Invoicing: send timesheets to Xero and pay your artists
30 sec
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How a UK agency sends finished timesheets to Xero or QuickBooks and pays its artists
Your invoices live in Xero or QuickBooks. RosterDeck turns an approved timesheet into documents that belong there, a sales invoice for the production and a bill for every artist, then read back what has actually been paid so nobody is paid out of money that has not arrived. This walkthrough follows one shoot date with four artists, from a finalised timesheet through to both the production invoice and the artists settled.
Step-by-step walkthrough: what happens in this demo
Every action in this walkthrough corresponds directly to RosterDeck’s live production features. Click any timestamp to jump to that moment.
Step 1
Start from a finalised timesheet
Finalised shoot dates queue up under Send to Xero / QuickBooks, ready to go across as invoices and artist bills.
A shoot date only appears here once chits are approved and the timesheet has locked, which is what freezes the money on it. Tick the dates you are billing. Opening one shows the three figures worth checking before anything moves: what the production is billed at the gross, what the artists are owed after commission, and your commission, with the sales invoice and every artist bill itemised underneath. Amounts exclude VAT, so a rated invoice totals more in Xero.
Key takeaway: Nothing can be billed until a timesheet is complete, so the figures you send are the figures agreed.
Step 2
One send creates the invoice and every artist bill
A draft sales invoice for the production, and a draft bill for each artist, created in your accounting software.
Sending pushes the date across to Xero or QuickBooks: a draft sales invoice for the production company, and a draft bill for each artist at gross minus your agency commission. This date has four artists, so five documents go across, counted off as they are created. Artist bills carry the bank details the artists entered themselves in their own profiles. Everything arrives as a draft, nothing is approved, sent or paid until you do it, and a send that runs out of time carries on from where it stopped.
Key takeaway: Money in and money out land together in the books you already keep, with no timesheet retyped into anything.
Step 3
Check what the production has paid
RosterDeck reads paid invoices back from Xero or QuickBooks once a day, or the moment you check.
You approve the drafts and email the invoice from your accounting software, exactly as you would any other, so it takes the next number in your own series and carries your company details, VAT number and bank details from there. When the production pays and the invoice is reconciled, RosterDeck reads that back. The check in Pay artists asks your accounting software what has actually been paid and records the answer: it decides nothing itself, and it can be run on demand rather than waiting for the daily sweep. An invoice paid in full settles its shoot date, and the artists on that date become ready to pay.
Key takeaway: Artists become payable only once the invoice covering their date is paid in full, so money out is always money already in.
Step 4
Pay the artists and close the date
Pay from the bills already waiting in Xero, or with a bank file for your own online banking.
Pay artists lists everyone on a settled date with the net from their own chit, commission already deducted. Paying in Xero opens those bills over there, where Xero pays from your own bank, marks the bills paid and reconciles them with nothing to upload. The other route is a bank file you download and upload to your own online banking, which is the way for an agency on QuickBooks because it holds no UK bank details. Check the account details before you pay: artists enter their own, and neither RosterDeck nor Xero checks that an account belongs to the person named, so your bank’s payee check when you authorise is the one that catches a mistake. One more check records who has been paid, and the date leaves Pay artists for your pay run history.
Key takeaway: RosterDeck moves no money. It works out who is owed what, and your bank or your accounting software makes the payment.
Platform rules & operational safeguards
Built specifically around UK film, television, and commercial casting standards.
Locked timesheets
Approved chits first
A shoot date reaches Send to Xero / QuickBooks only once chits are approved and the timesheet has locked, which is what freezes the money on it.
Xero & QuickBooks
Two-sided accounting sync
One send creates a draft sales invoice for the production and a draft bill for every artist, so what you are owed and what you owe arrive together in your own books.
Cash-flow safety
Paid means paid in full
Artists become payable only when the invoice covering their date comes back paid in full. RosterDeck records what your accounting software says has been paid, and never decides it.
Net artist pay
Commission taken off once
Each artist bill is the gross from their own chit minus your agency commission, so what the artist is paid and what you keep are worked out in one place and agree with the invoice.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about how this workflow operates in RosterDeck.
No. Invoices are raised in your own Xero or QuickBooks, which is where your company name, address, logo, VAT number, invoice numbering and the bank details productions pay into already live. RosterDeck creates the draft sales invoice and the artist bills from the finalised timesheet; you approve them and email the invoice from your accounting software.
One draft sales invoice per shoot date for the production company at the gross, and one draft bill per artist per job at gross minus your commission. Nothing arrives approved, sent or paid. VAT is not set on artist bills, so nothing is assumed about whether an individual artist is VAT registered or how you treat your commission; sales invoices carry the default rate you set.
Only once the invoice covering their shoot date comes back paid in full. RosterDeck reads paid invoices and bills from your accounting software once a day, or straight away when you run the check in Pay artists, so an agency never pays artists out of money it has not received.
Either from the bills already waiting in Xero, which pays from your own bank, marks the bills paid and reconciles them with nothing to upload, or with a bank file you download and upload to your own online banking. QuickBooks holds no UK bank details, so there the bank file is the route.
Artists enter their own account name, sort code and account number in their profile. Those details go onto the artist’s contact in Xero when their bill is created. Neither RosterDeck nor Xero checks that an account belongs to the person named, so your bank’s own payee check when you authorise the payment is the one that matters.
No. RosterDeck never holds, transmits or takes payment. It works out who is owed what and produces the documents and the payment file; the money itself moves through your own accounting software or your own business bank account, authorised by you.
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