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Business

▶ Business: clients, quotes, jobs, contracts, invoices and integrations ▶ Subscription: your plan, payments and receipts Video tutorial in English, with subtitles in ten languages.

The Business cluster covers the commercial side: clients, media, portfolio, the share links you use to deliver the work to the client, the connections with your own systems and, in the Commercial dropdown, quotes, jobs, contracts with signature and invoices. Almost everything in here is reserved to Owners and Admins; your Dronetrake subscription and credits sit instead in a separate entry, Subscription.

Clients

For each client you record a name, company, email, phone, VAT number, tax code, address and notes. In countries where they apply — today Italy — the SDI recipient code and the PEC address also appear, both needed for e-invoicing.

From the client's page you see the linked missions. There is no client login: what the client sees goes through the share links.

Quotes

A quote gets a progressive number per organization (QUO-0001) and carries a subject, client, linked mission, validity, VAT rate (starting from the organization's own) and the lines: description, quantity and unit price, with subtotal, VAT and total recomputed on every save. The terms arrive prefilled from the organization profile.

The PDF comes out with your logo; on quotes the IBAN is not printed. You can attach documents — each attachment keeps its SHA-256 fingerprint — and download everything as a ZIP package. If the quote is linked to a mission, the Attach weather (open-meteo) action puts the weather report inside as evidence of the window you chose.

The only status transition available in the interface is Accept & create job: the quote moves to accepted and a job is created with the same client and the same subject, at the net value. There is no direct conversion from quote to invoice: you go through the job.

Jobs

A job (JOB-0001) holds together the agreed price, the linked missions, the expenses by category (travel, personnel, equipment, external service, permits, other) and the invoices issued.

The job's page computes the margin: revenue minus costs, where the costs are the recorded expenses plus the flight hours of the linked missions multiplied by the flight-hour cost set in the organization profile. The badge is green if the margin is positive, red if it is not. If you have not set a flight-hour cost yet, the page tells you and proposes a value derived from your own data.

From here the Create invoice action opens a draft already filled in with one line equal to the agreed price and a due date thirty days out.

Job units

A job with many addresses — the buildings of a neighbourhood, the lots of a consortium — splits into units: each one is an address with its own delivery cycle, its own client portal and its own QR. You load them with Import CSV (columns recognised from the header, in English or Italian: address, lat, lng, reference, label, notes) or with Import KML (Google Earth placemarks or a flight plan). The Reference is the client's code and works as the key: re-importing the same file updates, it does not duplicate. Export KML takes them back to Google Earth, Units on the map shows them all, Print QR (all) and Print QR (selected) prepare the cards to put up.

Each unit goes through six phases: Imported, Processing, In review, Report ready, Delivered, Viewed by client. Change phase moves it, several units at once too. Moving to Delivered sends, only once, the email to the job's client with the portal link and the access code. Viewed by client is not set by hand: the portal writes it when the client really opens the link.

A flight can cover several units, even of different jobs and clients: for example one mission over several adjoining lots. In the mission, Units covered by the flight says which ones. Then, in Files & delivery, each file and each viewer is assigned to its units with the Units field, or several files at once with Assign to units. Each unit's portal shows:

Contracts with signature

A contract starts from a template: there are three to begin with — mission engagement of an external pilot, aerial filming release, drone flight operations agreement — plus any you save yourself. The text is markdown and accepts variables such as the organization's, the client's and the mission's data, which are resolved at the moment of sending.

Send for signature does three things at once: it resolves the variables, freezes the text by saving its SHA-256 fingerprint, and generates the signing link. If the client has an email address, they receive it by mail. From that moment the contract can no longer be edited or deleted, not even by going in through the direct address.

The signatory opens a branded page, reads the text, enters their full name and an optional email, and ticks the acceptance box. The system records the name, the email, the date and time, the IP address and the browser, along with the fingerprint of the signed text; immediately afterwards the page shows the outcome with the hash and the signed PDF to download, and you get the notification.

On legal value the platform is explicit, and it bears repeating: it is a simple electronic signature — name, date and time, IP and text fingerprint. It is not a qualified signature (QES). The link has an expiry that you set, and it can be revoked: after that, nobody signs.

Invoices and e-invoicing

An invoice is numbered INV-2026-0001, progressive per calendar year and per organization. It has a client, a job, an issue date, a due date (thirty days by default), a VAT rate and the same lines as quotes. On the PDF, unlike the quote, the IBAN is printed.

The statuses are draft, issued and paid; Overdue is not a status you set but a condition computed on an unpaid invoice past its due date — and the menu carries a red badge with their number. Payment is recorded by hand with Mark paid: there is no automatic reconciliation.

For countries where it applies, the export e-invoice action appears. In Italy it produces the FatturaPA file in FPR12 format, to hand to your intermediary or to the SdI: it takes the VAT number and tax regime from the organization, the client's recipient code — or 0000000 with the PEC address when the code is missing — the lines with their rates, the VAT summary and the payment details with the IBAN. The other European formats are mapped too: Facturae for Spain, Factur-X for France, XRechnung for Germany and Peppol for several other countries.

Two limits to know before using it in earnest. The platform generates the file, it does not transmit it: sending to the SdI stays with your intermediary. And the address is filled in only partially — postcode and municipality come out with placeholder values — so they have to be completed before sending.

The tax details that feed all of this — VAT number, tax code, IBAN, tax regime, rate, currency, billing address and the default texts — are set in the organization profile.

With VAT registered set to "no", quotes and invoices are issued without VAT and without a VAT number, and the e-invoice export does not appear. When VAT registered, the rate starts from the country's standard rate and can be changed in the profile, on the document and line by line: one service at 20% and another at 5% sit on the same invoice, with the VAT summary split by rate. When VAT does not apply by law, enter 0 and the reason, which is printed on the document; in Italy you also choose the Natura code the FatturaPA requires, in Spain the operation type the Facturae requires (exempt or not subject). Without a reason, or without a Natura or type on zero-rated lines, the e-invoice file does not download and the page says what is missing.

Subscription and credits

The Subscription entry in the left menu — outside the Business area, because it is about your relationship with the platform, not with your clients — has two tabs. Your plan shows the active plan, the available credits on the four axes (live minutes, processing credits, archive GB, event GB), the plans on offer and the packs you can buy; packs add to the plan and do not expire at month end. Payments and receipts lists the recorded payments and opens the Creem portal, described below.

Payments go through Creem as Merchant of Record: VAT and a receipt for your country are applied at checkout, and with a valid VAT number the reverse charge applies. The card stays with Creem, not with us: renewals are charged without a new checkout. Prices shown exclude VAT. Switching to the free plan is immediate; for the others you go to checkout, and on return the plan activates or the credits are added.

A paid plan is subscribed monthly or yearly: yearly is twelve months for the price of ten. Where the plan offers a free trial, checkout saves the card without charging and the first charge comes at the end of the trial: cancel before and you pay nothing. The page shows period, status and renewal date. During the trial the plan and period stay as chosen; once the subscription is active, Switch to yearly (or Switch to this plan on a higher plan) is immediate and charges only the pro-rated difference, while moving down happens at renewal. Cancel at period end stops the charges and keeps the plan active until the paid period ends.

Receipts and invoices are issued by Creem and live in its customer portal: open it from Payments and receipts with a personal link, no extra password. There you find every payment with its receipt, you can generate the invoice in your organisation's name (name, address, notes) and download it as PDF, update the card, cancel the subscription — the cancellation reaches us too — and see in one place every subscription you pay through Creem, other services included.

Media

The Media entry gathers the files of all missions in a single list: filters by mission, kind and publication status, publishing to and withdrawing from the portal, in bulk too, editing name and kind, download and deletion. The Files & delivery tab inside the mission stays for working in context; here you answer "what is the client seeing?" and "what is taking up space?" without opening the missions one by one.

From the mission's Files & delivery tab a file uploads up to 500 MB. For heavier files — original videos, orthophotos, up to 50 GB each — there is Upload large files: the file goes in pieces straight into the archive, and if the connection drops you resume where it stopped by choosing the same file again. Once everything has arrived we compute the SHA-256 fingerprint by reading the file, and only then does the file appear in the mission; if the size that arrived is not the expected one, or the plan's storage ran out in the meantime, the file does not enter. Owners, administrators and pilots can use it.

For photos and videos from whoever flew outside the organization — a remote operator, a collaborator — there is Request material: write who you are asking, any instructions and how many days the link is valid (30 at most). You get the link, the code and a ready-made message to send (WhatsApp, email…). Whoever receives it opens the page, enters the code and their name and sends the files without an account, with the same upload in pieces and up to 50 GB each; for every file they see the SHA-256 fingerprint we computed, as a receipt. The files enter the mission unpublished, each with the sender's name, and whoever made the request sees it in the bell. From Material requests you see links and codes again and revoke them all at once: files already received stay. Whoever manages the organization creates them; the storage used is the plan's.

In the organization profile you can switch on automatic retention: media from completed missions are deleted N days after the last upload. It is off by default; when it is on, managers get 7 days' notice by email, the records stay (you can see that the file was there, how big it was and when it disappeared) and the gigabytes go back to the plan. Flights and the logbook are never touched: the EASA 3-year retention applies there.

The client portal is a link you open from the mission, in the Files & delivery tab. It is not created from the list: it comes out of the work it has to deliver. With no recipient and no selection it is the mission's general link, reused if it already exists. To give a client only what is theirs — several clients in the same mission — set the Recipient client or a Recipient and turn on Only the files I choose: that link shows exactly the chosen files and viewers, published or not, and not the mission's offer. Each recipient has their own link, with its own code and visit history. Revoke all links switches them off together; from Share links you manage them one by one.

When you create it you decide two things: an optional expiry — leave it empty and the link never expires — and whether to protect it with an access code, an option that is on by default. The code is six characters and is shown to you together with the link, to be passed to the client by some other route. You can also download the portal's QR code.

The client opens a page with your logo and your color, carrying the mission's title and code, the validity date if there is one, and only the files you have published: publishing individual files stays an explicit act of yours. Each file shows its name, size and SHA-256 fingerprint, so whoever receives it can verify they have exactly that file. There can also be a quote to accept or decline, a shot map built from the GPS data of the photos, and a project viewer for embedded models and tours. The page is not indexed by search engines.

There are three ways to act on an active link. Extend expiry moves only the date up to which it works: the address stays the same, and whoever already has it carries on using it without noticing a thing. Regenerate link does the opposite: it creates a new address and switches the old one off instantly, so anyone who had received it — by email, in a chat, in a shared folder — is locked out until you send them the new one; the access code and the view history, on the other hand, stay as they are. Finally there is Revoke link, immediate: once revoked, as once expired, the link opens nothing.

The access log is the part that matters most when you need to prove a delivery. For every opening, the date and time, a fingerprint of the IP address — a hash, never the IP in plain text — and the browser used are recorded. Worth knowing: one row is written per session, not one per page reload, and the same goes for the views counter; so that number tells you how many times the portal was opened, not how many pages were viewed. On the first opening, if you leave the option on, you get a notification: the client has looked.

For whoever has to analyse the material — a surveyor, a structural engineer, a consultant — there is Link for an expert: you choose their name, the files they must see and for how many days (two weeks at most), and the link is born personal, with a code, with a notice on first opening and with an expiry that does not get extended: it gets reactivated. On their page the expert reads “Personal link for…” and sees only what you gave them. If instead they have to look inside the panel, the way is timed view-only access in Team.

Portfolio

The Portfolio entry curates your organization's public showcase: you choose which missions appear, with which title and description — the operational title may contain the client's name, and that must not end up in public by mistake — and in which order, by dragging them. Only the showcase fields of the missions are touched: missions are neither created nor deleted from here.

Every link has Preview only. Switched on (it is by default on expert links), videos play inside the page, with the viewer's name and the time drifting slowly over them, and the original file is not downloadable from there; photos come out with the band composed on the spot — logo, name, date, the first digits of the fingerprint — while the original stays in the archive, untouched. Switched off (the default on delivery links), the client takes away the real files, as always: whoever paid for the work gets the work. Images we cannot watermark, such as TIFF orthophotos, do not go through the band. A watermark burned into a video file is another matter — it costs real work — and is requested separately.

When the file is really needed and watching is not enough, there is Watermarked copy on the video's row: the band — logo, organization name, date, mission, fingerprint and who asked for it — is burned into the video. That is real processing work, so it runs in a queue, is counted in minutes and the copy lives 72 hours; then it disappears on its own. The original is never touched and keeps its fingerprint: the copy has a different one, and that is how a file going around is recognised. If the copy was made for a link, whoever opens that link downloads it there; otherwise it stays in the panel, for whoever works.

API, webhooks and connections

Four Business entries connect Dronetrake to your own systems, and Owners and Admins see them.

← Evidence Field app →