Deposits and milestone invoices

Once Stripe is connected and a homeowner signs your proposal, the money side runs almost on rails. Here's exactly what fires automatically and what's still on you to send.

Everything below lives on the project's Money page — invoices, receipts and the job's running profit on one scroll.

[!tip] Don't have Stripe connected? You can still send invoices and track payments — the deposit goes out as a plain document with your payment instructions instead of a Pay button, and you log each payment by hand as checks/cash/Zelle come in. See Sending invoices without Stripe and Recording manual payments for the full plain-mode flow. The Payments section itself shows up regardless of how you collect.

The deposit fires automatically

This is the whole point of the integration.

The moment your client signs the proposal, BidCraft:

1. Reads the first milestone in your payment schedule (typically labeled "Deposit" — 30% to 50% of the total depending on how you set up your style)
2. Creates an invoice on Stripe for that amount
3. Emails the client a "Pay Now" link — usually within seconds of the signature

The email shows up in their inbox right behind the "thanks for signing, here's your copy" email. So they're already in their inbox, they're already feeling committed, and there's a pay button right there.

The pay page is branded with your business name and logo, the same as the proposal. They can choose any of these methods:

• Card — instant
• Apple Pay — instant, one tap on a phone
• Google Pay — instant
• ACH bank transfer — lower fee, but takes 3-5 business days to clear

Once they pay, the project status updates from Signed to Paid in your project page, the invoice is marked Paid in the Payments section, and Stripe schedules the payout to your bank account (typically lands in 2 business days).

[!tip] About 70% of homeowners pay the deposit within the same browser session they signed in. The faster you ship the proposal and they sign, the faster the deposit lands.

Invoicing before the client signs

Plenty of jobs get agreed the old way. They sign a paper copy on the tailgate, they text back "looks good, let's go", they shake your hand in the driveway. The work is real, the money is real, and nobody is going to open a link and draw a signature with their finger.

You can bill that job right now.

[!steps]

1. Open the project and go to its Payments.
2. Click Invoice this proposal.
3. Read what it's about to do, then confirm.

What happens next is exactly what a signature would have produced:

• If BidCraft collects your payments, it creates the milestone invoices from the payment schedule on the proposal and emails the deposit to your client — Pay button and all, or as a plain invoice with your payment instructions if you don't have a payment processor connected.
• If your invoices run through HighLevel, it creates the invoice there from this proposal's line items, sent or left as a draft depending on your invoice-on-sign setting. Your BidCraft Payments section still tracks it.

Two things worth knowing before you click:

• The proposal needs a payment schedule when BidCraft collects your payments — that schedule is what the milestone invoices are built from. If there isn't one, set it up under Settings → Proposal Settings → Payment schedule and try again. (HighLevel doesn't need one; the invoice there is the whole proposal in one document.)
• It only runs once. If the project already has invoices, the action tells you so rather than billing the client twice.

"The client already signed"

There's a tick box in the confirmation window: The client already signed (paper, text, or handshake).

Tick it and the project moves to Signed at the same time — same as using Mark as signed on the status pill. Your job tasks generate, the win gets recorded, and the project stops sitting in your pipeline pretending it's still out for signature. Nothing goes to the client about it; as far as they're concerned it already happened.

Leave it unticked if you're invoicing a deposit to hold a spot and the paperwork is still coming. You can always mark it signed later.

Owners and admins only — it's a billing action.

You're the merchant of record

When a homeowner pays an invoice through BidCraft, the charge shows up on their bank or card statement as your business name, not BidCraft. They're paying you directly. From their perspective there's no middleman.

This also means:

• You get your own real Stripe dashboard tied to your business
• Taxes and 1099s come from Stripe to your business, not from BidCraft
• Customer history is yours to keep
• If a card gets disputed, it's your dispute to handle (with the audit trail and signed proposal in your corner — see Refunds and disputes)

The platform fee

BidCraft takes a small platform fee per transaction. You can see your current fee on the Connected Apps page in the Stripe section. It's deducted automatically from the payment before Stripe pays out to your bank, so there's nothing to track or remit yourself — you just see a slightly lower number in the payout than the gross invoice amount.

Standard Stripe processing fees are also deducted (that's a separate Stripe fee, not a BidCraft fee). Both are visible on every payout in your Stripe dashboard.

Milestones 2 through N — you fire those

The deposit is the only invoice that fires automatically. Everything after that — the progress payment, the completion payment, anything in between — sits in pending state until you explicitly send it from the project.

This is intentional. You don't want a "progress payment due" invoice firing in week two before the framing inspection actually happened. You fire it when the work hits the milestone.

To send a milestone invoice:

[!steps]

1. Open the project and go to its Payments.
2. Find the next pending milestone (e.g., "50% at framing inspection").
3. Click Send Invoice. The homeowner gets a pay link immediately.
4. (Optional) Add a short note in the send dialog — something like "framing passed inspection today, here's the next invoice."

The client gets the same branded pay experience as the deposit. Same payment methods, same flow, same payout schedule.

Resending an overdue invoice

Every invoice gets a due date when it's first sent (7 days out unless you change it in Proposal Settings → Invoices & receipts), and a late one reads Overdue in the Payments section. See Invoice due dates.

If a milestone invoice sits unpaid past its due date, hit Resend on that row in the Payments section. The homeowner gets another email with the same pay link. The invoice stays the same, due date included; you're just nudging them.

You can also copy the pay link from the Payments section and send it through text, WhatsApp, or whatever channel works for that client.

[!tip] If a homeowner keeps stalling on a milestone, the pay link is the same URL across resends. Texting it tends to get a faster response than another email.

Billing a progress draw

Not every payment lines up with the schedule you wrote at proposal time. Maybe the job stretched an extra three weeks, maybe you fronted a big material order, maybe you and the homeowner just agreed on a payment for work completed so far. For those, add an invoice by hand.

[!steps]

1. Open the project and go to its Payments.
2. Click + Add invoice at the top of the section.
3. Name the draw — it defaults to "Progress draw 2", "Progress draw 3" and so on, but a plain-English name your client will recognize works better ("Shower waterproofing complete", "Material order — tile + setting materials").
4. Enter the amount you're billing. That's exactly what the homeowner sees; nothing gets added on top.
5. Add a note if it helps them place it. Optional.
6. Click Add.

The draw lands in the list as Awaiting send — nothing goes out yet. When you're ready, hit Send invoice on that row like any other. From there it behaves identically: same branded pay page, same payment methods, same Resend, same Record payment for a check that shows up instead.

A few things worth knowing:

• Draws don't get a milestone number. They aren't part of the schedule the homeowner signed, so they show up under their own name with a small "Progress draw" line underneath.
• They do count toward the job. The invoiced, collected, and outstanding numbers at the top of the Payments section all include draws, and so does the job's financial picture.
• Owners and admins only. Sales can see the Payments section, but adding an invoice is a billing action.
• This is for BidCraft-collected payments. If your invoices route through HighLevel, the button isn't there — you'd create that draw in HighLevel instead.

[!tip] A draw isn't a change order. If the scope changed — you're doing more work than the signed proposal covers — send a change order instead, so the contract total moves with the money. Use a draw when the work is already covered by the signed proposal and it's just the billing timing that needs a nudge. See Sending a change order.

Receipts after a payment lands

When a client pays online, BidCraft emails them a receipt automatically — amount, milestone, method, date, and a link back to the proposal. That's on by default and you don't have to do anything.

You can also send one by hand, for any payment, at any time. In the project's Payments section, every completed payment row carries an Email receipt action (it reads Resend receipt once one has gone out, with the address and date of the last one). Click it, confirm or change the address, and send.

That covers the three things that actually come up:

• "I never got it." Resend to the same address, or to a different one — the spouse, the bookkeeper, the property manager.
• Checks and cash. Manual payments don't send anything automatically. Record the payment, then email the receipt from the row — or tick the box in the Record payment window and it goes out as you save.
• Tax time. A client asking for proof of what they paid in March gets it in about ten seconds.

Receipts are only offered on completed payments. Voided entries, refunds, and bank transfers still clearing don't get the action — there's nothing to confirm yet.

Setting the defaults

Under Settings → Proposal Settings, tap the Invoices & receipts card. Its Payment receipts section holds three settings, saved when you tap Save on the card:

When a payment fails or bounces

If a card payment fails or an ACH bounces, the invoice goes back to Unpaid state and the homeowner gets a "payment failed" email asking them to try again. You'll see the status change in the Payments section. Most failures are simple — wrong card, insufficient funds — and resolve on the second try.

How change orders affect billing

When you send a change order on a signed proposal, you pick how the change gets billed. The choice you make determines what fires (and when) on the homeowner side.

In every mode, change-order milestone invoices show up in the Payments section with a CO #N prefix on the description so you can tell them apart from the original proposal's milestones at a glance. They behave the same way as any other milestone invoice — Send, Resend, Refund all work the same. Without Stripe connected they arrive as Awaiting send, with nothing charged, and you send them yourself. A price reduction never becomes a CO #N invoice, so there's nothing a client could accidentally be billed for.

[!tip] "Roll into remaining milestones" is the right pick for most amendments — homeowners would rather see one familiar payment plan that adjusts than a second separate plan they have to track. Reserve "due on signature" for discovery work where you need cash up front before continuing.

If you collect payment through HighLevel instead of Stripe, a signed change order creates a HighLevel invoice for the net change amount (honoring your send/draft/off invoice-on-sign preference — same as original proposals). That amount still shows up in your Payments view. A credit change order (price reduction) creates no invoice. With Roll into remaining milestones the credit comes off your unpaid milestones here, the same as with Stripe; if everything is already paid, you settle the credit directly with the homeowner in HighLevel. See Sending a change order for the full HighLevel billing flow.

See Sending a change order for the full walkthrough on building and sending a change order.

Next steps

• Recording manual payments — log checks, cash, Zelle, and wire transfers against the right invoice
• Sending invoices without Stripe — the plain-mode flow if you haven't connected a processor
• Refunds and disputes — when something goes wrong
• Setting up Stripe payments — if you haven't connected yet
• Sending a change order — amend a signed proposal
• Tracking views and signatures — see exactly where every proposal stands