Budget

Overview

What the Budget panel tracks and how it is structured.

The Budget panel is a structured line-item budget for your entire production. It is organised by department — from Story & Screenplay through to Deliverables and Legal & Licences — with each department having its own editable table of line items. Budget figures and actual spend are entered per line item; the panel calculates department totals, a Gross Total, and then automatically computes Insurance (5%), Contingency (10%), and VAT (16%) rows before arriving at a Net Total.

The panel operates in a single currency chosen at session start. There are no exchange rates and no dual-currency display — one currency, always consistent, throughout every table and every export.

Currency Selection

The first thing to do when opening the Budget panel is choose your currency. The Currency selector sits in the toolbar at the top of the panel.

Click the currency dropdown and select your production's currency. The selector groups currencies by region:

• Africa — KES, NGN, GHS, ZAR, EGP, and others
• Americas — USD, CAD, MXN, BRL, and others
• Asia Pacific — JPY, CNY, INR, AUD, KRW, and others
• Europe — EUR, GBP, CHF, SEK, NOK, and others
• Middle East — AED, SAR, ILS, and others

Your currency selection is saved automatically and will be remembered the next time you open the Budget panel.

Panel Layout

The Budget panel has three zones:

• Toolbar — Currency selector, Export PDF, Export Excel, Export CSV buttons.
• Department tabs — one tab per department plus a Top Sheet summary tab. Click any tab to switch to it.
• Budget Notes — a text area at the bottom for free-form production budget notes, visible across all department tabs.

Department Tabs

There are 23 pre-built department tabs plus the Top Sheet summary tab. The departments are:

The Days column is included in all departments except Story & Screenplay, where it is not applicable (writing fees are typically not calculated as day rates). The Days column lets you enter the number of days a crew member or hire item is needed, and the total is automatically calculated as Qty × Days × Unit Cost.

Adding Line Items

Adding a row

Click the + Add Row button below any department table. A new blank row appears at the bottom. Each new row starts with all fields empty and zero values for Qty, Days, Unit Cost, and Total.

Filling in a line item

1. Type the Item name

   Examples: "Arri Alexa Mini LF — hire", "Director of Photography — fee", "Location permit — City Council".

2. Enter the Quantity

   The number of units of this item. For a single camera, this is 1. For a set of walkie-talkies, it might be 20.

3. Enter the Days (if applicable)

   The number of shoot days this item is hired or this crew member is engaged for. Leave at 1 for flat-fee items.

4. Enter the Unit Cost

   The cost per unit per day (or per unit for flat fees). The Total column calculates automatically: Qty × Days × Unit Cost.

Removing a row

Select the row and click the Remove Row button, or right-click the row and choose Remove. The department total updates immediately.

Totals & Calculated Rows

The Top Sheet tab shows the complete budget rollup. Below the department-by-department listing, three rows are calculated automatically from the Gross Total:

Top Sheet Summary

The Top Sheet tab (always the first tab, before the department tabs) gives you a one-page overview of the entire budget across all departments. It shows five columns for each department:

Budget Notes

The Budget Notes area is a free-text field visible at the bottom of every department tab. Use it to document assumptions, exclusions, version history, approval conditions, and anything else the production office or financier needs to understand the budget.

Suggested content for Budget Notes:

• Version — date and version number (e.g. v3 — 15 June 2025)
• Currency — full currency name and ISO code, in case the export is read without context
• Exchange rate note — if any figures were converted from another currency, note the rate used and the date
• Exclusions — items deliberately not budgeted (e.g. E&O insurance not included — to be arranged by distributor)
• Approvals — who approved this version and on what date
• Assumptions — key assumptions the budget rests on (e.g. 20-day shoot, based on current stripboard of 12 June 2025)

Budget Notes are included in the PDF export as a Notes section after the department tables.

Exporting

All three export formats are accessed from the toolbar at the top of the Budget panel.

Export to PDF

Generates a PDF containing the Top Sheet summary followed by a detailed breakdown for each department that has any figures entered. Departments with no figures are omitted. A Thenema Writer watermark appears on every page. Budget Notes are included at the end.

Requires reportlab: pip install reportlab.

Export to Excel

Generates a .xlsx file with a Top Sheet tab and one tab per department that has figures. Each department tab has a navy title row, a blue header row, alternating data rows, and a department total row. A Thenema Writer watermark is added to every sheet. Column widths are set automatically.

Requires openpyxl: pip install openpyxl.

Export to CSV

Generates a single flat .csv file containing the Top Sheet summary — all departments with Budget, Spent, Remaining, and % Used, followed by the Gross Total and Net Total rows. Useful for importing into accounting software or sharing with a line producer who uses their own spreadsheet tools.

CSV export does not require any additional packages.

Tips & Best Practices

Build the budget from the stripboard

Do not start the budget until the stripboard is stable. The number of shoot days is the single biggest determinant of budget size — it affects Cast, Crew, Locations, Catering, Transport, and Equipment simultaneously. Budget based on the current shoot day count and note it in Budget Notes.

Enter Budget figures first, Spent figures later

The Unit Cost column is your budgeted rate. The Spent figure is the actual invoice amount entered during production. Keep these separate — do not overwrite your budgeted figures with actuals, as that loses the comparison and makes the % Used column meaningless.

Use the Top Sheet to find overspend early

Check the Top Sheet tab at least once a week during production. Any department showing amber (85%+ of budget used) needs a conversation before it turns red. Catching overspend at 85% gives you options; finding it at 110% means the money is already gone.

Version your budget in the Notes

Every time you export and share a budget, add a version entry to Budget Notes: date, what changed, and who approved it. Budgets that go through multiple versions without clear version history cause significant confusion during post-production accounting.

Contingency is not a slush fund

The 10% Contingency row is for genuine unforeseen costs — not for known costs that were omitted from department budgets. If you know something will cost money, budget it in the relevant department. Contingency should be the last resort, not the first.