Departments & Line Items

TL;DR — Your budget ships with 22 standard film departments. Expand any department to add, edit, or delete line items with quantities, unit costs, multipliers, and allowances.

The 22 Default Departments

When you first open Budget, the system creates industry-standard departments numbered 100–510:

100 — Story & Rights

110 — Producer

120 — Director

130 — Cast

140 — Travel & Living

150 — Fringes

200 — Production Staff

210 — Extra Talent

220 — Art Department

230 — Set Construction

240 — Set Operations

250 — Special Effects

260 — Set Dressing

270 — Props

280 — Wardrobe

290 — Hair & Makeup

300 — Electrical

310 — Camera

320 — Sound

330 — Transportation

340 — Locations

510 — Post-Production

Creating Custom Departments

Need a department that’s not in the defaults? Click Add Department at the bottom of the budget. Give it a number and name — custom departments work exactly like the built-in ones.

Working with Line Items

Expand a department to see its line items. Each line item has:

Description — what the expense is (e.g. “Director of Photography”)
Quantity — how many (e.g. 2 operators)
Unit cost — price per unit
Unit type — day, flat, or hour
Multiplier — how many units (e.g. 12 shoot days)
Allowance % — contingency padding (e.g. 10%)

Units and Multiplier

The unit type determines what the multiplier means:

Day — multiplier = number of shoot days
Flat — a one-time cost; multiplier is typically 1
Hour — multiplier = total hours

Allowance / Contingency

The allowance percentage adds a contingency buffer on top of the calculated cost. A 10% allowance on a $10,000 line item adds $1,000, making the total $11,000. This is standard practice for production budgets to cover unexpected overages.

Subtotals and Grand Total

Each department shows a subtotal that sums all its line items. The grand total at the bottom sums all department subtotals, giving you a single production budget number.