The latest releases, in plain English. We update this every time something meaningful goes live.
BookingsEmail
A consultation your client can move, instead of email you about
Booking a call was cast in stone — pick the wrong day and your only recourse was an email into an inbox and a hope somebody read it. Every confirmation and reminder now carries a link to move or cancel, and rescheduling shows the same picker as the original booking, with the slot currently held marked. You are told the moment someone books, moves or cancels, with their email, phone and note in the message and Reply-To set to them. You also set the terms: shortest notice, how far ahead, whether clients may move at all, and how many times. And the join link is a real, tappable link in every email and text reminder — not dead text somebody has to select and paste two minutes before the call.
PerformanceGalleries
The waiting, dealt with in two places
Clicking a page used to sit in dead air for two and a half seconds with nothing on screen; it now answers in 113ms and tells you what it is doing while the rest arrives. Underneath, the app moved into the same region as its database — the queries were never slow, the round trips were — and the schedule stopped waiting on badge counts it does not need to draw itself. On the client side, a phone is no longer handed the 57 Mbps master file: films are cut into a 360p–1080p ladder and the player starts on the lowest rung and climbs. On a good 4G connection the same film went from five stalls in forty-five seconds to none.
CatalogueBookings
Your price list is now the page clients buy from
There is one catalogue, and it is what clients read. Drop in the PDF you already email out, a photo of a printed sheet, or paste a note, and it comes back as services, packages and FAQ for you to review before anything is written. Each package is a full-bleed frame — its cover can be a film — grouped under tabs you name yourself, priced in its own currency. The Pay button opens a booking form that takes a deposit, so the page that quotes is the page that books. And Studio › Booking pages walks the whole errand end to end, telling you what is left rather than which screens exist.
Bookings
Booking and enquiry forms you write yourself
Every studio got the same fixed questions, so a wedding filmmaker wanting the ceremony time or a podcast studio wanting the episode count asked in a follow-up email, or never asked. Now you author both forms: your own typed questions — text, pick one, pick several, number, date, time — where the app enforces the type, so 25:00 and 31 February are impossible. On the booking form you also decide what can be bought, which add-ons and payment plans appear, which discount codes are honoured, and which fields are hidden, optional or required. Keep more than one, because a wedding booking and a corporate booking are not the same conversation. Every rule is enforced on the server, not just in the browser.
Docs
27 new pages explaining exactly who this is for
Honest comparisons against HoneyBook, Studio Ninja, StudioBinder and Production Slate that say plainly where each one beats us. Practical guides on paying second shooters, tracking crew hours on a shoot day, and classifying 1099 versus W-2 crew. Pages for wedding, video production, content and portrait studios. And a real help centre covering what the product does — and what it does not. bckendIQ stays free through 31 October while we work out pricing with the studios actually running on it.
UX
One workspace bar, on every page
The three places you open all day now live in a bar that does not move between screens, so navigation stops depending on which page you happen to be on.
GalleriesPrivacy
A gallery link carries photographs, and nothing else
Share a gallery without exposing anything financial. Invoices, contracts, questionnaires and receipts now live only on the client portal behind their six-digit code. Galleries also carry the client’s own name, everywhere it appears.
AutomationEmail
The studio chases what has gone quiet
Six reminder ladders now run on a schedule: unanswered enquiries, unsigned contracts, unpaid invoices, uncompleted questionnaires, unreviewed galleries and overdue deliveries. Every message leaves on the same letterhead, and a backlog never triggers a burst of stale reminders.
Email
Clients hear back the moment they act
Enquiring, signing, selecting and paying each now produce an immediate acknowledgement to the client and a task for you — so nobody is left wondering whether a form went through.
Bookings
Confirm, sign and pay as three separate steps
Booking is no longer one all-or-nothing action. A client confirms the details, signs the agreement, then pays — and a human signature is required before the studio commits a date, a job or an editor. Booked clients can pay a remaining balance, and a paid retainer says so.
Payments
Every studio brings its own Stripe account
Payments now go directly into your own Stripe account — there is no platform account in the middle and bckendIQ never holds client money. Apple Pay and Google Pay appear on the payment page once your keys are connected, and the page says exactly what happens to your secret key next to the field you paste it into.
Payments
Payment plans, sold with the package
Split a booking into instalments — 50/50, 30/50/20, or your own — attached to the package at quote time. Plans can be edited, read back without applying them, and appear on the invoice beside the deposit they govern.
Galleries
Re-deliver a gallery without losing the old cut
Upload a corrected set as version 2 from within the gallery itself. The previous version is preserved, and client comments stay attached to the version they were written about — a new cut never inherits notes that were already actioned.
Contracts
Contracts get drafted or imported, not typed
Bring an existing agreement in, or draft one from a template with your own variables. Contracts render correctly for the client every time, with countersigning and a copy sent to both sides.
Comms
Message any client or lead from one inbox
The Inbox now reaches leads as well as booked clients, and binds each thread to the person it belongs to, so a conversation is never orphaned from the record it is about.
Galleries
Uploads without a ceiling
Pick the folder and upload a whole take — there is no cap. Large sets are sent in batches automatically, RAW files are proofed from the preview embedded inside them, and galleries sort by filename so a set reads in the order you shot it.
UX
Dark mode, on every screen
A new appearance switch in the top bar lets you flip between Light, Dark, and System (follow-your-OS). Your choice is remembered per device, on every page inside your workspace.
Onboarding
Open sign-up — start a studio in minutes
You no longer need an invite. Register, spin up your organization, and start using bckendIQ right away.
Communications
Real view rates in Communications
Broadcasts now report an accurate open rate — we track opens at the domain level, so the numbers reflect who actually read the message.
Payments
Contractor payouts, end to end
Managers can pay contractors and follow every payment through its lifecycle with status badges and a full audit trail. Contractors set their own payout method, watch the status on My Earnings, and get a push notification the moment they are paid — plus per-contractor history and one-click CSV export.
Payments
Shareable payment receipts
Every payout now has a clean, tokenized receipt page that can be opened or shared without logging in.
Marketing
Cleaner landing page typography
Fixed a long-standing visual bug where descenders were clipped on gradient headings. Smoother first impression for everyone arriving from search and social.
InternalReliability
Bug-report ticketing upgrades
New super-admin detail pages for cross-tenant tickets, plus six core upgrades to the bug-report flow used inside studios.
Feedback
Direct-line product feedback
Org leadership can now route feature ideas straight to bckendIQ HQ — no more lost-in-Slack threads.
UX
Quieter routine confirmations
Killed the noisy "Saved!" toasts on routine save/update/create flows. Less interruption, same confidence.
UX
Tucked contractor row actions into a kebab menu
Per-row Edit/Delete moved into a kebab on the contractors list so the table breathes.