Three numbers per line
- Bid: what the client approved. It does not move once the job is awarded.
- Running: what you now expect each line to cost, as plans change.
- Actual: what has been spent, from purchase orders, payroll and petty cash.
Variance is actual minus bid, line by line and section by section. Positive is over the bid. Negative is under. See bid, running and actual.
How to track production actuals
- Lock the approved bid, so the baseline cannot drift. See lock the bid.
- Raise a purchase order for every vendor commitment and post it to its budget line.
- Log payroll by crew member and day, with the hours actually worked.
- Log petty cash envelopes and receipts as they come in.
- Record overages the client has approved separately, so they are billed rather than absorbed.
- Review variance every day of the shoot and every week of post.
The production cost report
A production cost report puts the bid, the running budget, what is committed, what is spent and the variance side by side for every section. In ACTUALS it is not a separate document: it is the budget, always up to date, and it exports to Excel with totals that reconcile to the cent.
Forecasting the final cost
The most useful number mid-job is not what you have spent but what you will have spent. The estimate at completion projects each line forward so you can act while there is still time.