Docs

Invoicing a sponsor, and recording one who already paid

Send a sponsor an invoice for their level from the show, get paid through your own account or by check, and have them land on your sponsors list the moment the money does. A sponsor who paid before you had the site gets booked in about a minute.

Updated September 3, 2026

A sponsorship deal usually ends the same way: somebody says yes on the phone, and then the treasurer spends three weeks getting a check out of them. The invoice sat in a personal email account, nobody knows whether it was sent, and the logo goes on the cards on faith. Sponsor invoices moves that whole loop onto the show, where the invoice, the payment and the sponsor’s place on the page are one record.

How it works

You write an invoice for a sponsor: who they are, which level, what it costs, and any discount you gave with a reason for it. The invoice is emailed from your club’s name with a Pay button, or with instructions for a check. The moment it’s paid, the sponsor is added to your sponsors list with the tier badge, the request they sent from your public page is marked handled, they get a receipt that asks for their logo, and you get a note saying the money landed. Add the logo when it shows up. Everything else already happened.

The Sponsor invoices page: a paid invoice and a recorded one in the list, and the New invoice form beside them — Sponsor invoices, one click from the Sponsors page. The list shows what was billed, what was paid, and whether the sponsor is on your list yet.

Sending the invoice

Manage, Sponsors, then the Invoices button. There are three ways into the form, and they all end at the same place.

From a request. Every sponsorship request on the Sponsors page has a Send invoice button. It fills in the company, the contact, their email and phone, and the level they asked for. Check the price and send.
From a sponsor already on your list. Open the sponsor’s row and press Send an invoice. Next year’s Gold renewal takes as long as it takes to read the form.
From scratch. Type the company and an email address, pick a level or type a price, and send.

Picking a level fills in its price and what it includes, copied from the tier at that moment. Rename or reprice Gold next season and the invoices you already sent still say what they said. Send invoice emails it now; Save draft keeps it on the page until you’re ready. Invoices are numbered for your organization, SP-0001 and up, in their own series so they never collide with group entry invoices.

The price and the discount

The form has a price, a discount, and a reason for the discount. The reason is required whenever there’s a discount, and we mean that as a kindness to your future self: “Gold, $400” on a bank statement means nothing in March, and “$500 less $100, returning sponsor” means everything. The invoice shows all three lines and the amount due, so the sponsor’s bookkeeper sees the deal you made instead of a number that disagrees with the tier list on your public page. A discount can take the price all the way to zero, which is how you invoice a trade (the sign shop that prints your banners in exchange for Silver) and still have it on the books.

An email with the invoice number, the level, what it includes, the price, the discount and why, the amount due, and a button. The button opens a page on your show’s site with the same details and Pay. They finish on your payment provider’s own checkout, the same page your entrants pay on. If the invoice offers a check instead, the page shows your instructions for where to send it. Once paid, the same page becomes their receipt, with a note asking them to reply with their logo and the address it should link to.

The sponsor's invoice page on a phone: the level, the price, the discount with its reason, the amount due and a Pay button — The sponsor’s page. The discount and its reason print right above the amount due.

When the money lands

The moment the payment settles, four things happen on their own:

The sponsor goes on your sponsors list with the tier badge. If a sponsor by that name is already there, that row is used and badged; nothing is duplicated.
The request they sent from your public page, if there was one, is marked handled.
The sponsor gets a receipt asking for their logo.
Your sponsorship inbox gets a note saying who paid and how much.

The Sponsors page is where you add the logo, the website link, and decide whether they go on the windshield cards. Those never happen on their own; a logo pasted from an email into a JPG is a judgement call we’d rather leave to you.

Paying by check

Plenty of sponsors pay by company check. Tick off online payment when you create the invoice and write where the check should go; the invoice carries those instructions instead of a Pay button. When it arrives, open the invoice on the Invoices page and record the payment with the check number. The sponsor lands on your list the same way. If no payment account is connected to your show, this is the only kind of invoice you can send, and the form says so.

Already paid? Record it

Most shows come to the site with sponsors who paid weeks ago, by check, in cash at a meeting, or over Venmo. You don’t invoice those. Below the New invoice form is a second card, Already paid? Record it. Pick the level, the amount and any discount, say how they paid and when, and press Record as paid. Nothing is emailed to anyone. The sponsorship is booked as paid, the sponsor goes on your list, and your paid total is right. The list badges these “Paid, recorded” so you can tell them from invoices a sponsor paid online. Each sponsor row on the Sponsors page has a Record a payment link that opens this card with their name filled in.

An email address is optional here. If you have one, the sponsor can be sent the receipt link later; if you don’t, the record stands on its own.

Your 501(c)(3) letter

If your organization is a nonprofit, put the IRS determination letter on file once, under Settings, Nonprofit status, along with your legal name as it reads on the letter and your EIN. Every sponsor invoice and receipt (and every group entries invoice) then carries a Tax status line with the name, the EIN and a link to the letter. Whether a sponsorship is deductible is a question for the sponsor’s accountant; the letter just saves them writing to ask you for it, which they will, in April, when you’ve forgotten where you put it.

What it does not do

It does not hold the money. Card payments go to your own connected account, and Car Show HQ is never in the middle of them.
It doesn’t do accounting: no tax lines, no payment terms, no partial payments. The amount on the invoice is what gets paid.
It doesn’t refund. Sponsorship payments are not refundable and the invoice says so before anyone pays. An unpaid invoice can be voided; a paid one stands.
It doesn’t add the logo. That’s still you, on the Sponsors page, once it arrives.
It doesn’t sell out a level. Tiers have no quantity.

Next, record the sponsors who’ve already paid this year, so the Invoices page tells the truth before the first new invoice goes out.

Keep reading

Sponsor invoices, answered

Does the sponsor need an account?

No. The invoice email has a link to a page on your show's site with the amount and a Pay button. They finish on your payment provider's checkout, or mail a check if that is how you set the invoice up. Nothing to sign up for.

What if I gave them a deal?

Type the discount and a few words on why (returning sponsor, two shows, board vote). The invoice shows the level's price, the discount with your reason, and the amount due, so their bookkeeper sees the deal you made rather than a number that does not match the tier list.

Some of our sponsors paid months ago. Do I invoice them?

No. Use Already paid? Record it on the Invoices page. Pick the level, the amount, how they paid and when, and the sponsorship is booked as paid without anyone getting an email. They go on your sponsors list the same way an invoiced sponsor does.

Can a sponsor deduct it?

That is between the sponsor and their accountant. What you can do is put your IRS determination letter on file under Settings, Nonprofit status. Every invoice and receipt then carries your legal name, your EIN and a link to the letter, so nobody has to write and ask for it.

Where does the money go?

Card payments land in the Square, Stripe or PayPal account your organization connected for entry fees. Car Show HQ never holds it. A check goes wherever your instructions on the invoice say.

Invoice your first sponsor

Sponsor invoices are on every show, at no charge.

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