Take the money in stagesNew
A deposit, then materials, then the balance — each one its own invoice, always adding up to the quote.
Written 8 October 2026 · updated 13 October 2026
What is said in this recording
A big job rarely gets paid in one go. Set the stages on the quote and raise each invoice when you get there — and the last one is always whatever is left, so what the customer pays adds up to what they were quoted, to the penny.
Step by step
- 1
Set it while you build the quote: under To secure the booking, choose Split the payment into stages.
Or set it afterwards on the quote itself, in the Payment stages card — both write the same schedule.
- 2
You get a deposit and a balance to start with. Add more in between if you need them.
- 3
Name each stage and give it a percentage, or a fixed amount.
“Deposit 20%”, “Materials £2,000”, “Second fix 25%”. The money each one is worth shows beside it as you type.
- 4
Save the schedule.
Nothing is invoiced yet — this is the plan, not the billing.
- 5
Raise each invoice when you reach that stage.
One button, in order. It becomes a normal invoice: send it, take a card payment on it, chase it, push it to your accounts.
Worth knowing
The last stage is the balance, never a percentage
20% + 40% + 40% of £999.99 rounds up to £1,000.00 — a penny more than the job. On a £12,000 bathroom with five stages it is worse. So the final stage is whatever is left: the invoices always add up to the quote exactly, and a customer adding them up never finds a difference to ring about.
You do not need card payments switched on
Each stage goes out as an ordinary invoice, paid however you normally get paid — bank transfer, card machine, cash. Splitting the payment is the one choice in that dropdown that works with no online payments set up at all.
A deposit is stage one, not a separate thing
A quote with a deposit and no stages already is a two-stage schedule — deposit, then balance. Staging it just makes the steps in between explicit. Two different answers to “what is due up front” is how a customer gets asked for a deposit twice.
An invoiced stage is fixed
Once a stage has gone out, that stage cannot be renamed, removed or re-priced — the customer is holding the invoice. Change the quote afterwards and the BALANCE absorbs the difference, which is what a balance is for. Everything not yet invoiced can still be moved.
Stages go out in order
Raising stage three before stage two leaves a gap nobody notices until the end of the job, and the balance is then worked out against money nobody was ever asked for.
Not for CIS work
A CIS deduction comes off LABOUR only and is worked out from the lines on the invoice. A stage is a share of the whole job and carries no labour-and-materials split, so the deduction cannot be worked out from it — any figure would be a guess at your tax. TaskMyJob says so rather than raising one: invoice that job in full, or raise each stage as its own invoice with the labour and materials on it.