I don't lose the job on the flight. I lose it in the two weeks after the files go out, when the invoice is a PDF in someone's AP inbox and nobody has a link they can actually pay.
I've been flying commercially for eight years out of Springdale, Arkansas, for Drones Inbound. Most of the paid work is mapping. The quote can be tight. The e-sign can be clean. If the money still has to travel through a Word doc, a Venmo handle, and a phone call for the routing number, I am not running invoicing. I am chasing it.
That is what drone invoicing software is for. Take the signed quote. Turn it into an invoice. Put a deposit on it when I need one. Send a Stripe pay link. The funds go to my bank. No broker in the middle of the job.
A yes is not a payment
A superintendent can sign and still leave me unpaid. Accounting has not seen it. The GC wants a PO. The owner wants to pay by ACH because the card limit is too small. If those people get a PDF with no pay path, the check is late.
I used to send the quote from one place and the invoice from another. QuickBooks. A template. A "pay me here" line at the bottom of an email. Then I waited. Then I followed up. Then I asked if they needed the W-9 again.
The flight was done. The map was in. The money was a second project.
I got tired of that. The invoice should come from the same page they already signed. The pay link should be on it. They should not need a Pilot Ledger account to send the money.
Convert the quote. Don't retype the job.
If I have to rebuild the line items from memory, I will miss one. The GSD. The extra tract. The second mobilization. Accounting will pay the number they see. If that number is wrong, I eat it or I start a fight.
On a mapping job the quote already has the scope. I wrote about that in per-acre drone quoting software. The invoice should carry the same client, the same lines, and the same total. When the client accepts, Pilot Ledger can create the invoice from that quote. I am not opening a blank form and hoping I remember the acreage.
If online payment was on the quote, they can go from signature to pay without waiting on me to draft a second document. That is the whole point. The yes and the money live in one workflow.
I still send a PDF if AP wants a file. The file is a copy. The pay path is the link.
Put a deposit flag on it when you need money before you drive
A signed quote with no money is a maybe with better stationery.
I require a deposit on mapping work with a first-time client. Fifty percent is normal. A flat amount works better on a large acreage job, so they aren't sending half of a five-figure total before they've seen a sample. Repeat clients can be Net 15 on the balance after delivery. I still want something booked before I roll the truck.
Pilot Ledger has a deposit flag on invoices. Check it, set a percent or a flat dollar, and the pay page bills that amount instead of the full total. The rest stays outstanding. That is the control. I am not going to invent a milestone wizard that isn't there.
Write the cancel rule after mobilization in your terms. Write when the balance is due. Then send the deposit from the same branded invoice they already have.
Connect Stripe so the money hits your bank
This is the part brokers pretend to solve by taking a cut of the job.
Pilot Ledger uses Stripe Connect. Settings, Payment Processing, Connect with Stripe. You verify who you are, you add the business, you add the bank. When it is done, status shows Connected. The walkthrough is the Help Center section "Setting Up Stripe Connect for Payments" on the Pilot Ledger help page.
Clients pay by card or ACH. The funds go to your connected bank account, not to a marketplace that pays you later minus a commission.
You can still invoice without Stripe. Quotes, invoices, and recorded checks or wires work. You just will not get an online pay link until Connect is on. If you want the client to pay from their phone, connect it before you send the first real invoice.
Send a pay link, not a speech
Every invoice gets a unique payment link in the form /pay/{token}. That is the URL. They open it from the invoice email, from the PDF, or from a link you paste. No client login. No "create an account to pay this invoice."
The page shows your company, the invoice number, and the amount. Card and ACH if you enabled them. If this invoice is a deposit, they see a deposit payment for that amount, not the full job.
If the link is dead, it is usually Stripe not connected, or the invoice does not have card or ACH turned on. Fix that on the invoice. Resend. Do not walk them through a new portal.
I used to explain routing numbers over the phone from a job site. I don't miss that.
Zero commissions is not zero fees
Read this twice if you came here from a "zero commissions" headline.
Zero commissions means nobody takes a broker cut of the work. The client hired you. You billed them. Pilot Ledger is not a middleman on the job.
It does not mean card processing is free.
Stripe charges its own processing fees. Pilot Ledger documents those as 2.9% plus 30 cents for cards and 0.8% for ACH, plus a platform fee of 0.5% on cards and 0.7% on ACH. Those numbers are in Help. They come out of the payment. A check, a wire, or cash that you record by hand has no platform fee.
A broker taking 20% of a mapping job is a different animal. Mixing those two sentences is how you lie to a pilot. I would rather a GC pay the card fee than send me to a network that owns the client.
If a client wants to avoid the card cost, ACH is on the same pay page. If they want to mail a check, I still record it. The software does not force Stripe. It just stops me from pretending Venmo is invoicing.
What I will not promise
I will not promise that Stripe's rates never move. I am quoting what Pilot Ledger documents today. Look at Help and your Stripe dashboard before you bid a fee into a job.
I am not going to describe a milestone wizard, a client login to pay, or an escrow toggle I cannot point to in Help. Deposit flag. Pay link. Cards. ACH. Bank payout. That is the money path.
Invoicing software does not replace a relationship. A PM who has been burned will still call. I would rather that call be about the site than about where to send the money.
What paid looks like
The client already signed the quote. The invoice is the same job, not a blank page. If I needed a deposit, the flag is on and they pay that amount from /pay/{token}. Card or ACH. The funds go to my bank through Stripe Connect. I am not waiting on a marketplace. I am not cutting a broker a check for introducing me to my own client.
That is the stack I wanted when I was still pasting totals into a template after the flight.
Start at Pilot Ledger. Connect Stripe from Help. Send the invoice with the pay link on it. Then go fly the next site.