PlayPaid Support & User Manual

Feature Guide

Gig Log

The Gig List is the center of the app. Every gig record stores the date, venue name and address, start/end time, agreed fee, tips received, payment status, and notes. Gigs appear in a list view and on a calendar.

Tap + and choose Add Gig to create a new record. The venue search field shows your saved PlayPaid Venues contacts first, then MapKit results — so once you've played a venue before, the address fills in automatically.

Mileage is calculated automatically at save time using your home address and the venue address. If geocoding fails, the gig saves with 0 miles and you'll see an alert so you know to enter miles manually. Manual entries are never overwritten by auto-calculation.

Feature Guide

Adding Work Shifts

W-2 employer shifts live in the same calendar as your gigs. You can add a single shift through the standard Add Gig form, or use the Multi-Date Shift Picker to create a full week of shifts at once.

Adding multiple shifts at once

1. Tap + on the Gig List tab and choose Add Work Shifts.
2. Select your employer — if you only have one active employer it's already selected.
3. Select a department — if your employer has departments configured, pick the one for these shifts.
4. Tap the dates — a full calendar is shown. Tap each day you're scheduled. Tap again to deselect.
5. Set the shift time once — use the Start and End pickers. The same time applies to every date you tapped.
6. Tap Create Shifts. One work shift record is created per date.

Setting shift defaults

Go to Settings → Jobs & Employers, tap your employer, and scroll to Shift Defaults. The times you set there pre-fill the Multi-Date Shift Picker automatically.

Feature Guide

Duplicating a Gig or Shift

If you play the same venue regularly or repeat the same shift pattern, duplication lets you create a new record from an existing one without re-entering all the details.

How to duplicate

Long-press any row in the Gig List. A context menu appears with Duplicate and Delete. Tap Duplicate — the copy is saved immediately with the same date. Open it, change the date to your new booking, and save.

What the duplicate keeps

Venue name and address, gig type, employer and department, start/end times, agreed fee, notes, and venue contact info.

What the duplicate resets

Common scenarios

• Same venue, new date: Long-press the most recent gig at that venue → Duplicate → change the date → save.
• Repeating work shift: Long-press last week's shift → Duplicate → change the date → save. Or use the Multi-Date Shift Picker for several dates at once.
• Similar gig at a new venue: Duplicate a gig of the same type, then update the venue, address, and contact info.

Feature Guide

Invoices

Generate a PDF invoice for any gig — or create a standalone invoice — and send it directly to the client via email. Track status (Draft, Sent, Paid, Overdue, Void) and mark payment received when the check clears. Invoices require a Standard subscription.

First-time setup

Go to Settings → Invoice Settings. Fill in your business name, invoice prefix (e.g. JR produces JR-2026-001), contact info, default payment terms, and your Venmo/PayPal/Zelle handles. Tap Save — settings don't save automatically. Invoice numbers reset to 001 each calendar year.

Creating an invoice from a gig

Open any gig record and tap Invoice. The app pre-fills the invoice number, client name, address, and a line item at the agreed fee. Tap Add Line Item to add sound rental, travel surcharge, or other charges.

Sending and tracking

Tap Save & Send to generate the PDF and open Apple Mail pre-addressed to the client. The status updates to Sent automatically. The Invoices tab has a filter bar to see all Unpaid, Sent, or Overdue invoices at once.

Feature Guide

Mileage Tracking

When you save a gig with a venue address, PlayPaid uses MapKit to calculate the round-trip driving distance and applies the current IRS standard mileage rate ($0.67/mi for 2025, $0.70/mi for 2026). Your home address in Settings → Profile is the origin. Use a full street address for best results.

If you enter a number in the Miles field before saving, PlayPaid uses your manual entry instead of auto-calculating. Manual entries are never overwritten.

Feature Guide

Expense Tracking

Log business expenses from the Expenses tab. Each record stores the date, amount, vendor, category, tax-deductibility flag, notes, and an optional receipt photo. Vendor names autocomplete from your saved PlayPaid Vendors contacts.

To import a receipt: tap + in the Expenses tab and choose Import from Photo, or go to Settings → Import Data → Import Receipt. The AI parser extracts the total, vendor, date, and a category guess — review and correct on the Review Expense screen before saving.

Feature Guide

Pay Stub Import

Import pay stubs from Settings → Import Data → Import Pay Stub. Two entry points: Import Pay Stub (File) for PDFs from Files/iCloud Drive, or Import Pay Stub (Photos) to pick from your photo library.

When AI Features is connected, Claude Vision extracts all fields: pay period dates, earnings, deductions, employer 401k match, net pay, and YTD gross. Without an AI key, Apple's on-device OCR is used — best with digital PDFs rather than scanned images.

Review and correct every field on the Review Pay Stub screen before saving. Confirmed stubs appear in the employer's detail view with running YTD totals. Duplicate stubs (same advice number and pay date) are automatically skipped.

Feature Guide

Gig History CSV Import

Export your existing gig spreadsheet as .csv from Numbers or Excel and import via Settings → Import Data → Import CSV. Expected columns: date, venue name, revenue (fee), tips. Select the year the data is from before importing. Historical data from any year is fully supported.

Feature Guide

Availability

Two tools in the Availability tab — both require a Pro subscription.

Can I Do This?

Enter a date, start time, duration, and optionally a venue address. The engine checks your existing gigs, work shifts, blackout dates, buffer rules, and next-morning constraints, then returns a verdict: Available, Available with warnings, Conflict, Blackout, or a rule violation.

Availability Export

Set a date range, toggle which day types to scan, and tap Find Available Dates. Toggle individual dates off, then tap Share Available Dates to send a formatted plain-text list organized by month.

Setup

Configure rules in Settings → Availability: availability windows per day type, setup/teardown/drive buffers, a sleep buffer for early next-morning shifts, max gigs per week, minimum booking notice, and blackout date ranges.

Feature Guide

GigFinder AI

GigFinder discovers live music venues near you and optionally uses Claude AI to rank them by how well they fit your act. Requires a Pro subscription. AI ranking and outreach drafting require an AI Features connection.

Search sources

Apple Maps — available immediately, no setup required. Google Places — richer data (more phone numbers, websites, better venue categories), requires a free Google Cloud API key. Google provides $200/month in free credit, covering roughly 6,000 searches.

Running a search

Choose a source, set a radius (5, 10, 20, or 50 miles), select venue categories (Music Venues, Nightlife, Breweries, Restaurants & Bars, Wineries, Cafes), and tap Search. Cross-reference badges appear on venues already in your Contacts or where you have gig history.

AI Ranking

Tap AI Rank after a search. Claude returns a confidence score (0–100%) and plain-English reasoning for each venue. Results re-sort highest to lowest. Green ≥ 70% (strong fit), orange 40–69% (moderate), red < 40% (weak fit).

Prospect pipeline

Tap any venue to save it to Contacts, draft an AI outreach message, check your availability, or save it as a prospect. Track outreach status from Interested → Contacted → Responded → Booked.

Feature Guide

Public Schedule Page

Publish your upcoming gig schedule to a personal page at playpaid.app/schedule/your-id — shareable with venues, promoters, or fans. Requires a Standard subscription.

Go to Settings → Schedule Page to set up your profile: bio, profile photo, accent color, social links. Tap Save & Publish to push your schedule live. The page includes a booking inquiry form at the bottom.

Incoming booking requests appear in your Booking Requests inbox (accessible from the Gig List tab). Tap any request to pre-fill a new gig with the venue's details.

Feature Guide

Goals Dashboard

Set annual targets for gig count, income, mileage, or work hours, then track real-time progress as gigs and pay stubs accumulate. Each goal has a progress bar, pace indicator, and projected end-of-year result. Requires a Pro subscription.

Goal types

Pacing

The app calculates your daily run rate and projects your final result at year end. Pace badges: On Track, Slightly Behind, Behind, Goal Reached. Goals can span any date range, including past years — historical CSV data counts toward any period it falls in.

Feature Guide

Connected Services

Go to Settings → Connected Services to see the health of every optional integration at a glance. If something breaks, you'll also see a badge on the More tab. PlayPaid checks all connections automatically once a week in the background.

API keys are stored on-device in the iOS Keychain only — never shared with PlayPaid's servers. If you switch phones or restore from backup, re-enter your keys in Connected Services. Your existing keys remain valid.

Reference

Settings Reference