Cost Items and Sections
How to Strcuture your Budget
Build the budget in the shape the job, the funder or the client reads it. These articles cover prep, shoot and wrap days on one line, flat day rates for jobs without phases, a subtotal for each production phase, and chapters arranged the way a financier expects.
They are written for producers and production managers working through a large budget. You will also find how to create 25 shooting days without adding them one by one, how to move or fold whole blocks, and which keyboard shortcuts get you through a long budget faster.
Phases and day rates
Yes. A Production Cost Item splits the day count into Prep, Shoot and Wrap and adds them into one line total.
Yes. A General Cost Item carries Amount, Days and Fee only, with no phase split, and the middle column can be switched from days to weeks.
Yes. Give each phase its own Section. Every Section closes with a row repeating its name and total, and all of them roll into the budget Total.
Budget structure
Working faster
Build one shoot day as a Section, then copy it and paste it repeatedly. Each paste repeats the whole block, so you build the day once.
Yes. Select the rows, then drag any one of them and the whole selection moves together, or cut and paste it into its new home.
Copy, cut, paste and duplicate work on a selection, and Tab, Shift+Tab and Enter move between number fields like a spreadsheet.









