How billing works

Charge → Invoice → Payment → Balance. Charges, invoices, and payments all live on an account, the payer behind a student. Each one is recorded as a transaction; see Understand your transactions for the full record and what each kind is.

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Charges

A charge sits on the account until it’s billed and paid. A charge’s amount is fixed when it’s created: changing a rate or a recurring fee later only affects future charges. See Run a lesson. You can also charge for an event that isn’t a lesson, like a paid gig. That money is tracked as studio income (Other Income), separate from any student’s account. See Create an event.

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Invoices

An invoice collects one or more of an account’s charges into a single bill. It starts as a draft you can edit; sending it fixes the charge list and the recipients. Payment settles it. Send an invoice. Harness can build invoices itself: each account bills on a cycle (daily, weekly, or monthly), and at each close its uninvoiced charges collect into one invoice, drafted for review or sent outright. See Automated billing.

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Payments

Harness allocates each payment and updates the account’s balance. See Record a payment.

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Balance and credit

Credit is separate from balance. It isn’t money the account paid; it deducts from the next invoice. See Credits.

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Automatic vs manual