Light Blue’s desktop app can export electronic invoices that comply with the EN 16931 e-invoicing standard and be used to comply with many countries’ e-invoicing requirements. Depending on which country you work in, these e-invoices can either be sent directly to the buyer by you, or uploaded into an e-invoicing network that will send the invoice to the buyer.

What are e-invoices and who needs to use them?

E-invoices are a PDF version of an invoice that contain a machine-readable version of the invoice in a specific format. This XML representation of the invoice follows strict validation rules that are designed to make e-invoices compatible with a wide range of systems. There are overall rules for how the date in e-invoices is formatted, but individual jurisdictions can add extra requirements (e.g. extra information that is only required in a particular country).

E-invoices are required by some EU countries for specific types of transaction. As far as we are aware, requirements for e-invoicing in EU countries only apply to B2B (business-to-business) and B2G (business-to-government) invoicing. B2C invoicing (business-to-consumer, i.e. selling services and products to consumers rather than businesses, such as most wedding and portrait photography) are not affected. You need to check what the requirements are in your jurisdiction.

How to set up e-invoicing in Light Blue

1. Install Light Blue 2026.2 or newer. If you’d like to be added to our list of prerelease testers so that you can start using this feature, please contact us via email.
2. Open the Preferences window.
3. Go to the “Finances” section.
4. Click on the “E-Invoicing” tab.
5. Check the “Show E-Invoicing Features” checkbox.
6. Click the red text that appears to see the setup steps that you need to complete.

How to export an e-invoice from Light Blue

1. Check if the billing contact already has their e-invoicing information set up. This will save you time if you ever need to sent another e-invoice to the same contact.
   • To do this, go to their Contact record and look for the “E-Invoicing” heading. Click the “Edit” button to set their country code and the electronic address to which the e-invoice will be sent.
2. Create a new Sale record and link your billing contact.
   • Your billing contact’s e-invoicing info will be copied to the sale, but if you skipped step 1 then you need to click the “Edit” button next to the “E-Invoicing” heading and provide their country code and electronic address.
3. Add the items that you are invoicing for to the sale.
4. Click the “Create Invoice” button.
5. In the “Output To” section, select “PDF”. Check the “Include E-Invoice in PDF” checkbox, then click the “Save” button and choose a location to save the e-invoice.
6. Light Blue will validate the contents of the invoice. If there are any issues that might prevent it from being accepted by an e-invoicing system, these issues will be displayed at this point and you will need to correct them before you can create an e-invoice for this sale.
7. Depending on which jurisdiction you work in, you can now either upload the exported e-invoice to an e-invoicing network or send it directly to the buyer.

E-invoice validation and required values

E-invoices must meet strict requirements and Light Blue includes a lot of validation steps to ensure that the e-invoices that you export will be accepted by the recipient.

E-invoicing validation requirements vary between countries. If an e-invoice exported from Light Blue is not accepted by the recipient due to a validation issue, please contact us so that we can investigate and resolve this for you.

Setup validation

E-invoicing requires the following details to be set up in the Preferences window in Light Blue:

• The “Account” section:
  • Business name.
• The “General” tab of the “Finances” section:
  • Currency code.
• The “VAT & Sales Tax” tab of the “Finances” section:
  • If you’re charging VAT, you must provide your VAT number.
• The “E-Invoicing” tab of the “Finances” section:
  • Country code. Please let us know if you want us to add more country codes to the list of shortcuts.
  • Your e-invoicing electronic address (e.g. SIREN in France). Please let us know if you need us to add more electronic address types to the menu of allowed types.
  • In France, you must provide your SIREN as the company ID.
  • The default payment method that you want to set for new invoices, picked from the menu of allowed payment methods.
    • If the payment method is set to “Credit Transfer” or “SEPA Credit Transfer”, you must provide your payment details in the “IBAN/Payment Info” field.

Invoice validation

To export an e-invoice for a sale, you must ensure:

• That the sale is for a positive amount (i.e. not a credit note, but we can implement electronic credit notes in future if this is needed in your jurisdiction).
• The sale must use VAT-exclusive prices (i.e. the “Tax Inclusive” checkbox must be un-ticked on this sale).
  • This is required because e-invoices are designed for B2B and B2G invoicing where VAT-exclusive pricing is the norm. E-invoices include strict rules for calculating totals and using VAT-inclusive pricing can introduce rounding errors that cause e-invoices to not pass validation.
• Buyer country code. Please let us know if you want us to add more country codes to the list of shortcuts.
• Buyer electronic address (e.g. SIREN). Please let us know if you need us to add more electronic address types to the menu of allowed types.
• Payment method, picked from the menu of allowed payment methods.
• In the “References” section, either a “Buyer Reference” or a “Purchase Order”.

How to report an e-invoice validation issue

If you have any problems with exporting an e-invoice from Light Blue, uploading it to an e-invoicing network, or importing it into the recipient’s system, we can investigate this and try to resolve the issue in an update.

To enable us to investigate an e-invoice validation issue, please send us:

1. A screenshot of the validation error.
2. If the validation error prevented you from exporting the e-invoice from Light Blue, send us a screenshot that shows as much detail as possible from the Sale record in Light Blue.
3. If you were able to export the e-invoice from Light Blue and the validation issue occurred elsewhere, send us the e-invoice PDF that you exported from Light Blue.

Making Tax Digital (MTD) is part of the UK government’s plan to make it easier for businesses to keep on top of their tax affairs. It changes the way you report your income and expenses to HMRC, and means you’ll need to use approved software to send your figures digitally instead of typing them directly into your tax return. This is something that only applies to the UK, so if you’re based in another country then you will be unaffected.

You can keep using Light Blue to manage your photography business exactly as you do now and you don’t need to change how you run your business day-to-day, this is just about how your figures are sent to HMRC.

Key points

Making Tax Digital (MTD) is the new way to report income and expenses to HMRC.

If you’re VAT registered, you’re already filing returns through MTD-approved software.

From 6 April 2026, any sole traders submitting an Income Tax Self Assessment with turnover over £50,000 must report via approved software.

Light Blue will continue to handle your day-to-day business management: invoicing, tracking income and expenses, and managing clients.

You can export your Light Blue data to free or low-cost HMRC-approved tools, or connect to platforms like QuickBooks and Xero via CSV data exports or Zapier.

You shouldn’t need to pay extra to comply with MTD, and we’ve listed some recommended options below.

When you’ll need to follow MTD rules

If you’re a UK business that’s VAT registered, you’re already sending records to HMRC via approved software.

For Income Tax Self Assessment the rules are being phased in gradually, so you’ll only need to start using MTD-approved software once your business turnover passes these thresholds:

• From 6 April 2026: turnover over £50,000
• From 6 April 2027: turnover over £30,000
• From 6 April 2028: turnover over £20,000

You’ll start using MTD-approved software from the relevant date above.

Using Light Blue

You can keep using Light Blue to manage your photography business exactly as you do now: sending invoices, tracking income and expenses, and managing clients.

When it’s time to file your tax information, simply export your data from Light Blue and upload it to your chosen MTD-approved tool.

Light Blue keeps handling all your day-to-day admin. The only difference is that when doing your taxes you’ll export your figures instead of typing them into HMRC’s website.

💡 Tip: Light Blue’s charts can help you monitor your turnover so you’ll know when you’re affected by MTD.

HMRC-approved tools

There are many HMRC-approved options, here are a few that are easy to use alongside Light Blue.

MTDSorted

MTDSorted is an easy-to-use tool that lets you meet HMRC’s Making Tax Digital requirements without changing the way you already work. You can keep using Light Blue exactly as normal to record your income and expenses.

When it’s time to file, simply export your data and upload it to MTDSorted. It’ll handle sending everything to HMRC in the right format. It’s free for VAT submissions, and just £50 per year if you need to file income tax under MTD.

✅ Free for MTD for VAT

💰 Paid subscription for MTD for Income Tax Self Assessment (£50/year)

✅ Easy to import data from Light Blue

My Tax Digital

My Tax Digital makes it simple to stay compliant with Making Tax Digital while continuing to use Light Blue as you do now.

There’s no need to switch systems or start using complex accounting software: you just export your figures from Light Blue occasionally and upload them to My Tax Digital. It’s completely free to use, both for VAT and for income tax submissions, and it takes care of sending your data securely to HMRC.

✅ Free for MTD for VAT

✅ Free for MTD for Income Tax Self Assessment

✅ Easy to import data from Light Blue

Sending data to My Tax Digital

Here’s an example of how simple it is to move your figures from Light Blue into MyTaxDigital:

1. Within Light Blue, click on the Records menu -> Export -> Financial Information,
2. Choose the relevant period of time to export,
3. A set of CSV files will be saved on your computer,
4. Log into your My Tax Digital account,
5. Click “Import & Export”
6. Choose “Import transactions” and select a CSV file:
   • If you account on a cash basis (i.e. when you got paid), select the “Payments.csv” that was exported in step 3.
   • If you account on an accrual basis (i.e. when you issued the invoice), select the “Sales.csv” that was exported in step 3.
7. Map the columns in the CSV to relevant fields in My Tax Digital
8. The records from Light Blue are now in your My Tax Digital account

Quickbooks

You don’t need to use accounting software like QuickBooks to comply with MTD, but some photographers enjoy its extra bookkeeping tools.

You can send data from Light Blue to QuickBooks:

1. Periodically (e.g. once per month) via a CSV file using our dedicated Quickbooks export feature,
2. instantly via our Zapier integration.

Learn more about how to send data from Light Blue to Quickbooks

Xero

As with QuickBooks, you can comply with MTD without Xero but it’s an option if you want a full accounting package.

You can send data from Light Blue to Xero:

1. Periodically (e.g. once per month) via a CSV file using our dedicated Xero export feature,
2. instantly via our Zapier integration.

Learn more about how to send data from Light Blue to Xero

We’re here to help

We know tax changes can feel confusing, but you don’t have to figure this out on your own. If you’d like a hand choosing a tool or exporting your data, get in touch we’re always happy to help

Please contact us or book a free training call.

There are many ways to view and analyse your data within Light Blue; there’s the inbuilt Charts, the powerful Query feature including Quick Queries and using the List View to analyse Records in multiple ways for even deeper insights.

And last, but by no means least, there’s a comprehensive suite of in-built Reports available from the Reports drop-down menu in the main menu bar.

There’s a variety of ways you can run the various Reports; by different time frames, by the different Resources in your business and then choosing whether the results are output to the screen, a printer, or a CSV or PDF file.

Here’s a run-down of all the Reports available and, where needed, the link to relevant help articles.

Day Sheet

Shoots and Appointments on your selected day for all, or your chosen, Resources so you can see at a glance who’s up to what.

Today’s Information

Calendar notes, Shoots, Appointments and Tasks for ‘today’ and the next 7 days. Plus open Enquiries, Aged Debts and Aged Credits.
👉 Tailor your own ‘Today’s information’ report by making use of Light Blue’s customisable Home Screen.

Management Information

Shoots awaiting orders, Shoots with no appointment after the shoot date. Current Shoots, products on order and Shoots in post-production for ‘today.’
👉 Tailor your own ‘Management information’ report by creating a different Home Screen to track where you are with all your Shoots.

Time Off

Report showing if all, or your chosen, Resources are off (ie not available) during your selected time frame and for what reason and when.
👉 Learn more about the Time Off feature.

Contact Financial History

Sales, Purchases and Payments history for your selected Contact Record.

Contact Statement

Debts and Credits for your selected Contact Record grouped by days overdue.

Contact Source Analysis

A very comprehensive report allowing you to assess the success (or not!) of your marketing activity for all, or your selected, Contact Sources. The analysis looks at where they’ve come from, what stage they’re at with you, the latest Note/Document and provides a list of Shoots grouped by Contact Sources with Income, Expenditure and Profit values and totals. N.B. If you have a large number of Contact Sources and a lot of Notes/Documents this will be a particularly large report and you may be best to narrow down your selection of Contact Sources to reach your insights more easily.

Unpaid Expenses

Helpful for managing reimbursement of staff expenses.
👉 Recording purchases as a staff expense.

Mileage

Business mileage during your chosen time frame; ideal for Tax Returns.
👉 Recording and reporting mileage details.

Unclaimed Mileage

Helpful for managing reimbursement of mileage expenses.
👉 Recording and reporting mileage.

Income and Expenditure

A report for your chosen time frame that you’re likely to review regularly and that’s useful for your accountant.
👉 More details on the Income and Expenditure report can be found here.

Tax

Itemising the tax charged or paid in a given time period, this report is for you if you have to file a VAT return!
👉 The Tax report details are covered here.

Rerun Tax Report

Loading a Tax Report previously marked as “claimed”.

Revenue by Product

A deceptively simple report allowing you to analyse sales in your specified time frame and by staff member; ideal to see your most popular products/packages (or indeed least popular!).

Staff Shoots

Shoots by staff member during your specified timeframe. It also includes the quoted. Invoiced, purchased and profit values.

Aged Credits

Unpaid Purchase Records grouped by days overdue.

Aged Debts

Unpaid Invoice Records grouped by days overdue.

Inventory

Equipment purchased in your specified timeframe. It’s categorised by type and includes serial numbers, replacement cost and any further notes you made on the Purchase Record so is ideal for any insurance documentation you may need.
👉 Including purchases in your Inventory.

Custom Reports

Light Blue comes with a few in-built Custom Reports which you can use as a start point to create your own; when you load a Custom Report you also have the option to change which set of Records the report is run on. And if you have a specific combination of a Query and List View that you review regularly it’s a good idea to not only save the Query but save the combination as a Custom Report to easily access in the future.
👉 Learn more about analysing your Records using the List View.

There are many ways to view and analyse your data within Light Blue; not only are there inbuilt Charts and Reports, there’s also the powerful Query feature including Quick Queries, However one deceptively simple way to delve deeper into the analysis is to use the List View on a set of Records.

In this help article we’ll take you through all the different options available with List View; from viewing a simple list of Records all the way through to sorting and grouping a list of Records by multiple criteria and saving it as a Custom Report.

First things first though, we’ll give a brief explanation as to the difference between List View and the other viewing option in Light Blue; Detail View.

Detail View vs List View

Whenever you’ve got a set of Records showing, either by clicking on one of the Quick Queries in each of Light Blue’s main sections or are viewing the results of a new Query, you have the choice as to whether you view the Records in Detail or List View.

Detail View shows the full set of Records with a brief description under each one and you simply click on any Record to view the full detail.

List View shows a list (surprise surprise!) of your chosen set of Records with different information fields from the Record showing in each of the columns including the total and average values. And whilst Light Blue comes pre-populated with a default set of columns, there are numerous ways you can customise them. This ability to pick and choose columns and to then sort and group the same data in multiple ways can give you a range of different insights as to what’s happening within your business; and best of all if it’s analysis you carry out regularly you save it as a Custom Report.

Simple List View

The first time you view a set of Records using List View a default set of columns will be shown which will vary depending on the type of Records you’re viewing. Along with now being able to see the total and average values these columns could well be sufficient and give you all the information you need; you may simply want to reorder the information or resize the columns.

To reorder the information, click on the column header and it will reorder in descending/ascending order.

To resize the columns click and slide the slider in the column header like you would in any other table.

Customising the List View

If the information presented isn’t exactly what you’re most interested in reviewing it’s very straightforward to add or remove columns. In the example below we’re adding the Enquiry Source column and removing the Purchases and Profit columns; simply click on “Window” in the main menu bar and choose “Customise List View…” from the drop-down menu.

To add a column, in the left hand pane click on the information field you want to add and click the top “Move >” button to add it to the Column pane.

To remove a column, in the Column pane click on ones you want to remove and click the “Clear” button. When you’re finished click “Done” and your updated columns will be showing in List View.

Grouping Records in the List View

If you find yourself with a long list of Records it can be hard to get deeper insights so being able to group the Records allows you to analyse the information in more detail; and as the subtotal value and averages for each group are displayed it becomes easier to see where your business is performing best, or not! You can group your Records using one or multiple criteria depending on the depth of analysis you want to carry out.

Grouping by one criteria

Using the same data in our example we’d like to group our Records by Shoot Type; click on “Window” in the main menu bar and choose “Customise List View…” from the drop-down menu.

In the left hand pane choose the information field you’d like to group your Records by and click the bottom “Move >” button to move it to the Group By pane. Then click “Done” and your grouped Records will be showing in List View. We can see in our example that whilst we’ve had more Family Portrait sessions this financial year our Weddings have generated the most income. And surprisingly (well maybe not if you’re a pet lover) our Pet Portraits have a higher average Sales than our Family Portraits.

NB. If you want to group your Records by an information field that is already in the Column pane you will need to clear it from there and then move it into the Group By pane. In our example we can now see from the same list of Records that previous weddings have been our most valuable Enquiry Source.

Grouping by multiple criteria

Using multiple criteria to group your Records can be handy to drill even deeper into the data. Simply choose the extra information field you’d like to add to the “Group By” pane, click the bottom “Move >” button followed by “Done” and your revised grouping will now be showing in the List View. Using the same data we can now see that we’ve had a Family Portrait booking as well as Weddings from our previous weddings Enquiry Source.

And if you want to change the order of the grouping to give a different insight, simply click and drag the relevant information field in the Group By pane. Now we can see that with our Family Portraits there isn’t a prominent Enquiry Source!

Custom Reports

Whilst you may run several one-off pieces of analysis in your business there’s likely to be a particular set and format of information and figures that you review regularly. And the great news is that Light Blue allows you to save this as a Custom Report allowing you to easily review the information time and time again with the latest set of data.

Make sure you save your Query and when you have customised List View as required, click on “Reports” in the main menu bar and choose “Custom Reports”, followed by “Save List As Custom Report…” from the drop-down menus.

Give your report a name and click Save; this will save the combination of the Query and List view. Then when you want to review it in the future click on “Reports” in the main menu bar and choose “Custom Reports”, followed by the report name from the drop-down menus.

Keeping on top of your finances is a critical part of running a successful (and profitable!) business and by using Light Blue to record all your business transactions you can make this job much simpler for yourself.

You’ll be able to take advantage of Light Blue’s powerful Reports allowing you to analyse your business performance in greater detail; perhaps identifying which area of your business is performing better/worse than others or maybe the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns.

Plus using Light Blue for your invoicing means you’ll be able to use the online features such as Forms, Contracts and Payments too!

However, you may also need to share your sales information with a third-party app such as Quickbooks.

There are two ways that you can share this information:

1. Export a CSV file of your invoices from Light Blue and upload it to Quickbooks; this is very straightforward to do in just a few simple steps. It’s also the free option!
2. Use Zapier to automatically link Light Blue to Quickbooks; as soon as you create an invoice in Light Blue it will automatically add it to Quickbooks. Zapier’s QuickBooks integration is a “Premium” app, which means you’ll need to be on one of Zapier’s paid plans.

👉 If you’re needing broader help on how to use Light Blue to manage your finances this article will help.

1. Exporting a CSV file from Light Blue and uploading to Quickbooks

Creating the list of Invoice Records to be exported

• The easiest way to do this is to use one of the Quick Queries already available in the main Sales section of Light Blue; generally speaking, the time periods already created will give you what you’re looking for, e.g. Last Month, Last Financial Quarter, Last Financial Year etc.

• If however there is a different set of Invoices you want to export, use the Query feature to specify the criteria and generate the list.

Exporting the information

• Once you have the list of Invoice Records, click on “Records” in the main menu bar.
• Choose “Export” followed by “Invoices for Quickbooks” from the drop-down menu.
• You’ll then be given the option of where to save the CSV file and rename it if required.

Importing into Quickbooks

The CSV file exported from Light Blue has been created in a format that doesn’t need any extra work being done to it before being imported to Quickbooks. 👉 This Quickbooks help article (from Step 2) takes you through the import steps.

2. Using Zapier to link Light Blue to Quickbooks

Another way to add your Invoices and Payments to Quickbooks is to link it with Light Blue using Zapier; essentially a service that automates this connection process. NB. You need to be using QuickBooks Online to be able to connect the two; Zapier is unable to access the desktop version. Zapier’s QuickBooks integration is a “Premium” app, which means you’ll need to be on one of Zapier’s paid plans.

👉 Here’s an introduction to how Zapier works.
👉 And if you’ve not already got a Zapier account, here’s their website where you can create one.

The Light Blue integration for Zapier is currently a “private” action, so you need to click the following link to add it to your Zapier account (instead of searching for Light Blue in Zapier); simply click the “Accept Invite & Build a Zap” button. 👉 Invite to use Light Blue on Zapier.

Once you’re logged into Zapier there are three elements to the zap.

• Creating the trigger; a new Invoice Record is created in Light Blue.
• Creating the 1st action; finding or creating the customer in QuickBooks.
• Creating the 2nd action; creating the invoice in Quickbooks.

All the elements need to be created for the zap to work, however, we’ve broken down the steps into those three elements to make the process a bit easier to follow.

Creating the trigger; a new Invoice Record is created in Light Blue

• Click the “+ Create” button and choose “⚡️ New Zap” from the drop-down menu.
• Start to type “Light Blue” in the search bar and choose the latest version of the Light Blue options given. NB. The screenshot below shows “Light Blue (2.0.1)” but this may well have been updated.
• Start to type “Light Blue” in the search bar.
• A few Light Blue options will be given so make sure you choose the one labelled ‘Latest’.
• We’re now going to choose the event that triggers the action so from the drop-down menu choose “New Invoice”.
• Click “Continue”.

• You’ll then be asked to sign into Light Blue; click the “Sign in” button. NB. If you’ve previously created a Light Blue zap, rather than signing in again you’ll be able to simply select the account that’s already connected.
• A pop-up window will then appear asking for your API key; this can be found in the “Light Blue API and integrations” area of your Light Blue account.
• Once you’ve clicked the “Yes, Continue” button your Light Blue and Zapier accounts will be connected.

• Now we need to set-up the details of the trigger.
• You’ll probably want to leave the “Shoot Type” field blank. If you set a Shoot Type here, only invoices linked to shoots of that specific type will trigger the Zap.
• Click “Continue”.

• Click the “Test trigger” button; Zapier will then test the trigger and check it can find an invoice.
• Once it’s been successful, click “Continue”.

Creating the 1st action; finding or creating the customer in QuickBooks

• The next step is to connect QuickBooks to your Zapier account.
• Search for and choose “QuickBooks Online”.

• Choose the Event “Find Customer” from the drop-down menu; this will find the customer in Quickbooks or if not, create a new one.
• Click “Continue”.
• Then follow the prompts to connect your Quickbooks account.
• Now we need to set-up the 1st action details.
• Start by choosing “Name” in the Search Field and “Billing Contact Name” as the Search Value. NB. The greyed-out name is from the test trigger invoice.
• Check the “Create Quickbooks Online Customer if it doesn’t exist yet” box.
• Choose “1. Billing Contact Name” in the Full Name field.
• Scroll to the bottom and click “Continue”.

• Click the “Test action” button; Zapier will then test the action and either find or create the customer in Quickbooks.

Creating the 2nd action; creating the invoice in Quickbooks

• Once the test for the 1st action has been successful, we need to add another action to complete the Zap.
• Click the small “+” button underneath the word “Close”.
• Search for and choose “QuickBooks Online” again

• Choose the Event “Create Invoice” from the drop-down menu.
• Click “Continue”.
• As you’ve already connected your QuickBooks account simply pick it from the drop-down menu.
• Click “Continue”.
• In the “Customer” field, click in the “Custom” tab and choose the “ID” variable from the previous step in the Zap. This will automatically link the QuickBooks contact that was found/created in the previous step of your Zap.

• Scroll down the screen and complete the “Invoice Date”, “Due Date” and “Invoice Number “fields from the “New Invoice in Light Blue” drop-down menu. NB. As before the greyed-out elements are from the test trigger invoice.

• Then complete the Line item field “Product/Service” choosing the Services option from the drop-down menu.
• Complete the rest of the Line Item fields; Description, Amount and Tax, again using the “New Invoice in Light Blue” drop-down menu.

• Scroll to the bottom and click “Continue”.
• When prompted. click the “Test action” button; Zapier will then test the action to create the invoice in Quickbooks.
• Once the test for the 2nd action has been successful we can give the zap a name and publish it.
• Zapier will now automatically add any Invoice Record created in Light Blue to Quickbooks.

Sometimes things don’t go to plan with sales that you’ve invoiced to your clients.

Perhaps your client has not paid the invoice and is continuing to ignore your calls and emails so you make the decision that the invoice needs to be written off as a bad debt.

Or indeed you may have invoiced them but you and/or your client have decided you won’t be going ahead with their session and you need to cancel the invoice.

Or maybe, whilst your client has already paid you, you make the decision to refund the sale; it could be as a goodwill gesture or because you’re no longer able to deliver on the contract signed.

And sometimes the client changes their mind and even though they’ve already paid you they want to cancel part of their order.

So whilst the hit to your revenue is painful, you’ll be pleased to know that dealing with each of these scenarios is very straightforward! Light Blue will help you create a negative Sale Record (and Payment Record) for the amount to be credited or refunded; basically creating a negative income rather than an expense.

Let’s go through the different options and the steps you need to follow.

Issuing a credit note against an invoice

A credit note is issued in instances when no actual exchange of money takes place. However, rather than deleting the invoices that aren’t going to be paid a credit note is created; essentially a paper transaction to ‘balance the books’. This could be for a bad debt or where you’ve decided the invoice needs to be cancelled. NB. If your client has already paid part of the invoice you can still create a credit note for the balance.

• Go to the relevant invoice in the Sales section of Light Blue; the “Awaiting Payment” Quick Query should be useful here.
• Click “Issue Credit”.

• Click “Create” in the pop-up dialogue box.

• Light Blue will then create a new Sale Record for the negative value of the invoice (ie the credit) which is used to ‘pay’ the unpaid invoice.

Refunding the whole invoice

If the invoice is already paid but you decide to refund it; i.e. physically return the full cash amount back to your client, it’s a similarly simple process.

• Go to the relevant invoice in the Sales section of Light Blue.
• Click “Issue Refund”.

• Click “Create” in the pop-up dialogue box.

• Light Blue will then create a new Sale Record for the negative value of the invoice and mark it as paid as you’ll be paying the money back to your client; make sure you do this!

A partial refund of an invoice

If however you only want/need to refund part of an invoice that’s already been paid, there are a few more steps to go through.

• Go to the relevant invoice in the Sales section of Light Blue.
• In the example shown, the client has changed their mind and no longer wants the framed 18×12 print.

• Go to the Shoot Record linked to the invoice.

• In the Linked Records panel click on the green “+” and choose “New Sale” from the drop-down menu.

• Add the item to be refunded making sure you change the “Unit Price” to the negative value.
• Click “Done”.

• Click “Create Credit Note”. NB. In Light Blue, any negative sale is called a Credit Note.

• When you return the money to your client, click “Add Payment”.

• NB. If you’re refunding an arbitrary cash amount rather than a specific item from your price list, in the “New Sale” step above simply create a new line item describing what is being refunded making sure the “Unit Price” is a negative value.

Refunding online payments

If your client paid online via Stripe/PayPal/Square, follow the appropriate steps above to create the refund records within Light Blue.

Creating the refund records for an online payment does not automatically return your client’s money so you will still need to give it back to them.

Either log into your account of the service that they paid via and return the funds from there or use another method such as a direct bank transfer.

If you’re using the specialist software ProSelect for your in-person sales (IPS) you’ll want to want to include these orders in Light Blue too; having all the information relating to a shoot in one place allows you to see how successful the session was, keep on top of your finances and take advantage of Light Blue’s powerful reporting features.

And thankfully you don’t have to manually re-enter them into Light Blue; there’s a handy import feature that you can use instead!

Exporting your order from ProSelect

First of all, we need to export the information from ProSelect; there are a couple of ways you can do this.

1. From the Order itself

• Click “Export Order” at the bottom of the Place Order dialog.

• In the Export dialog, choose “Standard XML” as the export option.
• Choose the folder you want to export to.
• Then click “Export Now”.

2. From Orders in the main menu

• Choose “Export Order …” from the drop-down menu.

Importing the order into Light Blue

Now we have all the relevant information from ProSelect, we want to import the order into Light Blue as a Sale Record.

• Go to “Records” in the main menu.
• Select “Import” followed by “Sale from ProSelect XML File… “ from the drop-down menu options.
• NB. Even if you have already given your client a copy of their ProSelect order and taken payment from them, an Invoice still needs to be created in Light Blue so it’s included in Light Blue’s Reports; a pop-up reminder dialog will show when you’ve imported the Sale. We’ll cover how to create the Invoice once we’ve linked the sale to a Shoot Record.

Linking the Sale Record to a Shoot Record

Whilst the ProSelect order export provides the details of the sale. Light Blue now needs to know which Shoot Record the sale applies to.

• In the Sale Record, click on the cog to the right of the Linked Shoot field and choose “Link Shoot”.

• Start typing the shoot name, click on the correct one from the list that appears and click “Link”.

Creating the Invoice

As explained above, it’s important to create an Invoice within Light Blue so the sale is included in Light Blue’s Reports.

• In the Sale Record, click “Create Invoice”.

• In the Invoice dialog, check/uncheck the “Print/Send” box depending on whether you want to send the Light Blue Invoice to your client or not.
• Click “Create Email”/”Create Invoice”.

Recording Payment

• If your client has already paid you, in the Sales Record click “Add Payment”.
• Complete the “Date” and “Payment Method”.
• Click “ Add Payment”.

Keeping on top of your finances is a critical part of running a successful (and profitable!) business and by using Light Blue to record all your business transactions you can make this job much simpler for yourself.

You’ll be able to take advantage of Light Blue’s powerful Reports allowing you to analyse your business performance in greater detail; perhaps identifying which area of your business is performing better/worse than others or maybe the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns.

Plus using Light Blue for your invoicing means you’ll be able to use the online features such as Forms, Contracts and Payments too!

However, you may also need to share your sales information with a third-party app such as Xero.

There are two ways that you can share this information:

1. Export a CSV file of your invoices from Light Blue and upload it to Xero; this is very straightforward to do in just a few simple steps. It’s also the free option!
2. Use Zapier to automatically link Light Blue to Xero; as soon as you create an invoice in Light Blue it will automatically add it to Xero. Zapier’s Xero integration is a “Premium” app, which means you’ll need to be on one of Zapier’s paid plans.

👉 If you’re needing broader help on how to use Light Blue to manage your finances this article will help.

1. Exporting a CSV file from Light Blue and uploading to Xero

Creating the list of Invoice Records to be exported

• The easiest way to do this is to use one of the Quick Queries already available in the main Sales section of Light Blue; generally speaking, the time periods already created will give you what you’re looking for, e.g. Last Month, Last Financial Quarter, Last Financial Year etc.

• If however there is a different set of Invoices you want to export, use the Query feature to specify the criteria and generate the list.

Exporting the information

• Once you have the list of Invoice Records, click on “Records” in the main menu bar.
• Choose “Export” followed by “Invoices for Xero” from the drop-down menu.
• You’ll then be given the option of where to save the CSV file and rename it if required.

Importing into Xero

The CSV file exported from Light Blue has been created in a format that doesn’t need any extra work being done to it before being imported to Xero. 👉 This Xero help article (from Step 3) takes you through the import steps.

2. Using Zapier to link Light Blue to Xero

Another way to add your Invoices and Payments to Xero is to link it with Light Blue using Zapier; essentially a service that automates this connection process. NB. Zapier’s Xero integration is a “Premium” app, which means you’ll need to be on one of Zapier’s paid plans.

👉 Here’s an introduction to how Zapier works.
👉 And if you’ve not already got a Zapier account, here’s their website where you can create one.

The Light Blue integration for Zapier is currently a “private” action, so you need to use the link in the “Setup” section of our “Starting to use Zapier with Light Blue” article to add it to your Zapier account.

Once you’re logged into Zapier there are two elements to the zap.

• Creating the trigger; a new Invoice Record is created in Light Blue.
• Creating the action; creating the invoice in Xero.

Both elements need to be created for the zap to work, however, we’ve broken down the steps into the two elements to make the process a bit easier to follow.

Creating the trigger; a new Invoice Record is created in Light Blue

• Click the “+ Create” button and choose “⚡️ New Zap” from the drop-down menu.
• Start to type “Light Blue” in the search bar.
• A few Light Blue options will be given so make sure you choose the one labelled ‘Latest’.
• We’re now going to choose the event that triggers the action so from the drop-down menu choose “New Invoice”.
• Click “Continue”.

• You’ll then be asked to sign into Light Blue; click the “Sign in” button. NB. If you’ve previously created a Light Blue zap, rather than signing in again you’ll be able to simply select the account that’s already connected.
• A pop-up window will then appear asking for your API key; this can be found in the “Light Blue API and integrations” area of your Light Blue account.
• Once you’ve clicked the “Yes, Continue” button your Light Blue and Zapier accounts will be connected.

• Now we need to set-up the details of the trigger.
• You’ll probably want to leave the “Shoot Type” field blank. If you set a Shoot Type here, only invoices linked to shoots of that specific type will trigger the Zap.
• Click “Continue”.

• Click the “Test trigger” button; Zapier will then test the trigger and check it can find an invoice.
• Once it’s been successful, click “Continue”.

Creating the action; creating the invoice in Xero

• The next step is to connect Zapier to your Xero account.
• Search for and choose “Xero”.
• Choose the Event “Create Sales Invoice” from the drop-down menu.
• Click “Continue”.

• You’ll then be asked to sign in to Xero.
• Click the “Sign in” button and follow the prompts to connect your Xero account.
• Now we need to set-up the action details.
• Start by choosing your business name from the dropdown menu in the Organization field.
• Complete the Contact Name, Date, Due Date and Number fields. NB. The greyed-out details are from the test trigger invoice.

• Complete the Line items fields; Description, Quantity, Unit Price.
• In the Account field choose Sales from the drop-down menu and then in the Tax Rate field, 20% (VAT on income) or No Vat depending on your VAT status. NB. Different tax rates and settings will apply in different countries. If in doubt we recommend consulting Xero’s support team or your accountant for advice on which settings to use.
• Click “Continue”.

• When prompted, click the “Test action” button; Zapier will then test the action to create the invoice in Xero.
• Once the test for the action has been successful we can give the zap a name and publish it.
• Zapier will now automatically add any Invoice Record created in Light Blue to Xero.

If you’re using the specialist software Fundy for your in-person sales (IPS) you’ll want to want to include these orders in Light Blue too; having all the information relating to a shoot in one place allows you to see how successful the session was, keep on top of your finances and take advantage of Light Blue’s powerful reporting features.

And thankfully you don’t have to manually re-enter them into Light Blue; there’s a handy import feature that you can use instead!

Exporting your order from Fundy

First of all, we need to export the information from Fundy.

• Click “Export Order” at the bottom of the Place Order dialog.
• Choose “Studio Management XML” from the drop-down options.

Importing the order into Light Blue

Now we have all the relevant information from Fundy, we want to import the order into Light Blue as a Sale Record.

• Go to “Records” in the main menu.
• Select “Import” followed by “Sale from Fundy XML File… “ from the drop-down menu options.
• NB. Even if you have already given your client a copy of their Fundy order and taken payment from them, an Invoice still needs to be created in Light Blue so it’s included in Light Blue’s Reports; a pop-up reminder dialog will show when you’ve imported the Sale. We’ll cover how to create the Invoice once we’ve linked the sale to a Shoot Record.

Linking the Sale Record to a Shoot Record

Whilst the Fundy order export provides the details of the sale. Light Blue now needs to know which Shoot Record the sale applies to.

• In the Sale Record, click on the cog to the right of the Linked Shoot field and choose “Link Shoot”.

• Start typing the shoot name, click on the correct one from the list that appears and click “Link”.

Creating the Invoice

As explained above, it’s important to create an Invoice within Light Blue so the sale is included in Light Blue’s Reports.

• In the Sale Record, click “Create Invoice”.

• In the Invoice dialog, check/uncheck the “Print/Send” box depending on whether you want to send the Light Blue Invoice to your client or not.
• Click “Create Email”/”Create Invoice”.

Recording Payment

• If your client has already paid you, in the Sales Record click “Add Payment”.
• Complete the “Date” and “Payment Method”.
• Click “ Add Payment”.

When you delete a Record from one of Light Blue’s main sections it’s sent to the Trash instead of being deleted immediately. Trashed Records will remain there for 28 days before being permanently deleted and you’re able to restore them as long as you’ve not manually deleted the Trash.

As well as being able to trash individual Records Light Blue also helps you delete a set of Records in one go so a great time saver! We’ll cover both options in this help article.

Key points to note

• Records deleted from one of Light Blue’s main sections namely Shoots, Contacts, Quotes, Sales, Purchases, and Payments are sent to the Trash instead of being deleted immediately.
• Any other item, such as Notes, Emails, Contracts etc are deleted immediately after you’ve confirmed the deletion and cannot be restored.
• Records remain in the Trash for 28 days before being permanently deleted.
• Changing the status of a Shoot Record, instead of trashing it, can be helpful for reporting purposes.
• If you do trash a Shoot Record, you’ll also have the option to trash the contacts linked to it if those contacts are not linked to any other Shoot Records.

Changing the status of Shoot Records, instead of trashing them

When a shoot doesn’t go ahead we would usually recommend changing its status to ‘Cancelled’ instead of deleting/trashing the Shoot Record. This allows you to report on that shoot at a later date. 👉 Find out more about the different Shoot Statuses here.

Trashing individual Records.

There are two ways to trash an individual Record both of which will ask you to confirm the move to the Trash:

• Either right-click on the relevant record and choose “Delete Shoot*” from the options given. (* or Delete Contact/Quote/Sale/Purchase/Payment depending on the type of Record selected.)

• Or with the relevant Record selected, click on “Records” in the main menu bar and select “Move Record to the Trash…” from the drop-down menu.

Trashing multiple Records

Finding the Records to trash

There are several ways you can find the records; the best one will be unique to the Records you’re looking to delete and the reasons why:

• Use “Quick Query”’s; either one already created by Light Blue or one you’ve created and saved yourself.
• Create a new “Query”. 👉 If you’re not familiar with the Query function this article explains how to use it.
• Use “Tags”. 👉 If you’re not familiar with tags this article explains what they are.
• Use the “Search” bar. NB. This is quite a crude method so do double check it only finds the records you’re interested in.
• Use Light Blue’s built-in “Housekeeping” tool.
  • Click on “Records” in the main menu bar.
  • Choose “Housekeeping” followed by “Find Old Records” from the drop-down choices.
  • Check the relevant boxes and click “Find Records”.

Trashing the Records

• Once you have your list of Records, click on “Records” in the main menu bar and select “Move Found Records to the Trash…” from the drop-down menu.

Restoring Records

You may find you’ve deleted Records by mistake or perhaps have changed your mind. Not to worry! It’s straightforward to restore a record up to 28 days after you’ve sent it to the trash.

NB. Remember It’s only Records within the main sections of Light Blue that are sent to the Trash, namely Shoots, Contacts, Quotes, Sales, Purchases, and Payments. Any other item, such as Notes, Emails, Contracts etc are deleted immediately after you’ve confirmed the deletion and cannot be restored.

1. Click on “Records” in the main menu bar and select “View Trash” from the drop-down menu.
2. Highlight the records you wish to restore.
3. Click on “Restore Records”.
4. Your records will now be back in Light Blue.

Running a successful (and profitable!) photography business needs management of a lot of different jobs and processes to give you the very best chance of success.

From marketing to sales, client communications, the photography itself, editing, order taking and delivery (and everything in between!), there are a whole lot of different areas to be covered. And of course, there’s managing your finances too.

There are probably various arguments about which of these different areas is the most important. However, if you’re not in control of your finances, you run the very real risk of simply sticking your finger in the air and guessing, rather than making informed decisions about your business. And worst case, having the business fail.

It can be really hard to keep on top of everything, however with the powerful functionality of Light Blue it’s much easier to do this.

✅ You can ensure you’re paid for your work.

✅ You can track all your purchases.

✅ You can see your profitability.

And whilst Light Blue isn’t a full accounting package it does have all the relevant information in one place allowing you to analyse and interrogate the data so you can see exactly what is going on with your business. Any decision you then make will be an informed decision.

In this “Getting Started” guide we’ll cover the key set up steps that we recommend are completed before you start creating any financial records. Not all of these steps may be applicable to how you run your business but if they are, doing them first will make creating those records much easier for you!

We’ll then go through each of the different financial records within Light Blue with links to detailed help articles.

And finally, we’ll go through how to work with your financial data so you can make the very best decisions for your business.

Details to be set up before any financial records are created

Payment and legal details

This is a ‘must’ to set up first! All your quotes and invoices will then display the correct legal information, such as your registration number for Limited Companies, and perhaps more importantly, details of how to pay you!

1. In the “Finances” section of Preferences select the first tab “General”.
2. Light Blue has already populated some of the “Customisable Invoice Text” fields with some basic text which you can amend accordingly.
3. And if you intend to offer bank transfer or cheque options for online payments (see below) you can add these details into the “Online Payment Text” field at this point too.

Tax rates

Light Blue is able to handle all sorts of tax requirements from the simple to the complex. They are set up in the “VAT & Sales Tax” tab of the finances section that you’re already in. And of course, if you need to amend these on a record-by-record basis you can do this too.

👉 Read and watch this guide to understand how to set up your tax details.
NB. The video was made prior to the different tabs in the finances section being introduced in the desktop app – simply make sure you are in the “VAT & Sales Tax” tab whilst following the steps.

Price lists

Price lists allow you to set up groups of products and services that you can then add to your quotes or sales in just a few clicks. Whilst you can manually add items into those, having a price list already set up makes things much quicker and easier – and less liable to any mistakes being made by charging the incorrect price!

👉 Read and watch this guide to understand how to set up price lists.

Payment schedules and terms

This is where we set up your default payment terms to apply to all your invoices.
When you first launch Light Blue the default invoice setting is for one payment with immediate terms however, there are lots of different ways you can configure this to suit your business and even different types of shoot.

👉 This guide walks you through changing the default settings to terms of 30 days.
👉 Read and watch this guide to understand more about payment schedules.
👉 This guide is a more in-depth look at payment templates.
👉 And finally, discover to how to send automated payment reminders in this guide.

Online payment options

The advantage of allowing your clients to pay you online makes it much easier for them to pay you meaning you’re likely to be paid more quickly! It also allows you to take full advantage of the online contract signing and booking fee payment process that Light Blue offer. Yes, there’s a transaction fee but many Light Blue customers find the benefits far outweigh the relatively low cost of this.

Light Blue offer online payment through Stripe (the most popular option), Square and Paypal. If you don’t already have an account with one of them, create that and then you’re able to set up online payments on your account. And as always with Light Blue, you have the flexibility to change how your clients pay you on an individual basis.

👉 Read this guide to set up your online payments.

Branding

Light Blue has already created a basic design for your quotes and invoices so this is not an essential step. However, if you do update these defaults your quotes and invoices will be in keeping with your brand giving your clients a much better experience.

1. Create your letterhead as a PDF.
2. In the “Printing” section of Preferences, choose the first tab “Branding”.
3. Then click on “Choose PDF …” to upload it.
4. You can also choose the type of font used by going to the “Fonts & Sizes” tab. Though do make sure the font you choose is installed on all devices that you use Light Blue on. 👉 This guide walks you through the full set up of your brand in Light Blue.

Different financial records available in Light Blue

Quotes

Whether you create a Quote or not very much depends on the nature of your business. And If you don’t need them, the good news is that you can still record a Sale and raise an Invoice without one!

However, if you use them in your business, perhaps because you want your client to have a formal quotation or give them a few choices, they’re very straightforward to create; particularly if you’ve set up your price lists that we talked about in Section I! You can also raise an Invoice directly from them too.

👉 If they’re applicable to your business, this guide takes you through the steps to create quotes.

Sales

The best way to create a Sales record linked to a Shoot is to create it from the Shoot record itself. You can easily add items from different price lists and even add new items that aren’t on a price list. They can also be easily sent to your client ahead of invoicing to make sure all the details are correct.

👉 Find out how to create a Sales record in this help article.
👉 Though if you’ve already created a Quote, find out how to create a Sales record directly from the Quote itself in this help article.
👉 And if you want to discount the Sale in any way, either by a % or fixed amount, this guide explains how to do that.

Invoices

When you know all the details on your Sales record are correct, you can raise an invoice.
NB. Revenue from sales records is not included in any reports until you create an invoice.

👉 This guide explains how to raise an invoice and send it to your client.

If you’ve given your client the option of paying online, any payment they make online will automatically show in your Light Blue Inbox for acceptance. Payment by any other means will however need to be manually recorded.

👉 How to mark an invoice as paid.
👉 And if you need to issue a credit note or refund an invoice either in full or partially, here’s the guide for that.

Purchases

It’s important to record all your purchases if you want to see how profitable your business is. Light Blue has various ways to help you with this, including linking Purchase records to Shoots, flagging Purchases as Capital expenditure, creating Inventory Reports for your insurance and even importing purchases from another app.

👉 This comprehensive guide walks you through all aspects of Purchase records within Light Blue.

Mileage

Light Blue lets you record, report and then claim any business mileage made by you and your team. It can be recorded directly in a shoot, appointment or staff record depending on the reason for travel.

👉 Find out how to record, report and claim mileage in this help article.

Working with your financial data

Analysing your finances

Light Blue has several powerful tools to help you look at your finances;

👉 This article goes through the different Chart options.
👉 Reports are covered in this one.
👉 The Query feature and Quick Queries are explained here.
👉 And using the List View to analyse your data in different ways and create Custom Reports is detailed here.

Exporting your financial information

At some point It’s likely you’ll need to pass the details of your finances onto another individual or business; such as your accountant, or perhaps to populate another app; like Quickbooks or Zero.

👉 Here’s a comprehensive guide how to export your financial information from Light Blue.

Another way to populate the finance app that you’re using is to link it with Light Blue through Zapier; essentially a service that automates this connection process. From a finance perspective, it’s possible to set this up for the invoices you raise and the payments you record within Light Blue.

👉 Here’s an introduction to how Zapier works.
👉 This article helps you get going with setting things up with Zapier.
👉 This article details how to use Zapier to automatically send your Light Blue invoices to Quickbooks..
👉 And this one details how to use Zapier to automatically send your Light Blue invoices to Xero.

Making Tax Digital (MTD)

If your business is not already compliant, come 6th April 2024 any self-employed business with annual business income above £10,000 will need to follow the rules for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.

👉 This article guides you through the different options in relation to Light Blue.

Webinar

An hour’s webinar running through the key points in the article above:

00:00 – Introduction
02:00 – Creating a Sale Record
06:25 – Price Lists: Amending, adding and deleting items and importing existing price lists from a CSV file
08:35 – Creating an Invoice
10:45 – Customising payment and legal details showing on Invoices
12:45 – Adding your branding
15:30 – Marking Invoices as paid either fully or in part
19:25 – Online payments: Setting up in Light Blue’s Client Portal (Stripe and Paypal), publishing Invoices, the client experience and accepting payments in Light Blue
25:10 – Adding discounts to Invoices: Fixed value and/or percentage
27:00 – Tax rates: Editing, default settings and whether tax is included or not in invoices
30:00 – Credit notes
32:55 – Creating a Quote
36:25 – Creating a Sale Record from a Quote either fully or in part
38:50 – Creating a Purchase Record: Standalone or linked to a Shoot Record/s, marking as paid and reviewing the profitability of a Shoot
44:10 – Recording business mileage: From a Shoot, an Appointment or standalone, reporting and claiming
48:55 – Inventory: Adding purchases to your Inventory and reporting
52:30 – Analysis and Reporting: Overview of Charts, Reports, the Query feature and customising the List View
55:35 – Exporting financial information: Full financials and invoices for Quickbooks and Xero

Whilst you may regularly review your finances within Light Blue it’s highly likely that at some point you’ll need to pass the records and data onto another individual or business. This could be to your accountant, or perhaps to populate another app; like Quickbooks or Xero. And certainly with the introduction of Making Tax Digital (MTD), this will become something that you do have to do going forward.

As ever Light Blue gives you different ways of doing things depending on how you run your business and the financial management structure you have in place.

In this guide, we’ll go through the different options which you can pick and choose from depending on your needs – and those of your accountant!

Exporting Financial Records

If you send your financial data to your accountant directly, rather than using a finance app like Quickbooks or Xero, this is a handy way to get all your sales, purchases and payment records exported as individual CSV files in just a few mouse clicks.

• Simply go to “Records” in the main menu bar.
• Choose “Export” followed by “Financial Information” from the drop-down menus.

• Choose the Date Range you’re looking at from the drop-down menu.
• When you click on “OK” you’ll be given the option of where to save the files.

Income and Expenditure Report

This could already be a report that you review regularly in your business however, it’s also a very useful one to give your accountant an overview of your business performance.

• Simply go to “Reports” in the main menu bar.
• Choose “Income and Expenditure” from the drop-down menu.

• Select the Date Range you’re looking at, whether you work on an Accrual (invoices) or Cash (payment) basis and the method of Output. Typically, when it comes to exporting, the “CSV” option would be the one to choose as it gives the recipient the greatest flexibility when they come to using the data. 👉 If you’re not sure about the difference between working on an Accrual or Cash basis, this article fully explains how Light Blue deals with them both.
• When you click on “OK” you’ll be given the option of where to save the file and rename it if required.

Tax Report

If you have to file a VAT return this report itemises the tax charged or paid in a given time period. Though of course, you do have to make sure all your invoices have got the correct taxes applied to them and that you record the net, tax and gross figures for your purchases.
👉 This article covers setting up VAT and sales tax on your invoices.

• To create the Tax Report, simply go to “Reports” in the main menu bar.
• Choose “Tax” from the drop-down menu.

• Select the options you require from the drop-down and tickbox choices available.
• When you click on “OK” you’ll be given the option of where to save the file and rename it if required.

Exporting Invoices

Another scenario might be that whilst you’ve chosen to record your purchases in another app, you’re using Light Blue for your sales and invoicing; allowing you to take full advantage of those records being directly linked to a shoot and Light Blue’s online services such as forms, contracts and payments.
In this case, you don’t want to have to manually create a duplicate invoice so Light Blue allows you to export your existing invoices ready for importing into your other app; Light Blue supports both Quickbooks and Xero.

• Using “Quick Queries” in the “Sales” section (or another query method) create the list of invoices you want to export. In the example below it’s “Sales” from “This Month” that we’re wanting to export.

• Click on “Records” in the main menu bar.
• Choose “Export” followed by “Invoices for Quickbooks/Xero” from the drop-down menus.
• You’ll then be given the option of where to save the file and rename it if required.

Zapier

Another way to populate the finance app that you’re using, is to link it with Light Blue through Zapier; essentially a service that automates this connection process. From a finance perspective, it’s possible to set this up for the invoices you raise and the payments you record within Light Blue.

👉 Here’s an introduction to how Zapier works.
👉 This article helps you get going with setting things up with Zapier.
👉 This article details how to use Zapier to automatically send your Light Blue invoices to Quickbooks..
👉 And this one details how to use Zapier to automatically send your Light Blue invoices to Xero.

When you first launch Light Blue the default invoice setting is for one invoice with immediate terms however, there are lots of different ways you can configure this to suit your business and even different types of shoot within your business.

This article walks you through setting up a simple payment schedule of just the one invoice with terms fo 30 days, with links at the bottom to the more complex options possible within Light Blue.

• Go to the “Preference” pane.
• Click on “Payment Schedules” in the “Business Setup” category.
• Choose the “Immediate Payment” schedule and then “Duplicate Record”.

• Rename the schedule.
• Amend the number of days by clicking on the item showing in the schedule.

• Finally, click on “Finances” in the “Setup & Customisation” category.
• Choose the “Sales Defaults” tab and amend “Payment Schedule For First Invoice” to your newly created 30 days schedule from the drop-down menu.

As with many areas of Light Blue, there is a huge amount of customisation possible with how you set up payment schedules and there are several more detailed guides to help you with this.

👉 Read and watch this guide to understand more about payment schedules.
👉 This guide is a more in-depth look at payment templates.
👉 And finally, discover to how to send automated payment reminders in this guide.

Exporting orders from GotPhoto

To export a set of GotPhoto orders:

1. Go into the “Orders” section of your GotPhoto account.
2. Click on the “Invoices” tab.
3. Click the “Export” button.
4. Choose the dates you want to export orders for, e.g. the previous week’s orders.
5. Select the format you want to export your orders as:
   • If you can, use the CSV export format.
   • However, as of September 2022, GotPhoto’s CSV exports do not handle double-quote characters in product names correctly and this causes problems when importing them into Light Blue. If you are affected by this issue, you should:
     1. Export your GotPhoto orders in XSLX format.
     2. Open the export file in Excel.
     3. Re-save the export file from Excel as a CSV file.

Importing orders into Light Blue

To import a GotPhoto orders CSV file into Light Blue:

1. Go to the “Records” menu, then into the “Import” section, and select “Sales From GotPhoto Orders CSV”.
2. You’ll be asked to select a GotPhoto orders CSV file.
3. Light Blue will read the file you selected, check that it contains the expected data, and then read all of the orders that it contains.
4. A list of the GotPhoto jobs that the orders belong to will be shown. If your Light Blue custom fields include a shoot field called “GotPhoto job ID”, it will use that field to match up the GotPhoto jobs with Light Blue shoots. If you haven’t set up a custom shoot field called “GotPhoto job ID” yet, a red warning will appear: clicking the the warning will set the custom field up for you.
5. For any GotPhoto jobs that you haven’t already linked to a shoot, you can click the “Select Shoot” button to choose which Light Blue shoot you want to associate with it.
6. The import window also includes options to:
   1. Automatically create contact records for any contact details that don’t already exist in your Light Blue database. This is useful for studios that want to work with those contacts again in future.
   2. Automatically invoice the Sale records created by the import.
7. Clicking the “Import Orders” button creates Sale records for all of the orders in the GotPhoto file, links them to the Shoot record identified by the GotPhoto job ID, and (if you selected the option) automatically assigns invoice numbers to them so that they appear in your financial reports.

Quote Records allow you to provide a formal quotation for the services you’re providing to your client or indeed offer them a choice between two or more options. You can then record what they’ve agreed to and you can conveniently raise an invoice from the quote at a later date.

To learn more about how to do this watch the video below; though if you prefer to learn by words and pictures, have a read of the help article instead!

Do you always have to create a Quote Record?

The simple answer is no! Quotes are not appropriate for every business and you can go straight to creating a sale and invoicing your client from that.
👉 If you want to skip creating a quote, this help article explains how to create a sale.
👉 And this one explains how to create an invoice from a sale.

Creating a quote from a Shoot Record

1. The quickest and best way to create a new quote is to head to the “Linked Records” tab in the Shoot Record.
2. Click the green “+” button and choose “New Quote…” from the drop-down menu; a new Quote Record is then created for you containing the details of the first linked Contact Record and is automatically linked to the Shoot Record.

Creating a quote from a Contact Record

1. We’d generally recommend creating a quote from a Shoot Record; in the majority of cases you’ll be sending a quote because there’s a possibility a shoot will be taking place so there should be a Shoot Record in place, even if it’s at the Enquiry status. However if you don’t have a Shoot Record linked to your client you can also create a quote from their Contact Record; simply go to the “Linked Records” tab.
2. Click the green “+” button and choose “New Quote…” from the drop-down menu; a new Quote Record is then created for you containing the details of your client.
3. You can then manually link the Quote Record to the Shoot Record at a later date.

Adding Items

1. Click the green “+” button in the “Items” tab to add an Item to your Quote Record.

2. If you’ve set up Price Lists choose the correct one and add Items by either starting to type the name in the “Name” field or by clicking on the cog to link an Item. 👉 If you’ve not already done so this article explains how to set up Price Lists.

3. If you don’t want to use a Price List or the Item you want to add isn’t in a Price List, simply type the name and price. NB. If needed, you can then add the Item to a Price List by clicking on the cog and selecting “Save as New Product…”.

4. If you need to add other Items, click the “Save add Add Another” button and when you’re finished click the “Done” button.

Adding a Booking Fee

A Booking Fee is an amount of money due to be paid immediately to confirm the booking. They can easily be added to quotes so your client is clear on what is due now and then in the future.
👉 If you want to add a Booking Fee to your Quote Record head over to this help article.

Sending to your client

1. Click on the “Print/Send” button in the main menu bar to either print your Quote Record, save it as a PDF, or email it to your client as a PDF; you can also choose to use one of your Email Templates with this option.

Sending to your client as part of a Contract

You can also add a quote/s to your client’s Contract to confirm the costs of their booking.

1. In the ‘Quotes & Booking Fee’ tab of their Contract, check the quote you’d like your client to agree to. You can select multiple quotes giving your client the option to choose which one they want to go ahead with. NB. Quotes will only appear here if they are linked to the Shoot Record.

Creating an invoice from a Quote Record

👉 This help article takes you through how to create an invoice from a Quote Record.

Optional extras

👉 If you want to add a discount to the Quote Record find out more here.
👉 Setting up VAT and sales taxes.

Sales Records capture the details of the work you’ve carried out for your client and are the first step in the invoice process, i.e. they must be created before you can create an invoice. Sales Records are not included in any financial reporting so are ideal should you need to confirm the details with your client before invoicing them. And of course, using Light Blue for your sales and invoices means your finances, contacts and shoots are all interlinked allowing for comprehensive analysis and reporting.

To learn more about how to do this watch the video below; though if you prefer to learn by words and pictures, have a read of the help article instead!

Creating a sale from a Shoot Record

1. The quickest way to create a new sale is to head to the “Linked Records” tab in the Shoot Record.
2. Click the green “+” button and choose “New Sale…” from the drop-down menu; a new Sale Record is then created and billed to the first linked Contact Record and automatically linked to the Shoot Record.

Adding items

1. Click the green “+” button in the “Items” tab to add an Item to your Sale Record.

2. If you’ve set up Price Lists choose the correct one and add Items by either starting to type the name in the “Name” field or by clicking on the cog to link an Item. 👉 If you’ve not already done so this article explains how to set up Price Lists.

3. If you don’t want to use a Price List or the Item you want to add isn’t in a Price List simply type the name and price. NB. If needed you can then add the Item to a Price List by clicking on the cog and selecting “Save as New Product…”.

4. If you need to add other Items, click the “Save add Add Another” button and when you’re finished click the “Done” button.

Order Confirmation

1. This step is not necessary but if you do need to send the sale to your client to confirm the details before you invoice them, click on the “Print/Send” button in the main menu bar to either print it, save it as a PDF, or email it to your client as a PDF; you can also choose to use one of your Email Templates with this option. And remember to leave the “Create Invoice” box unchecked!

Creating an invoice from a Sale Record

👉 Once you’ve created a Sale Record you need to turn it into an invoice so it is included in your financial reports; find out how here.

Optional Extras

👉 If you want to add a discount to the Sale Record find out more here.
👉 Setting up VAT and sales taxes.

Fixed amount discounts

To add a fixed amount discount to a sale or quote:

1. In the “Items” tab, click the + button to add a new item.
2. In the “Name” field, type a description (e.g. “Discounted session voucher”).
3. Enter the discount as a negative unit price (e.g. “-100” for a £100.00 discount).

Percentage discounts

To add a percentage discount to a sale or quote:

1. Click the “Add Discount” button.
2. In the dialog that opens, enter the percentage discount that you want to give (e.g. 10%) and an optional description (e.g. “Viewing session payment discount”).
3. Click the “Done” button.

Sometimes, you may want to exclude certain items from a percentage discount. You can do that by editing that item, and ticking the ‘exclude from percentage discount’ checkbox.

Applying both types of discount to the same sale or quote

It’s possible to apply both fixed amount and percentage discounts to the same sale or quote. If you do that, Light Blue calculates the total for the sale or quote by following these rules:

1. Percentage discounts are not applied to fixed amount discounts. e.g. if you have an item that represents a £100.00 discount and apply a 10% discount to the whole sale, the fixed amount is still £100.00 (and not £90.00).
2. Fixed amount discounts are deducted from the total after the percentage discount has been applied.

For example, if you have a sale for £1,000.00 and apply both a 10% percentage discount and a £100.00 fixed amount discount, the maths works out as:

1. The 10% percentage discount is applied to the positive items, reducing their total to £900.00.
2. The fixed amount discount of £100.00 is then deducted from that total, giving a final total of £800.00.

The “Paid In Date” / “Deposited Date” field on the payment detail view is there so the you can record when you deposited that payment at the bank (it’s labelled “Deposited Date” if Light Blue is set to use American English, or “Paid In Date” in the rest of the world).

One way of marking your cheque or cash as paid in is to simply put a date in that field. However, it’s possible to mark all the outstanding items as paid in in one go:

1. Use the “Cash/Cheques To Pay In” quick query to select all payments that have their “Method” field set to “Cash”, “Cheque”, or “Check” and have not yet been marked as paid in.
2. Go to the “Records” menu, then into the “Housekeeping” sub-menu, and select “Mark Cheques And Cash As Paid In” (or “Mark Checks And Cash As Deposited” if you’re in the USA).
3. That will put today’s date in the “Paid In Date” field, and will therefore remove those items from the quick query. 

When you create a new quote, its status is set to “Awaiting reply”. This shows that you’ve made the quote but that your client hasn’t confirmed that they’re happy to proceed yet.

When your client has told you which quote they want to accept, change the status of that quote to “Accepted”. There are a two places that you can do that from:

• You can go to the quote and change the “Status” menu to “Accepted”.
• From the shoot’s “Linked Records” panel, you can right-click on the quote and use the “Accept Quote” option.

When you accept a quote, Light Blue will ask you if you want to change the status of any other quotes for the same shoot to “Rejected” to show that your client decided not to choose them.

If you include quotes as part of an online contract, accepting the signed contract will automatically accept your client’s chosen quote and reject the others.

The shoot detail view in Light Blue shows the total of the shoot’s accepted quotes in the “Quoted” figure that’s displayed on the right side of the detail view.

Light Blue’s quoting & invoicing features can manage all your needs, whether you don’t charge any tax on your sales, charge a single tax rate or several, or work with more complex tax packages.

To learn more about how to do this watch the video below; though if you prefer to learn by words and pictures, have a read of the help article instead! NB. The video was made prior to the different tabs in the finances section being introduced in the desktop app – simply make sure you are in the “VAT & Sales Tax” tab whilst following the steps in it.

Creating tax rates and setting the default

You can create as many tax rates and tax packages as you like within Light Blue; they’re all created in the Finances sections of Preferences under the “VAT & Sales Tax” tab. This is where you also set the Default Tax to be applied to your sales and invoices; though of course, you can amend that on a case-by-case basis should you need to.

No tax charged

If you don’t charge tax at all you can set the “Default Tax” to “None” and no tax will be applied to your sales.

Single tax rate

Light Blue already comes pre-populated with a few tax rates; if one of them is applicable choose that as your default.

“Prices Include Tax” checkbox

Ensure you check or uncheck the “Prices Include Tax” checkbox as appropriate.

If it’s checked the prices in your Price List will be the Gross Total and Light Blue will calculate the Net and Tax Totals to show on your invoices.

If it’s unchecked the prices in your Price List will be the Net Total and Light Blue will calculate the tax to be added to your invoices.

Adding a new tax rate

If you need to add another default tax rate simply click on the green “+” button to add one and complete the details. Or you can double-click on an existing one and amend it accordingly; if for example the VAT charged is different to the pre-populated value.

Tax Packages

If you have to apply a combination of different tax rates to your sales (e.g. in the USA it’s common to have to apply both state and local sales taxes), set up each individual tax in the Tax Rates tab and then combine them in the Tax Packages tab by clicking on the green “+” button, naming the package and selecting the combination of the single rate taxes that make up the package.

Changing the default tax applied

In a Sale Record

There may be times when you need to override your default tax rate for a particular sale. This is easily done by choosing the correct tax rate from the drop-down menu in the “Tax” field when you add an item to your Sale Record.

In a Price List

You can also override the default tax rate for any item in any Price List; simply click on it and choose the correct tax rate.

👉 And if you’ve not already set up your Price Lists in Light Blue head on over to this article.

Recording your business mileage in Light Blue is handy whether you’re a sole trader or have staff members. You can either simply record the mileage and then generate a mileage report at the end of the tax year to give to your accountant. Or if you reimburse yourself and your staff members for mileage you can easily generate Purchase Records so you know how much to pay everyone!

To learn more about how to do this watch the video below; though if you prefer to learn by words and pictures, have a read of the help article instead!

Setting the default mileage rate

You can set the default rate in the Finances section of Light Blue’s Preferences under the General tab as well as change from miles to kilometres, or vice versa!

Recording mileage for a Shoot

1. In the Shoot Record, click on the grey arrow to the right of the “Mileage” field.

2. Click on the green “+” button and in the pop-up window complete the details; the date, the member of staff, mileage, rate and any notes.

3. Repeat as necessary; there’s no limit to the mileage records you can add to a Shoot Record.

Recording mileage for an Appointment

1. Double-click on the Appointment and then click on the grey arrow to the right of the “Mileage” field.

2. Click on the green “+” button and in the pop-up window complete the details; the date, the member of staff, mileage, rate and any notes.

Recording other mileage claims

1. For mileage not related to a specific Shoot or Appointment head to the “Resources” section in Preferences.
2. Select the correct member of staff and then click on the grey arrow to the right of the “Mileage” field.

3. Click on the green “+” button and in the pop-up window complete the details; the date, mileage, rate and any notes.
4. Repeat as necessary; there’s no limit to the mileage records you can add to a staff member.

Reporting mileage

1. To generate a mileage report for a particular timeframe, to say pass to your accountant for your tax return, click on “Reports” in the main menu bar followed by “Mileage” from the drop-down menu.

2. Choose the “Date Range” and “Output” and the report will be generated in your chosen format showing mileage and cost split by staff member.

Reimbursing mileage

1. If you reimburse yourself or your staff members for business mileage you can see how much to pay everyone by using the “Unclaimed Mileage” report to review mileage not yet reimbursed and generate Purchase Records; click on “Reports” in the main menu bar followed by “Unclaimed Mileage” from the drop-down menu.

2. Choose the “Output” method and whether you want to create Purchase Records at this stage. NB. There is no date range for this report because it will list all unclaimed mileage no matter how old.

3. If you created Purchase Records you can then use them to see how much to reimburse yourself and your staff members and then record the payments.

Recording mileage in Light Blue’s iOS app

👉 This help article looks at recording mileage in the iOS app.

Invoicing a sale allows you to send the invoice to your client showing you expect to be paid and will include the sale in your financial reporting; essential if you want to get paid for the work you’ve carried out and to keep on top of your finances! And of course, using Light Blue for your sales and invoices means your finances, contacts and shoots are all interlinked allowing for comprehensive analysis and reporting. NB. Un-invoiced sales do not appear in any financial reports.

To learn more about how to do this watch the video below; though if you prefer to learn by words and pictures, have a read of the help article instead!

👉 Remember can only create an invoice from a Sale Record; if you’re not sure how to do that read this help article.
👉 And if you need to check with your client that the details are correct ahead of invoicing, this article explains how to send them an Order Confirmation.

Creating an invoice

1. In the Sale Record, click on the “Create Invoice” button.

2. In the pop-up dialogue box, the “Create Invoice” checkbox will automatically be checked and you can then choose whether to print your Invoice Record, save it as a PDF, email it to your client as a PDF or as a link for online payment; you can also choose to use one of your Email Templates with these last two options. 👉 To learn more about online payments head over to this help article.

Changing an Invoice Record

Occasionally you may need to change an invoiced sale if your client has changed their mind about their order and as long as the Invoice hasn’t been included in any Tax Reports you can make the changes needed.
👉 And if you need to issue credit notes or refunds take a look at this help article.

Other useful articles

👉 An overview of using Light Blue to manage your finances
👉 Using Light Blue Payment Schedules
👉 Creating Light Blue Payment Schedule Templates
👉 Sending automated Payment Reminders

To mark an invoice as paid:

1. Go to the relevant sale.
2. Click the “Add Payment” button. If you’ve set up a payment schedule for this sale, you’ll be asked if you want to mark the next instalment as paid or pay off the whole outstanding amount.
3. The “Payment Details” dialog appears. You can adjust the payment date, amount, and method if necessary and then click the “Add Payment” button.

If you want to view the details of the payments you’ve allocated to a sale, click the arrow button next to the “Paid” total.

Turning a Quote Record into an invoice allows you to request payment for the work your client has already agreed to, and as you don’t have to re-enter all the information into a new Sales Record it allows you to ask for the money due more quickly! And of course, using Light Blue for your quotes, sales and invoices means your finances, contacts and shoots are all interlinked allowing for comprehensive analysis and reporting.

Whilst it’s not necessary to have a quote in place to create an invoice, if you do have one the steps to turn it into an invoice are straightforward.

To learn more about how to do this watch the video below; though if you prefer to learn by words and pictures, have a read of the help article instead!

Creating a sale from a Quote Record

1. The first step is to create a sale, so in the Quote Record, click on the “Create Sale…” button and from the drop-down menu choose one of the options. Which one you choose will depend on a couple of factors; whether you intend to offer your client a payment plan/part payments and whether you work on a cash or accrual basis. 👉 If you’re not sure of the difference between a cash or accrual basis have a look at this help article. Here are a few scenarios to help you decide which option will suit you best:
   • If you’re not offering part payments, whether you work on a cash or accrual basis, we recommend you create a sale for the full amount (whether that’s for the ‘Full Quote’, a ‘Booking Fee’ if that is paid separately, or the ‘Balance’ if the Booking Fee has already been invoiced).
   • If you want to offer part payments and you work on a cash basis (or you’re not concerned about the invoice date if working on an accrual basis), we recommend you create a sale for the full amount (whether that’s for the ‘Full Quote’, a ‘Booking Fee’ if that is paid separately, or the ‘Balance’ if the Booking Fee has already been invoiced) and then apply a Payment Schedule to the sale. 👉 Payment Schedules allow you to break the sale into several smaller payments; for more details take a look at this help article.
   • If you want to offer part payments and work on an accrual basis where the invoice date is important to you we recommend you create a sale for the appropriate amount for the next payment; whether that’s ‘Two-Thirds’, ‘Half’, ‘A Third’ or ‘A different Percentage’ of the Balance.

2. The Sale Record will now be created; if you need to make any changes to the items included go to the “Item” tab and either click on the specific items to amend, click on the green “+” to add any extra items or click on the red “-“ to remove selected items.

3. And if you’re offering part payments for the sale, click on the “Payments” tab to check/amend the Payment Schedule as needed.

Creating an invoice from a Sale Record

1. Once you’re happy everything is correct, click the “Create Invoice” button.

2. In the pop-up dialogue box, the “Create Invoice” checkbox will automatically be checked and you can then choose whether to print your Invoice, save it as a PDF, email it to your client as a PDF or as a link for online payment; you can also choose to use one of your Email Templates with these last two options. 👉 To learn more about online payments head over to this help article.

Changing an Invoice Record

Occasionally you may need to change an invoiced sale if your client has changed their mind about their order and as long as the invoice hasn’t been included in any Tax Reports you can make the changes needed.
👉 And if you need to issue credit notes or refunds take a look at this help article.