What is AICP, and will a US agency accept my bid?

A US agency expects your commercial bid in the AICP format, with sections lettered A through W in a set order. Open the AICP Budget Template from the Splinde Template Gallery and click Start using this Template: it opens Splinde with the AICP structure ready, so you bid in the format agencies read instead of typing the sections yourself.

AICP is that bid format, and agencies read bids against it. The template page describes pre-loaded sections from crew and preparation through post-production, union fringes and taxes, and modern deliverables such as social media versions. Because every shop starts from the same published structure, two bids for the same job can be read side by side.

Open the template

1. Go to the Template Gallery on splinde.io and choose the AICP Budget Template, or go straight to its page.

2. Click Start using this Template. Splinde opens with the AICP template.

3. Fill in the numbers for your job. The section letters are already in place, so your time goes into the bid itself.

Make it yours

Rename a Section, add a Cost Item to a letter, or drop a letter you do not bid. The letter lives inside the Section name, so what you type at the front of the name is exactly what the agency reads, in the budget and in an Offer Document.

If you bid the same way every time, save your adjusted version for reuse. Open the menu in the budget header, choose Create Template, fill Template Name* and click Add to Template Gallery. It then sits under Workspace Templates on the Templates page, where Use this template starts the next bid from it.

Good to know

• Holding fees, residuals and reformats are ordinary Cost Items. A usage figure quoted as a percentage of a day rate works as a line whose unit is Percentage and whose Fee points with @ at the day rate, with the percentage held in a Variable.

• A template starts each new budget in EUR with the client and dates left open for you to fill. Set Budget Currency to your bid currency on each budget you create from it.

• The Template Gallery grows over time, and the same page lists other formats you may be asked for.

Related

• A funder or agency wants a standard format. Where do I start?

• Can I make my budget arrive in the shape the funder expects?

• Every job we do has the same shape. Can I stop rebuilding it?

• The studio sent it back because the account codes were wrong