What is a Cost Item?

A Cost Item is one priced line inside a Section: a name, a quantity, a unit and a Fee that multiply into that line's total. It's the smallest unit of a Splinde budget, the actual position a crew member, piece of gear or expense sits on.

What it's for

A Cost Item carries the real numbers of a budget: how much of something, at what rate, for how long, in what currency, with whatever AddOns and Label apply to that specific line.

How it works

A Cost Item always lives inside a Section, and the Section subtotals the lines it contains. Nesting happens through Sections, so a line itself holds nothing further.

There are two kinds, and you choose between them when you drag the card in from Insert → Cost Items. A General Cost Item carries Amount, Days and Fee. A Production Cost Item splits the day count into Prep, Shoot and Wrap instead, so each phase can be counted separately, while one Fee still applies across all three.

The middle column, Days, or Shoot once Prep and Wrap are active, carries a unit: click its label to pick a different one from the workspace's Unit catalog. Every numeric field on a Cost Item, Amount, Days, Prep, Shoot, Wrap and Fee, accepts either a typed number or a single reference, entered by typing @. That is how a line points at a Section total, another line or a Variable. A field holds one or the other at a time.

The Fee field can carry its own currency, independent of the Budget Currency, and Splinde converts it into the line's total automatically. A Cost Item can also carry one or more AddOns and Labels, all attached to that specific line rather than to the Section around it. Smart Subtotals and Budget Blocks then read these same lines when they build totals across the Budget.

Good to know

Choose Production for a position that bills prep, shoot and wrap days separately, and General for a flat day rate, then give each line the Fee that applies.