the artist when your agency is the one retaining it, the Sales Tax Adjustment toggles are almost certainly on. When they're on, the tax is treated as payable to the artist and added back into their total.
Open the booking and find the Sales Tax Adjustment toggles.
Note whether they are on or off, and decide who actually retains the sales tax on this deal — your agency or the artist.
If your agency retains it, switch the toggles off and save.
Re-run the settlement statement and check the Total Due to Artist figure again.
If the artist genuinely retains the tax on this deal, leaving the toggles on is correct and the higher total is right. The Sales Tax Adjustment exists for the case where the buyer pays no sales tax but tax is still owed on the commission; its toggles decide whether that amount goes to the artist.
If the total is still off after the toggles are set correctly and the settlement has been regenerated, check whether anything else changed after the settlement was produced — see the next section.
The withholding or commission on my settlement doesn't match the booking
This is nearly always a stale settlement. A settlement captures the booking as it stood when it was produced, so anything you changed afterwards won't be reflected until you regenerate it.
Check what changed since the settlement was produced — the commission percentage, a tax percentage, the withholding rate, or any cost lines.
Go to Terms → Offer and confirm the Withholdings Group is set the way you want it: the percentage, the Artist Fee / Booking Fee / Costs-Expenses checkboxes, and whether it applies before or after sales tax.
Check whether costs are configured to exclude withholding — if Costs/Expenses is unticked in the withholding group, costs sit outside the base.
Confirm whether the show is marked collected or settled, as that affects which figures the statement reads.
Regenerate the settlement and compare the figures again.
Small differences of a fraction of a unit are rounding, not an error — each line is stored to two decimals and downstream figures are calculated from the rounded value. Several settlement report columns — including Nett Collected, Billable Buyouts Paid and Booking Fee Sales Tax — read stored booking values rather than recomputing them, so they only move when the booking and settlement are refreshed.
Why does the commission VAT column show zero on my settlement report?
That column reads the booking — it doesn't calculate anything. If no sales tax is set on the Booking Fee line of a booking, the column will correctly show zero for that booking.
Open a booking showing zero and go to Terms → Offer.
Check whether a Tax bracket is set on the Booking Fee line. If not, the zero is accurate.
If tax should be there, set the Tax bracket on the Booking Fee line — inclusive or exclusive to match your deal — and save.
Regenerate the settlement so the report picks up the change.
If you charge the artist VAT on commission but the buyer pays none, that's a different mechanism — the Booking Fee tax bracket covers tax the buyer pays on your commission. Use the Sales Tax Adjustment on the booking instead, and read the Sales Tax Adjustment column on the report rather than the commission VAT column.
It says money is owed to the artist, but the agency is owed commission
This usually comes up when the artist collected the full fee at the door. The promoter didn't deduct your commission, so you're still owed it — and Gigwell shows that as a negative figure against the artist.
Open the booking and go to Payment → Invoices, open the payment record, and confirm it's flagged Collected by Artist.
If it isn't, the whole amount is being treated as collected by your agency, which makes the balance read the wrong way round. Correct the flag so it reflects who actually took the money.
Go to Payment → Settlement, refresh the settlement draft, then reopen Document Preview to see the corrected figures.
A negative "owed to artist" figure isn't an error — it means the artist owes your agency, which is exactly right when they walked away with the full guarantee and your commission is still outstanding. Remember the Guarantee is the Artist Fee and the Booking Fee combined, so if the artist collected the guarantee at the door, they collected your booking fee along with their own fee.
If the same artist has done this across a run of shows, run a multi-show settlement under Settlement, filter it to that artist, and the outstanding commission across those shows comes out on one statement you can send.
I completed the settlement by mistake and the balance is now wrong
Completing a settlement locks the payout record and moves the booking out of Settlements into Complete. If it was marked complete too early, or recorded for the wrong amount, you can reopen it.
Open the booking and go to Payment → Settlement.
Turn off the Settlement complete toggle — the booking moves back into Settlements.
Expand the Settlement row using the + control to see what was recorded against it.
Use the pencil control on the Settlement row to edit or remove the recorded settlement.
Re-record it correctly, with the real date, method and amount.
Check whether the artist has already been paid before you change anything. The recorded settlement and the actual bank payment are two separate things — reopening the record doesn't claw money back, and re-recording a payout that already went out is how artists get paid twice. If you're unsure, confirm against your bank first.
If the booking won't move out of the payments stage, or the settlement shows an amount you can't trace to any invoice, check Payment → Invoices against your bank records — it's usually an invoice that was recorded twice or for the wrong figure.
If that doesn't work
If a settlement still disagrees with the booking after a clean regeneration, or a balance still won't reconcile, start a chat from the messenger and we'll sort it out. It helps if you can tell us the figure you see, the figure you expected, and how you arrived at it.
Good to know
Regenerating the settlement is what makes any change visible — changing a setting on the booking alone won't update a statement that has already been produced.
Collected by Artist is a record of what happened, not a way to adjust a balance. Only set it where the artist genuinely took the money directly.
Mark a settlement complete only once the payout has actually left your account. Complete is a record of something that happened, not an instruction to pay.
Negative values print in parentheses wherever the report variable carries a leading minus — that's how the template renders them, not an error in the figure.
Who should retain tax, and whether a figure is the correct one to report, is a question for your accountant. We can help you make Gigwell produce the number you need.
If you have any questions or need additional help, please reach out to support@gigwell.com or use the chat widget on your screen.