# The payments log

> From FilmScorecard Help: https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/payments-log

**Payments**, the last tab of a season's **Payouts** screen, is the season's
transaction log: **one row per payment**, newest first, whoever logged it and
whichever judge it was for. Where the [Ledger](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md) answers
"what do I still owe Odette", this answers "what have we actually paid out this
season, when, by whom, and against what".

It is a **reading screen**. Nothing new is written here — a payment is logged on
the Ledger, where a judge is chosen first — and the one thing you can do from a
row is **void** it. Every payment stays on this list for good, corrected rather
than rewritten.

## Finding the screen

**Payouts** sits in the season block of the left navigation, between Awards and
Settings, and opens on the Ledger — or on **Invoices** while any invoice a
judge sent is waiting on you. **Payments** is the last of its three tabs,
**Ledger · Invoices · Payments**:

```
/org/<organization>/<festival>/<season>/payouts?tab=payments
```

The three tabs are one page, so switching to this one is instant and nothing
reloads. The older address, `…/payouts/payments`, still works and opens this
tab.

The section is there only for the people allowed to see it — see
[Who can see it](#who-can-see-it). The tabs themselves carry no counts: the
amber number beside **Payouts** in the navigation counts the invoices waiting
on you — see [Judge invoices](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/invoices.md).

**A payment logged with Mark paid — on an invoice, or on its line under the
Ledger's Invoices to pay — or with the Ledger's Pays INV-… switch on, is an
ordinary row here** — nothing on this list marks which invoice it paid.

## Who can see it

**Opening either tab takes the *View revenue and payouts* permission**, and the
whole **Payouts** row is absent from the navigation without it — not greyed, and
with no explanation anywhere. Typing the address sends you back to the season
instead, as it does for every Payouts tab.

- **Festival admins have it by default. Coordinators, programmers and viewers do
  not.** Organization owners and org admins always do.
- **A per-person tick box moves it either way**, on
  [Festival access](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-access.md#what-the-capabilities-do-today).

**Voiding a payment takes something more**: being somebody who can change the
season. A read-only viewer given *View revenue and payouts* — a board member, an
accountant — reads the whole log, opens every receipt, and finds no **Void**
button on any row.

## The columns

| Column | What it holds |
| --- | --- |
| **Date paid** | The date you recorded the payment as having been made — `Aug 10, 2026`. Not the date it was logged. |
| **Judge** | Who was paid, named the way the [Ledger](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md) names them — in practice usually an email address. An em dash if the record cannot be named. |
| **Amount** | What was paid, in dollars. The one right-aligned column. |
| **Method** | Bank transfer, Check, PayPal or Venmo, or Cash. |
| **Reference** | Whatever was typed when the payment was logged — a transfer reference, a check number, a transaction ID. An em dash when none was given; it is optional on every method. |
| **Covers** | **All**, or **3 scorecards**. See [What "Covers" means](#what-covers-means). |
| **Logged by** | The person who recorded it. An em dash if that account has since been deleted. On a voided row, this cell also carries who voided it and why. |
| **Receipt** | **View receipt** when a file was attached, and an em dash when none was. See [Receipts](#receipts). |

The last column has no heading: it holds the **Void** button, and only on rows
you are allowed to void.

**The table scrolls sideways rather than restacking.** When the card is narrower
than the table it slides under a heading row pinned to the top, with **Date paid
and Judge pinned to the left** so you can always tell whose payment you are
reading. The rows stay rows at every width. The scroll region is also a tab
stop, so it can be scrolled with the keyboard by anyone who only wants to read
the far columns rather than press anything in them.

**Nobody who volunteers should be on this list.** The Ledger offers no
**Log a payment** on a volunteer's row, so a payment against one can only have
been made before their terms were what they are now, or by a route this screen
does not have. If you find one, it is still money that moved and the log is
right to show it.

### What "Covers" means

When a payment was logged, it was recorded either against **all outstanding** or
against a **picked set of scorecards**. This column reports that choice:

- **All** — no particular scorecards were named.
- **3 scorecards** — that many were ticked when the payment was logged.

**It is a note of intent, not arithmetic.** What a judge is owed is always their
approved pay minus their payments, never worked out from which scorecards a
payment named. To see *which* films a payment covered, open that judge's
breakdown on the [Ledger](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md#the-pay-breakdown).

## The summary line

Above the table, one line describing **the rows currently in front of you**:

> 12 payments · $4,180.00

**It follows your search and your filters.** Narrow the list and both numbers
narrow with it — this is a summary of the list, not of the season. **The
season's figures live on the [Ledger](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md#the-three-figures)**,
on the three cards at the top of it, and are the only figures that claim to be
season-wide.

**Voided payments are counted in the number and left out of the total**, with an
amber note beside it saying so — "2 voided, excluded from the total". A voided
payment is money that came back, so it is not money that went out; counting the
row keeps the line honest about how many rows you are looking at.

## Searching and filtering

The toolbar above the table:

- **Search** is headed "Search judge or reference" and matches exactly those two
  things — **not the amount, and not the internal note**. It filters as you type,
  with no delay and no Search button, because the whole log is already on
  screen. The ✕ inside the box clears it.
- **Method** — Bank transfer, Check, PayPal or Venmo, Cash, each with a count.
- **Status** — **Active** and **Voided**, each with a count.
- **Clear filters** appears as soon as anything is set.

**Every option is always listed, including the ones at zero.** Both lists are
fixed vocabularies, so "nothing was paid by check" never looks like "no Method
filter".

A payment matches if it is one of the methods ticked **and** one of the statuses
ticked; ticking nothing in a filter means that filter is not narrowing anything.

**The counts beside the options never move as you tick boxes.** They are
measured across every payment in the season, so they tell you what turning a
filter on would find rather than measuring your own filter back at you.

**None of this is kept.** The search and both filters are working state: they
reset when you reload, they are not in the address, and a link you send a
colleague opens the whole log.

On a narrow window the two filters collapse behind a single **Filters** button
carrying a count of what is set.

## Voided payments

**A logged payment is never edited and never deleted**, and voided ones stay on
this list by default — a payments log that could be tidied up is not a record.

A voided row:

- is drawn quieter than the rest, with **the amount, the method and the
  reference struck through** — the three things the payment claimed;
- keeps its **date, judge and Covers** in plain text, because those are still
  true;
- carries an amber line under **Logged by** — "Voided by Ada Chen — logged
  against the wrong judge" — naming who voided it and the reason they gave;
- **keeps its receipt link working**, which is the point: the receipt is the
  evidence of what was claimed, and the moment it matters most is when the row
  has been voided;
- offers no **Void** button, having been voided already.

To read the log without them, tick **Active** under Status.

### Voiding from this screen

**Void**, at the end of a row, opens the same confirmation the Ledger uses:

> **Void the $250.00 payment?**
>
> The payment stops counting toward Paid and comes back into Outstanding. The
> record stays, struck through, with your name and this reason — and its receipt
> stays attached. A void cannot be undone; log a new payment instead.

1. Write a **reason**. It is required, it is shown on the row afterwards, and it
   is never shown to the judge.
2. Press **Void payment**.

The dialog names **the amount, not the judge**, so check the row you are on
before you confirm — two judges can have been paid the same figure on the same
day.

On success the dialog closes, "Payment voided." appears briefly, and the row
re-draws struck through where it stands. The [Ledger](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md)'s
figures move at the same time: that judge's Paid falls and their Outstanding
rises. **If the payment paid an invoice, that invoice goes back to Accepted**,
waiting to be paid again — see [Judge invoices](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/invoices.md#voiding-the-payment).

If somebody voided the same payment a moment before you, the dialog stays open
and says "This payment is already voided." Nothing is voided twice.

**On the judge's own statement the payment simply vanishes** and their balance
goes back up — see
[The pay statement](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md#the-pay-statement). On their
**Earnings** screen's Payments tab, though, the voided payment stays listed,
struck through with the date it was voided — **your reason is never shown to
them**. Voiding a payment a judge may already have seen is still worth a
message to them.

## Receipts

**View receipt** opens the file that was attached when the payment was logged —
a PNG, a JPEG or a PDF — in a new tab. Nothing is attached here; receipts go on
with the payment, on the Ledger.

- **A payment with no receipt shows an em dash**, never a link that fails.
- **The link is built when you click it and is good for about an hour.** So the
  address of the file itself, copied out of the new tab, will not open tomorrow —
  come back and press **View receipt** again instead.
- **Receipts are never shown to the judge**, on their statement or anywhere else.

## The two empty states

Two, because they need two different answers:

- **Nothing logged this season** — "No payments logged yet", with "Payments are
  logged against a judge on the Ledger tab, where their balance is. Every one you
  log appears here." and an **Open the Ledger** button.
- **Your filters matched nothing** — "No payments match these filters", with the
  number logged this season and a **Clear filters** button. You are never told
  the season is empty when it is your filter that is.

## Volunteer seasons

A season **whose own judge pay setting is Volunteer** shows a notice instead of
a ledger on the first tab — but **this tab still lists any payments that
exist**. Hiding money that moved is the one thing a payments log must never do.

**A paid season with volunteers on it is a different case**, and neither tab
hides anything: the Ledger lists those judges at `$0.00` and this log lists
whatever was actually paid. See
[A volunteer judge on a paid season](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md#a-volunteer-judge-on-a-paid-season).

## What this screen does not do

- **Log a payment.** That happens on the [Ledger](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md#logging-a-payment),
  where a judge is chosen first and their outstanding balance is in front of you,
  or with **Mark paid** on an [invoice](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/invoices.md#mark-paid) or on its line
  under the Ledger's
  [Invoices to pay](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md#invoices-to-pay).
- **Edit a payment.** Void is the only correction, and it is permanent.
- **Show the internal note, or which films a payment covered.** Both are in the
  judge's breakdown on the Ledger. This log reports how many scorecards were
  named, never which.
- **Say anything about a judge's terms.** Whether somebody is paid or
  volunteering is not a column here, and no payment row implies either.
- **Sort.** The order is fixed: newest date paid first, with payments logged on
  the same day in the order they were recorded, newest first.
- **Total the season.** The line above the table describes the rows listed. The
  Ledger's three cards are the season's figures.
- **Export.** There is no CSV of this log.
- **Cover more than one season.** Each Payouts section belongs to the season in
  the address; there is no festival-wide or cross-season roll-up.

## Related guides

- [Paying your judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md) — the Ledger: what each judge
  is owed, logging a payment, the breakdown drawer and the pay statement.
- [Judge invoices](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/invoices.md) — the Invoices tab beside this one, and Mark
  paid, which writes a row here.
- [Judge pay](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-pay.md) — where the money starts: the two rates every
  category carries, and the season's Paid or Volunteer setting, which is a
  ceiling over each judge's own terms rather than a rule about all of them.
- [Your pay statement](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/your-pay.md) — the judge's own copy of their
  statement, and why a voided payment is absent from it entirely — and
  [Earnings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/earnings.md), the judge's screen whose Payments tab is the one
  place on their side a voided payment still shows, dated and struck through,
  without the reason.
- [Festival access](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-access.md) — the *View revenue and payouts*
  permission, role by role.
- [Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md) — approving a scorecard is what makes it
  payable in the first place.