Black Sludge · event technology

Black Books.

Everything Black Sludge sends and everything it spends, in one place. Quotes and invoices built from one rate card, and the money behind them counted properly.

Quotes priced from the register bands
Deposit, balance and full invoices
Statements with ageing, made automatically
What you are owed and what you owe
Job costs, overheads and margin per event
Bank import, asset register and SARS by year

First time? Once you are in, press Guide at the top of the list on the left. It explains everything in seven plain steps and can load a worked example for you to click through.

Sign in

Use the email and password your administrator gave you.

Private to Black Sludge. Accounts are created by an administrator in Settings. The PIN, if set, is a screen lock for an open laptop on top of your login.

A Blacque Nation Solution

Black Books

Black Sludge

Describe the job

Say what the job is, the way you would tell someone

Read by Black Books' own reader, on this device.

Quote & client

Quote ID

Quote date

Valid for (days)

Scope chip

Client

Client address

Reference line

The quote ID is issued by the system and checked against every saved document so it can never repeat. Press Edit to override it. Change the scheme under Settings.

Prepared by

Company

Contact

Telephone

Footer mark

Event

Event name

Event date

Setup date

Venue

Setup times

Capacity committed

Expected onsite

Records held at the close (leave blank until after the event)

Required services (one per line)

Line items 0

Rate card

Totals

VAT rate (%)

Discounts

VAT rows only print when the rate is above zero. Mark a section Log in Line items to list it after the subtotal as logistics. An offer discount does not reduce the total — it prints as a conditional saving the client can take.

Notes & pages

Include scope page

Include terms page

Scope steps

One step per block. First line is the heading, a line starting with > is intro text, other lines are bullets. Blank line starts the next step.

What we need from you (one per line)

Terms clauses

First line is the clause heading, following lines are paragraphs. Blank line starts the next clause.

Book checks 0

Clients 0

Client POs received 0

Drop the client's purchase order here, or click to choose the file
PDF, CSV or text — the PO number, date and authorised value are read where possible

Bank statements 0

Drop a bank statement here, or click to choose
The PDF your bank sends (Standard Bank, Capitec, FNB, Absa, Nedbank…), or an OFX, QIF or CSV download. The file is kept, the statement is checked to add up, and lines are categorised; you confirm the ones it is unsure about.

Not sure what your bank gives you? Download the template, open it in Excel to see the shape Black Books expects, then save your own statement as CSV the same way.

Show

Year

Credits become income; debits are sorted into SARS-deductible categories. Lines marked personal or transfer are kept but never counted. The Tax view uses these lines to rebuild each financial year.

Stores & kit —

Stores is for things you buy in bulk and use up: badge cards, lanyards, sticker rolls, cable ties. Press Use when you take some to an event and the count comes down; press Bought more when you restock. Equipment you keep and re-use, like iPads and printers, belongs in the asset register below instead.

Stock used on a job is added to that job's costs so the margin is honest, but it is not claimed against tax a second time: the tax deduction happened when you bought the stock.

Overheads & assets —

Overheads — costs that belong to no job

Rent, software, phone, insurance, accounting. Job costs sit on the job under Job costs. Once a year's bank statements are imported, the bank lines are the record and these are shown for reference only, so nothing is counted twice.

Asset register

iPads, printers, laptops, routers. Anything costing R7 000 or less is written off in full in the year you bought it. Above that, SARS lets you deduct it over its write-off period (wear-and-tear, Interpretation Note 47), apportioned by month in the first year. The Tax view adds the allowance for each year automatically.

Credit note

Against invoice

Reason

Credit number

Date

The credit amount comes from the line items. Use Credit this invoice on the Invoice panel to pre-fill the balance.

Job costs —

Supplier costs against this job — iPad hire, printers, hostesses, travel. Tick Est. for a budgeted cost you have not been billed for yet. Margin uses actual costs.

Invoice

Portion

Split %

Issue date

Due date

Invoice number

Purchase order

Quote reference

Payments received

Statement

Client

From

As at

Outstanding invoices only

The ledger is built from every saved invoice for that client, with its recorded payments.

Accounts with a balance

Statements already issued

A statement is the one-page summary of a client's whole account: every invoice, every payment, what is still outstanding and how old it is. Send one at the start of each month to everyone who owes you. Press Open on any statement below to print it or save it as a PDF.

Version archive 0

Every save archives the previous version. Nothing is overwritten.

Settings

Account name

Bank

Account number

Branch code

Swift

Payment reference

Registration line

SARS regime (2026/27 rates)

Financial year end

Quote numbering

Next quote number

Invoice numbering

Next sequential

Deposit %

Early settle %

Settle within (days)

Per-delegate register bands

How the rates apply

Charged on the whole register loaded — every name receives the campaign, whether or not they respond. Registers above the ceiling are referred to sales.

Contact sales above

Multi-event bands

Payment days

Balance due (days)

Supplier terms (days)

Statement day of month

Standard delegate rate (R)

Bank balance on

…was (R)

Late fee %

Let Claude read "Describe the job" (the description and this rate card go to Anthropic through your server)

Needs the server version with an Anthropic API key in config.php. Prices still come only from the rate card.

Results are released only once the balance is settled

Print payment terms and the thank-you line on invoices

Standard delegate rate is your undiscounted per-name price. Names loaded above the capacity a client quoted are charged at that rate, never at the discounted rate, because volume rates are given against a committed number. Register leeway is how far over they may go before any of it is charged: go past it and every additional name is charged, including the ones inside the leeway.

Bank balance on / was is the one figure Black Books cannot work out for itself: what your account actually held on the day your imported statements start. Fill it in once and the Money page can show your real cash on hand. Supplier terms sets the default due date on a new bill.

Payment days 0 means a deposit or full invoice is due on receipt. The balance invoice after an event uses Balance due. Deposit and balance invoices are numbered after the quote: SS290926_001, then SS290926_002.

Your account

A 4-digit PIN asked for on the splash screen on every device. It stops someone glancing at your books on an open laptop — it is not a login; that is your claude.ai account.

The regime drives the SARS set-aside shown on each job and on the dashboard. Choose Small Business Corporation if every shareholder is a natural person, gross income is under R20m and no more than 20% of income is investment or personal-service income — a (Pty) Ltd owned by its founder normally qualifies. Otherwise Company. This is an estimate for setting money aside, not a tax return.

Settings are shared by everyone who opens this desk.

Documents 0

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