Recording a Settlement
To mark a booking as paid or settled:
1. Record a Payment:
First, ensure you've recorded the payment on the booking via Payment > Record Payment. This captures the amount collected from the buyer or payer.
2. Go to Payment > Settlement > Record Settlement:
The system will suggest an amount based on what has been collected and available. You can adjust this amount to match the actual payment received.
3. Enter Payment Details:
Select the payment method (e.g., bank transfer, check, cash).
Attach supporting documents or receipts if available.
Add reference codes or comments for clarity.
Handling External Payments
If you receive a payment outside of Gigwell (e.g., cash, check, wire transfer):
Input the exact amount received in the Record Settlement window.
Select the appropriate payment method.
Attach any receipts or reference codes.
This process ensures all payments are accurately reflected in your settlement reports.
Generating and Customizing Settlement Reports
To manage your settlements effectively:
Navigate to Reports > Settlements:
Filter bookings by artist, date range, or status.
Use the filter icon to customize your view.
Customize Columns:
Add or remove columns such as artist, city, or payment details for better clarity.
Share Reports:
Send reports for management approval before payment.
Share confirmation after payment is settled.
Export Data:
Download reports as CSV or PDF for record-keeping or external reconciliation.
Finalizing a Settlement
Once all payments are recorded and verified:
Mark the settlement as "Complete" by toggling the checkbox.
This action moves the booking out of the Settlements stage and updates the booking status to "Complete."
Best Practices & Tips
Avoid Duplicate Invoices:
Ensure you delete or adjust duplicate settlements to prevent overpayment.Check Filters Carefully:
Use booking status filters like "settlement" to include only relevant bookings.Maintain Clear Records:
Attach receipts and reference codes for transparency and future audits.
Settling door and backend deals
On door deals and backend splits, the walkout is calculated from the guarantee, the split and the expenses on your side. When it doesn't match the promoter's sheet, the gap is nearly always in one of those three, not in the calculation.
Reconcile it in order
Open the booking and go to Payment → Invoices. Check what's actually been recorded: an invoice never recorded, recorded for the wrong amount, or recorded twice explains most of these. The settlement document is generated from the Terms tab plus recorded invoices, and it won't change until those do.
Go to Terms → Offer and read back the Guarantee, Booking Fee, Artist Fee split, tax percentage and Withholding. Check the arithmetic against those figures yourself. A figure a promoter sent is worth verifying — a stated deduction percentage often doesn't match the stated amount.
Compare your expense lines against the promoter's settlement sheet, line by line, and note which lines differ. Correcting the expense total usually brings the walkout back into line.
Check whether ticket tax has been counted twice. The promoter's net is frequently what gets entered on the agency side as gross, and that single mix-up accounts for a lot of these.
Refresh the settlement draft and reopen Document Preview after each change, before deciding anything is still wrong.
Take care over which figures you change. Anything you adjust here moves what the artist walks out with, so confirm a correction against the promoter's sheet before you save it.
If that doesn't work
If the guarantee, the split and the expenses all reconcile and the walkout is still wrong, this one needs our team — start a chat from the messenger and we'll sort it out. Have the expected and displayed figures to hand and it'll go faster.
Good to know
Settlement templates are documents with variables, not spreadsheets. Formulas can't be added, and anything that isn't already a variable has to be edited by hand in Document Preview before you download.
Multi-date bookings can produce extra columns on statements and repeated rows in artist settlement history. Long multi-month reports over those bookings can also be slow to build — running one month at a time works.
Standard booking and event reports show the full booking fee rather than a per-agent commission split. For one agent's commission, use the agent statement template under Settlement, filtered to that agent.
Recovering a venue deposit you paid for the artist
Anything your agency fronts on the artist's behalf — a venue rental deposit, a production cost, gear hire — comes back to you at settlement only if it's entered as a Billable expense. The expense type is what decides where the money goes.
Enter it as a billable expense
Open the booking and go to the Terms tab.
Add the cost as an expense.
Set the expense type to Billable, not Buyout.
Attach the receipt or invoice you paid, so the line is evidenced on the statement.
Save, then refresh the settlement draft and reopen Document Preview to confirm the line is routing back to your agency.
Billable routes the money back to the agency at settlement. Buyout doesn't — a buyout is money that stays with the artist's side of the deal. Picking the wrong one changes the artist's walkout, so check the type before you save.
If that doesn't work
If the expense is entered as Billable and it still isn't coming back on the settlement, check whether an invoice was created before you added the expense. Created and recorded invoices lock their items, so an expense added afterwards won't flow into them — see the article on fixing an invoice whose fields are locked.
Good to know
Add the expense before you create the invoice wherever you can. It saves unwinding the record later.
Withholding is not an expense. It's set under Terms → Offer → Withholdings Group — entered as an artist expense it won't populate the withholding column. See the article on withholding not appearing on the settlement.
A non-billable artist expense shows on the statement as reimbursed to the agency. That's a display convention, and it's worth explaining if an artist queries the line.
If you have any questions or need additional help, please reach out to support@gigwell.com or use the chat widget on your screen.