A good job that lost money
A brand film was quoted with a budget top sheet: pre-production, crew, kit, locations, travel, post and music. The shoot added a day when a location fell through. An extra drone operator was hired. The edit ran three rounds over. Travel went up because crew came from London.
Two months later, the accounts show the job made a loss. The producer knew some costs went up, but not by how much, and never sent the client a change note. The final invoice was sent at the quoted amount.
Why the numbers arrive too late
- The budget sits in a spreadsheet the producer made when quoting.
- Actual costs arrive as supplier invoices weeks after the work.
- Crew, hires and expenses are not coded to jobs consistently.
- Producers see costs job by job in their heads, not on a page.
- Month-end accounts show totals, not jobs, and come too late to act on.
What late numbers cost
Overruns that could have been recharged are absorbed because nobody raised them at the time. Loss-making jobs are repeated because nobody sees the pattern. Quotes for similar jobs are built on the same wrong assumptions. And directors make decisions on gut feeling rather than figures. The producer often knows a job is going over, but without the figures in front of them it is hard to tell whether it is a small drift or something to raise with the client today.
How we build the live budget view
- Each job's budget is taken from your quote or budget template, with lines grouped like your top sheet.
- Costs are committed as they are booked: crew pencilled and confirmed on the crew board, kit hired, locations booked, each with its expected cost.
- Actual costs replace committed ones when supplier bills and crew invoices are approved in Xero or QuickBooks and coded to the job.
- Expenses from receipt apps or card feeds are coded to jobs and added.
- The view shows each line: budget, committed, actual, and the difference, with overruns highlighted.
- When a line goes over by an amount you set, the producer is alerted, with a prompt to raise a change note with the client if the cause was theirs.
- At the end of the job, the final figures are kept, so future quotes can be compared with past actuals.
| Budget line | Committed from | Actual from |
|---|---|---|
| Crew | Crew bookings | Approved crew invoices |
| Kit hire | Hire log | Rental house bills |
| Locations | Location bookings | Location invoices |
| Travel | Travel bookings | Expenses and bills |
| Post | Edit and grade bookings | Internal time or supplier bills |
The accounting stays in your accounts package. The view reads from it, and never replaces your accountant's figures.
A job watched as it runs
When the extra shoot day is added, the crew line shows the committed cost rising above budget. The producer sees it that afternoon, and sends the client a change note for the location change, which they approve. When the extra drone operator is confirmed, it shows on kit and crew. At wrap, the job is over on post because of extra rounds, and the round tracking change notes cover it.
The final invoice includes the approved changes. The job's figures are kept, and the next quote for a similar film starts from what this one actually cost.
Directors get a different view of the same data: all live jobs on one page, with the ones drifting over budget at the top. It is a five-minute look on a Monday morning rather than a surprise at the quarterly accounts meeting.
Is this how you find out about losses?
- You find out a job lost money months after it wrapped.
- Budgets live in quote spreadsheets.
- Costs are not always coded to jobs.
- Overruns are rarely charged to clients.
- Quotes repeat the same mistakes.