Photography software that works out what each job kept

The income is obvious, the cost is scattered

A full-day wedding at 1,800,000, a corporate half-day at 700,000, passport photos ticking over in the studio all week. The income side is easy to feel and easy to remember.

The cost side is neither. The second shooter is paid on the day, in cash. Fuel to a venue in Mukono and a shoot in Kololo both get called transport. The album goes to the printer three weeks later, out of a different month's money. And the body you bought in January belongs to every job you will shoot for four years.

So a photographer can be busy, be paid, and still not know whether weddings or corporate work is carrying the business. PesaScope records income against the client and costs against a category, which answers that.

How a job runs through the book

1. Add the client and take the booking depositThe deposit sits on their profile as a deposit balance, not as earnings. When the final bill is raised it is applied first and only the remainder is collected.
2. Record the shoot's costs on the daySecond shooter, fuel, parking, meals on a long shoot, a memory card bought in a hurry. Each an expense with a date, a category and a photo of the receipt.
3. Bill the balance on deliveryRecord the sale when the work is handed over. If the client takes the files and pays later, record it as credit and the balance sits in Debtors.
4. Read the month by categoryThe report shows where the money went. What you paid second shooters across a wedding season is usually the figure that surprises people most.

The list a photography business sets up

Pick "Photography & video" at sign-up and this list is already there, and every line can still be priced per client.

Albums and prints are the only physical items. The rest are services priced per job, so the price can move without changing the line.

A month with a lens in it

Take the lens out and the shooting itself kept 3,470,000 — a strong month. The lens is real money that left the account, but it buys four years of work, not one month of it.

No shoot calendar, and gear is not depreciated

Two things to be clear about. PesaScope has no booking calendar — no diary of shoot dates, no availability, nothing that stops you taking two weddings on the same Saturday. It has no client gallery or proofing either; delivery stays wherever you do it now.

And it does not depreciate equipment. A 2,300,000 lens is an expense on the day you paid, in full, in that month. An accountant would spread it across the years you use it; PesaScope shows the cash as it left. That is the more honest figure for a cash business, but one heavy month is not a bad month.

Put gear in its own expense category and you can read the month both ways: everything including the lens, and the shooting on its own.

Where a photography business leaks money

1. The balance that waits on the editDeposits are paid happily. Balances are due on delivery, and delivery keeps moving while you edit. The aging report shows how old each one has become.
2. The second shooter costs more than he feels like150,000 a day next to a 1,800,000 wedding feels like nothing. Across a season it is often the largest cost after equipment.
3. Extra albums and reprints given freeA second album for the mother-in-law costs the printer exactly what the first one cost. Never recorded, that job's profit is wrong by the whole amount.
4. Every venue priced as if it were in townA Mukono wedding and a Kololo wedding are not the same job. Recording fuel per shoot is what tells you to charge for distance.

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