Budget · see it in action
Budget
Top sheet to bottom line. Six templates. Variance in real time.
A real production budget with six tabs — Cost Report, Variance, Forecast, Top Sheet, POs and Petty Cash, and Rate Cards — plus templates for six common production shapes (feature, short, TVC, music video, doc, series) and AICP / broadcast-network shells with the line numbering every commercial producer and TV line producer recognises. Two-way Purchase Order sync so paid POs roll up to actuals automatically; the automatic SAG / IATSE / DGA / WGA fringe rate engine recalculates whenever you tweak a deal memo.
Replaces: Legacy budgeting desktop apps and a dozen fragile spreadsheets
The numbers
Budget by the figures.
Every figure below is live in the product today — counted from the running code, not the marketing deck.
Budget · Top Sheet
Above- and below-the-line account totals at a glance.
The financier-facing summary, always current — every account rolls up live from the working budget, so the top sheet you send Monday is never last Tuesday's numbers.
See it live in the demo →
The pipeline
Where Budget sits in the production flow.
The financial spine. Budget reads from the breakdown (element counts → suggested line items) and the cast app (deal memos → cast department lines with auto-fringe), then feeds the producer dashboard's EFC + variance + hot-cost surfaces. The number every financier asks for, finally automatable.
Feeds downstream into
Budget · Variance
Estimated vs actual, per department, with overage flags.
Every department's estimate against its actuals, with overruns flagged in red the moment they happen — not at the wrap party.
See it live in the demo →
Budget · Forecast
Burn-rate analysis and projected spend — see the cliff before you hit it.
Daily burn rate, projected total and budget-exhaustion runway, charted from your real spend — the early-warning system bond companies wish every production had.
DollyAI™ in this app
3 AI commands wired into Budget.
Every command shows its credit cost before you commit. Every response is anchored in your real project — not a generic prompt.
Suggested adds
2 crReads the breakdown counts and proposes budget lines (props × £50, vehicles × £1500/day, locations × £800 flat) you can accept whole, edit, or reject.
AI variance predict
8 crAI scores every budget line for overrun risk (0-200% predicted overrun, confidence band, one-sentence reason). Surfaces the highest-risk lines + total predicted overrun in the project's currency. /api/budget/variance-predict canon route per §17.173.
Top-sheet narrative
3 crCover letter for the budget PDF — written in the language a financier expects to read alongside the numbers.
Budget · Purchase Orders
Every PO raised, approved and paid — tracked against the budget.
POs route to the right approver by amount, link to their budget lines, and reconcile actuals automatically when paid — a paper trail your accountant will actually thank you for.
See it live in the demo →
Talks to every app
Budget reads + writes to the same project file.
No re-entry, no copy-paste, no out-of-sync versions. Every connection below is a live data path in the running product.
Breakdown
Per-category element counts feed budget-line suggested-adds via /api/budget/hints.
Cast
Deal-memo status flips trigger Cast department line writes — signed/executed → confirmed adds, cancelled → removed.
Producer
EFC + variance + hot-cost roll up to the producer dashboard on every save.
Call Sheet
Per-day cost figures flow into the daily call sheet's overrun forecast pill.
Budget · Petty Cash
Per-department floats and on-set expenses, reconciled live.
Floats out, receipts in, balances live — on-set spend stops being a shoebox of receipts and starts being a number you can trust mid-shoot.
See it live in the demo →Shares one project file
Budget reads and writes to the same synchronized project as every other app in the suite. Change one thing upstream and every dependent surface picks it up automatically.
Powered by DollyAI™
Dolly reads everything Budget needs to know about your project before you even ask. She suggests, you approve — never the other way around.
Never-lose-saves
Every change is autosaved, versioned, and restorable. Roll back Budget to any point without losing downstream work.
Frequently asked
Common questions about Budget.
Does the budget actually run AICP / broadcast-network line numbering?
Yes. AICP + broadcast-network shells are first-class templates. The line numbering every commercial producer + TV LP recognises ships out of the box.
How do POs roll up to actuals?
Two-way Budget ↔ Purchase Order sync. Paid POs automatically write to the actuals column on their linked budget line; variance flags overages live.
Does the SAG fringe engine handle the 2026 contract rates?
Yes. SAG / IATSE / DGA / WGA fringe rates ship current — and recalculate live whenever you tweak a deal memo.
Can I export to Movie Magic or Showbiz?
PDF + CSV export ship today; native .mmb export for legacy budgeting tools is roadmap. The PDF format matches what a financier actually reads.
Budget · Rate Cards
Industry union day-rates, ready to drop into any line.
BECTU and guild day-rate cards built in — estimate a department by dropping real union rates into the lines instead of guessing from the last show.
The Promise
Budget is on every tier.
From Solo to Broadcaster. No locked features, no Pro-only exports, no surprise paywalls. Every capability you see on this page ships on every plan — Solo gets exactly the same Budget as Broadcaster.
More in the suite
Works with every app around it.
Every app talks to every other app through one synchronised project file — synced live across all seats, powered by DollyAI™.
Breakdown
AI tags every prop, costume, and SFX in seconds. No more hand-tagging.
Producer
The production cockpit. EFC + variance + hot-cost + bond reports + EPK — every morning, by 6am.
Cast
Roster, deal memos, availability, character bibles. The cast book, automated.
Locations
Scouting, permits, logistics. Every shoot location, mapped and ready.
Props
Inventory plus costume continuity, in one searchable library.
Vehicles
Picture cars and unit vehicles. Insurance, plates, drivers, scene refs.
Calendar
Stripboard scheduling. Eight views. The one tool your AD will not fight you on.
Call Sheet
Auto-generated from your schedule. SMS dispatch. Weather built in.
Shoot
Crew plus equipment manifest. The on-set source of truth.
Diary
Production diary, DPRs, BTS gallery. The crew log that organises itself.
Script
The screenplay editor that writes the breakdown for you.
Shotlist
AI-built from your script. Lens, framing, every shot mapped.
Editor
Storyboard frame editor. Ship boards your director will sign.
Draw
Pro-grade brush engine. GPU canvas. Apple Pencil Pro. In your browser.
AI Artist
Style-locked image generation. Your custom artist, every frame.
Animate
Screenplay to playable animatic in one click.
Dashboard
The launchpad. Every project at a glance.
Files
Every asset, every version, every project. Searchable, shareable, never lost.
Team Chat
Channels for every shoot. No more lost messages.
Cloud Library
Cloud-synced across every device. Reusable across every project.