When an exhibition wraps, you're left with two jobs: get unsold work back to its artists, and pay artists for the pieces that sold. Crafted Call's closeout flow walks each artwork through those steps and lets you pay the sold pieces together as a batch — so you're not chasing one payout at a time. This guide covers the full closeout-to-payout workflow for a single exhibition.
Note: Processing payouts is a finance action. You'll need Owner or Admin access, or the Finance role, to create and process payout batches.
How Closeout Works
Closeout tracks each piece in the show through its own status, so you always know what still needs doing. Open the exhibition and go to its Closeout tab to see the dashboard.
If this is your first time on the tab, choose Initialize Closeout to set every piece to its starting status.
Each artwork then moves along one of two paths:
Sold pieces:
Sold – Pending Payout — sold, artist is owed money.
Payout Batched — included in a payout batch awaiting processing.
Payout Completed — the artist's payout has been processed.
Unsold pieces (returns):
Awaiting Return — ready to go back to the artist.
In Return Transit — on its way back.
Returned — confirmed received by the artist.
Two extra statuses cover the messy real world: On Hold (waiting on a decision) and Unresolved (an open issue like damage or a dispute). You can move a piece to either at most points, then resolve it later.
This article focuses on the sold → paid path. Returns are tracked on the same dashboard.
Step 1 — Review What's Owed
On the Closeout dashboard, look at the pieces marked Sold – Pending Payout. For each, you can see the artwork, the artist, and the sale amount. This is your worklist of who's owed and how much before you move money.
Take a moment here to confirm:
The sale amounts look right (especially for any manually recorded sales).
The correct artist is attached to each piece.
Nothing that should be on hold is sitting in the pending-payout pile.
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Tip: Commission and processing fees come out of the sale, so the artist's payout is the sale amount minus the gallery's cut and fees. See Understanding Platform & Processing Fees for how that math works.
Step 2 — Create a Payout Batch
Once you're happy with the list, group the sold pieces into a payout batch. A batch collects the pieces you want to pay out together and groups them by artist.
From the closeout dashboard (or the exhibition's Payouts view), choose to create a payout batch.
Select the sold pieces to include. Pieces already in an active batch are excluded so you don't double-pay.
Create the batch. It starts in Draft status.
A new batch is a Draft — nothing has moved yet. This is your last chance to review the line items before committing.
Step 3 — Confirm and Process the Batch
A batch moves through a short lifecycle: Draft → Confirmed → Processing → Completed.
Confirm the draft batch once the amounts look correct. This locks it in as ready to process.
Process the confirmed batch. Crafted Call creates an artist payout for each artist in the batch and begins paying them out.
As each payout is created it sits in Processing, and the batch finishes as Completed when all payouts are created. The sold pieces move to Payout Completed on the closeout dashboard.
Important: Processing a batch initiates real payouts. Confirm the artists, amounts, and payment details before you process — it's much easier to check twice than to claw a payment back.
Step 4 — Confirm Manual Payouts
Not every gallery pays through the platform. If you pay an artist by check, wire, or ACH outside Crafted Call, you can still keep the record accurate:
Mark a payout as manual / paid once you've sent it through your own accounting process. This records that the artist has been paid without initiating a platform transfer.
This keeps the closeout dashboard and your reports truthful even when the actual money moved elsewhere.
Step 5 — Retry Failed Payouts
If a payout fails — bad bank details, a Stripe issue, or a connection problem — it lands in a Failed state and the affected piece reverts to Sold – Pending Payout so it isn't lost.
To recover:
Find the failed payout in the exhibition's Payouts view or your Pending Payouts list.
Fix the underlying problem (confirm the artist's payout details, check Stripe).
Retry the payout, or mark it manual if you paid the artist another way.
A batch is only marked Failed if every payout in it fails. If some succeed and some fail, the successful ones stand and you retry just the failures.
Step 6 — Reconcile
After the batch completes, reconcile to be sure the closeout matches reality:
Confirm every sold piece is at Payout Completed (or correctly marked manual).
Confirm any unsold pieces have moved through the return path to Returned.
Check your financial reports reflect the payouts you just processed.
Resolve anything still sitting in On Hold or Unresolved.
When the dashboard shows no pending-payout or awaiting-return pieces, the exhibition is closed out.
How This Differs From Day-to-Day Payout Tracking
This article is about the exhibition-sells-work → batch-payout workflow: closing out a show and paying its sold pieces together. For ongoing, one-off payout tracking — recording a check you mailed an artist, monitoring payout statuses across the gallery, or handling a single urgent payment — see Tracking Artist Payouts. The two work together: the closeout flow generates the payouts, and the payout tracking tools are where you monitor and reconcile them over time.
Troubleshooting
A piece won't go into a batch.
It may already be in an active batch, or it isn't in Sold – Pending Payout status. Check its closeout status on the dashboard.
I can't process the batch.
A batch must be Confirmed before it can be processed. Confirm the draft first.
A payout failed.
The piece reverts to Sold – Pending Payout. Fix the cause, then retry or mark the payout manual.
The artist on a piece looks wrong.
For pieces added manually (gallery-owned inventory), the displayed artist comes from the sale record. If it's wrong, correct the underlying artwork or submission before paying out.
