Hollywood Has Completely Failed To Innovate Production Expense Management But Now You Can Do Something About It

Hollywood is constantly changing, from shifting financial models and price structures to advancements in production technology to ever-evolving platforms for content consumption. For all intents and purposes, the entertainment industry is the land where stagnation goes to die. So why then are the methods we use to manage production expenses not changing, too? Is it because the same ones we’ve used for decades are so effective? A deeper look at the many inefficiencies and incongruities in these methods are just further evidence that we tolerate them because we’ve become so accustomed to them. Or perhaps you think no better alternatives have been devised. But is that true? To start, it helps to understand exactly what “expenses” and “methods” we’re talking about.

The Five W’s of Production Expenses

Let’s look at this like a good investigative reporter by breaking down the what, when, where, why, who and how of production expenses. The “what” could aptly be described as any person, place or thing that a producer and his team – that’s the “who” – has to pay for as part of a project’s negative cost. This includes a wide array of budget cost centers – aka the “where” – like writers, crew members, camera and lighting, locations, props, insurance, office supplies, bank fees, music licensing fees, editing suites, catering and transportation. The negative cost is the total amount of money spent through the development, pre-production, production and post production processes – you got it, that’s the “when” –  to achieve a final picture negative. “Why” accurate production expense tracking is important is that it provides a robust visual of how efficiently money is being used, whether the project is staying within the allotted budget, and if cash flow is sufficient to cover obligations.

How Productions Spend and Track Expenses

This all leads to perhaps the most critical element: the “how.” Productions spend money in myriad ways depending on the expense. Petty cash for use on set or by department heads may be issued as actual cash dollars. Departmental budgets for things like set dressing, wardrobe or craft service may be paid for with a company-issued debit, credit or PEX card. Line producers and accountants may cut actual checks to vendors, some of which may also require credit cards on file and the issuance of purchase orders. Wire transfers and platforms like Zelle or Venmo might be used to make payments to contractors directly from the production account while payroll houses issue paychecks and ACH direct deposits to employees. Some receipts and invoices come in as hard copies, while others might be emailed, and yet others dropped in a shared folder, ultimately for the line producer and accounting team to weed through and reconcile against budget estimates or credit card statements.

So What’s The Problem?

The arcane, labyrinthine nature of paying for and tracking all these expenses (which number in the thousands for a seven-figure feature film) becomes apparent when you consider the multiple payment methods from multiple sources by multiple employees in multiple departments, many of whom are not talking to each other during the tornado that is film production. It’s easy to see, then, how things could get mislabeled, misappropriated or just missed. This means more man-hours collecting, organizing, assessing and recording all the information needed to properly account for such expenditures, which in itself adds costs through overtime hours. Hard costs usually go up as well, like fees to hire additional personnel to deal with all that paperwork or to implement multiple expense management platforms – one for issuing invoices, another for tracking petty cash, one for managing bank cards, yet another for warehousing copies of receipts, et cetera.

Is There a Solution?

After speaking with dozens of producers, managers and content creators in the entertainment industry, a team of software pioneers in Texas realized there was a huge gap between Hollywood’s perceived penchant for innovation and its actual practice in the realm of expense management. This realization also coincided with profound advancements in AI and machine-learning technology, which made an ideal solution more feasible than ever before. And what would such a solution look like? For one, it would streamline payment methods and eliminate time-sucking data entry when receipts or invoices were submitted. It would also issue vendor payments with a single click while applying those actual costs against budget estimates for real-time tracking. Moreover, it would easily calculate qualified expenditures for tax rebates and reconcile receipts with credit card statements. The team set about to implement an all-in-one platform that could do these things and more, and it was through such efforts that RollCredits was finally born.

We’re super easy to contact, so reach out to learn how we can help customize a solution that maximizes your time and cost savings. With RollCredits, positive change in expense management has finally arrived.