A design studio in Canterbury: wages before the final invoices are paid

Deposits in, the balance on completion

The studio designs brands and builds websites. A client commissions the work, the studio designs and builds it, and the job ends with the finished brand or site handed over.

Most jobs are billed as a deposit and a balance. The bigger share is paid as a deposit before the work starts, and the rest is invoiced once the job is complete, on short terms.

The deposit carries a job while it’s being designed. The final invoice is where the waiting happens.

Finished work, wages due

A design studio’s costs are mostly people. The designers are paid on the same days whether or not a client has settled the final invoice.

At the start of the year the gap opened up. Finished jobs had been invoiced, the balances were still to come in, and payday was getting closer.

When they signed up in January 2025, the owner told the FundTap team a good deal of invoiced work was still waiting to be paid. The owner explained the team’s wages were due in the meantime.

Funding the invoice that was waiting

Their broker introduced them to FundTap. They signed up in January 2025 and funded their first invoice that month.

The studio chooses which invoice to fund and sees the fee before it commits, with no ongoing fees in between. The client settles the invoice with the studio on the studio’s own terms.

Paying the designers on time

That first funded invoice turned finished work into the team’s wages, without waiting on the client to pay the balance. The studio kept its people paid and its clients on the terms they’d agreed.

Since then the studio has funded 14 invoices in all: one in 2025, then 13 in 2026 to September. February 2026 was the busiest month, with four invoices funded. Their funding limit has been raised five times since December 2025, three of them in August 2026.

The timeline

1. January 2025 Introduced by their broker and signed up, with finished work invoiced and wages due.
2. January 2025 Funded their first invoice, and the team was paid while the balances came in.
3. December 2025 Funding limit raised for the first time.
4. February 2026 The busiest month so far, with four invoices funded.
5. August 2026 Funding limit raised three times in the one month.
6. September 2026 Funded two more invoices, the most recent in the records.

In numbers

• 7 days: the studio’s payment terms on an invoice
• 14 invoices funded since January 2025
• 5 increases to their funding limit since December 2025
• 4 invoices funded in February 2026, the busiest month

Sound like your business?

The deposit got the job started and the final invoice is out, waiting. Fund that one when the wages come first, and pay nothing the rest of the time.

Fund a specific invoice when the timing doesn’t work. Pay nothing when it does.

Invoice finance for professional services  •  All case studies