What is a daily cost report, or hot costs?

The daily cost report is what a production spent on a single shoot day, produced the following morning while there is still time to act on it. It is read by department rather than as one total, because that is how an overage gets traced to whoever caused it. The industry calls it hot costs. In ScenePaper it covers wages, employer fringe, overtime, meal penalties, petty cash, equipment and invoices for the day.

Is this for a line producer or a production accountant?

Both, and they want different documents. The line producer reads the daily cost report and the cash position. The production accountant wants the weekly report by account code and the exports — a pay register and a cost ledger against account codes. Those come out as spreadsheets, because the books are almost certainly kept somewhere else.

Does it calculate TDS on crew payments?

No. ScenePaper does not calculate or deduct TDS today. Have your accountant work out deductions; the pay register lists every settlement for them to work from.

Can it tell me whether I can pay everyone on Friday?

That is what the cash position is for. It shows what has actually arrived from your funding sources, what has actually left the account, and what is still owed to crew and suppliers. If the next fortnight of shooting costs more than you have free — worked out from what your own unit has been burning per shooting day, not from the budget — it says so on the screen you open every morning.

How do I pay junior artistes and track short supply?

Place the order against the coordinator's rate card, then count the artistes at call and at wrap on the JAs & Suppliers page. Each day is paid for the lesser of the two counts, never more than was ordered unless you record the extras you accepted, plus overtime hours and night bata per head. The shortfall is shown with what it would have cost and is not paid. When the coordinator's invoice arrives, tick the days it covers and the page shows whether it bills for more than your count.

How do you pay a lead on contract and daily crew on the same film?

Each person's booking on the production is either per call or on contract. Per-call crew get a call slip for every day they work and are paid through settlements. A contract booking carries the whole fee: it is committed to the budget once, the person still appears on the call sheet, and no daily slip is written for them. Paying a contract fee in instalments — on signing, at the start of principal, on delivery — is not built yet; record those payments against the budget for now.

Does it check pay against union minimum rates?

Against the ones you record. You enter each minimum from your union or association agreement with its source and the date it applies from, and any booking below it is flagged on the production. ScenePaper does not supply the figures itself — minimums differ by union, state and craft, and change by circular, so a rate with no source would be a guess.

Every feature is free to use right now, cost reports and crew pay included, and there is no commission on crew you hire. There is no seat limit, so the size of your unit does not change what you pay, and no export paywall — the pay register and the cost ledger come out as spreadsheets whatever you are on.

Production Accounting

Know what the day cost before the next one starts.

Most productions find out what a week cost about ten days after it happened, from a spreadsheet somebody rebuilt by hand. By then the money is gone and the only choice left is who to disappoint. ScenePaper keeps the daily cost report and the crew pay run in one place, on the same data the call sheets already use.

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What is production accounting software?

Production accounting software tracks what a film production actually spends while it is spending it. It produces the daily cost report — the "hot costs" a producer reads the morning after a shoot day — and the weekly cost report that compares spend to date against the approved budget. It also handles crew payments and supplier invoices.

What you get

Daily hot costs, by department

What yesterday cost, split the way a producer reads it: wages, the employer fringe on those wages shown separately, overtime, meal penalties, petty cash, equipment and invoices. Departments already past their approved budget are named. Spend that belongs to no department is named too, rather than quietly left out of the total.

The Friday cost report

Paid this week against paid to date, open commitments, forecast at completion and variance by account code. Those first two are different questions — one tells you whether the week went wrong, the other whether the picture has.

The call is the unit of money

A day of work is a call slip: one person, one production, one date, one fraction of a call. Half a call is half a call. Someone working two of your films on the same day is two slips, which is legitimate and gets caught rather than double-paid.

Contract or per call — the booking decides

Your lead and your director are on a fee; the unit is on a day rate. Each booking says which. People on contract stay on the call sheet but never get a call slip, and their fee is committed to the budget once rather than counted again every day they work. A held day pays the fraction of a call the production sets — or nothing, if that is your rule.

Overtime and meal penalties that price themselves

Set your overtime rule once — the hours a call covers, the grace, the block size. A day that ran long is priced by that rule: automatically when the wrap time is recorded, if you switch that on, or with one press from the day's overtime list. A missed meal break is booked across everyone on the day at your flat rate, stamped onto each slip.

Money in, not just money out

What each investor or distributor has committed, and separately what has actually landed. Those are usually weeks apart. From the two: what is in the account, what is already owed to crew and suppliers, and what is genuinely free to commit.

Allowances on the day, bonuses on the settlement

Bata, per diem, travel, stay, conveyance and night allowance, set once for the production — every call, or only night calls — and applied to a day in one press. A figure typed for one person stays theirs. A festival bonus or a reimbursement is paid with the next settlement, charged to a production's budget line if you choose one, and every allowance, meal penalty and bonus is in the same pay the cost report counts.

Loans that are not advances

An advance is pay taken early and recovered from the next settlement. A loan is repaid an agreed instalment at a time, across as many settlements as it takes — skipped in a thin week, written off if the house decides — with a photo of the signed voucher when cash changes hands.

A payout file for the bank

Everything ready to pay, as a file for your bank's bulk upload or a UPI payout tool — account and IFSC, or UPI ID, from each person's encrypted details. Anyone with no details on file is named, not left out.

Junior artistes paid per head that worked

Order from a coordinator — ten villagers, 6 am, day twelve — at the rate on their card, fixed on the order. Count them at call and at wrap, with a group photo. They are paid for the lesser of the two counts, never more than was ordered unless you accept the extras, with overtime and night bata per head, and the coordinator's commission on top if their card carries one. Short supply is shown and simply not paid. The day's order goes to the coordinator as a WhatsApp message you check before sending.

The supplier's bill against your own count

Record a coordinator's or caterer's invoice, tick the days it covers, and see at once whether it bills for more heads than you counted. Advances are recovered against it, a billed day's count is locked, and a payment against a budget line posts to the cost report.

Suppliers as companies

A vendor is a record with a GSTIN and a PAN, not a spelling on an invoice. What you have committed to them and what you have paid, across every production in the house. Near-duplicates are yours to merge — we will not guess that two similar names are one company.

Exports your accountant can open

A pay register of every settlement and a cost ledger of every line of spend against its account code, as spreadsheets your accountant can open.

Deals paid by milestone

Record a cast or crew deal — fee, points, dubbing and promotion days — and pay it by milestone. Each payment posts to the budget.

Under budget and unable to make payroll

These are different things and only one of them is a fact. A budget is a plan; the bank balance is what is actually there. An investor tranche promised in July and arriving in September is how a production that is running comfortably under budget ends up unable to pay its unit on Friday.

Most tools model the spending in detail and the income not at all, so they can answer the first question and not the second. ScenePaper keeps both, and the figure it puts in front of you is receipts minus what has actually left the account — after everything already owed to crew and suppliers is taken off.

The report a producer can argue with

A cost figure nobody can take apart is a figure nobody trusts. Wages and the fringe on those wages are shown separately, not blended. Overtime and meal penalties are their own lines. Every total breaks down into what made it.

Wages, fringe, overtime and meal penalties as separate figures
Departments past their approved budget named, with the amount
Days carrying no rate flagged — they read as free until somebody fixes them
Uncategorised spend named rather than dropped from the total

Ordered, supplied, paid — three different numbers

Junior artistes and day suppliers are where a regional shoot leaks most money, and not through fraud so much as arithmetic nobody writes down. Twenty were ordered, seventeen arrived, fifteen were still there at wrap, and the bill says twenty.

ScenePaper keeps all three numbers. The order carries the agreed rate from the coordinator's card, fixed the moment it is placed so a renegotiation next week cannot restate this week. The count at call and at wrap is taken on set, with a photo if you want one. What is owed is worked out from those counts — the lesser of call and wrap, capped at the order unless you accept extras — and the bill, when it comes, is set against that figure rather than read on trust. The same counts feed the catering number for the day, and a supplier's record of what they sent against what they were asked for builds up across every production you make.

An honest note on scope

ScenePaper does not calculate TDS. Have your accountant work out deductions from the pay register.

There is also no bank integration. ScenePaper records that a settlement was paid, by what method and against what reference; it does not move the money. And nothing here produces a Movie Magic Budgeting file, which a studio or bond company on a union show will very likely still expect.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What is a daily cost report, or hot costs?: The daily cost report is what a production spent on a single shoot day, produced the following morning while there is still time to act on it. It is read by department rather than as one total, because that is how an overage gets traced to whoever caused it. The industry calls it hot costs. In ScenePaper it covers wages, employer fringe, overtime, meal penalties, petty cash, equipment and invoices for the day.
Is this for a line producer or a production accountant?: Both, and they want different documents. The line producer reads the daily cost report and the cash position. The production accountant wants the weekly report by account code and the exports — a pay register and a cost ledger against account codes. Those come out as spreadsheets, because the books are almost certainly kept somewhere else.
Does it calculate TDS on crew payments?: No. ScenePaper does not calculate or deduct TDS today. Have your accountant work out deductions; the pay register lists every settlement for them to work from.
Can it tell me whether I can pay everyone on Friday?: That is what the cash position is for. It shows what has actually arrived from your funding sources, what has actually left the account, and what is still owed to crew and suppliers. If the next fortnight of shooting costs more than you have free — worked out from what your own unit has been burning per shooting day, not from the budget — it says so on the screen you open every morning.
How do I pay junior artistes and track short supply?: Place the order against the coordinator's rate card, then count the artistes at call and at wrap on the JAs & Suppliers page. Each day is paid for the lesser of the two counts, never more than was ordered unless you record the extras you accepted, plus overtime hours and night bata per head. The shortfall is shown with what it would have cost and is not paid. When the coordinator's invoice arrives, tick the days it covers and the page shows whether it bills for more than your count.
How do you pay a lead on contract and daily crew on the same film?: Each person's booking on the production is either per call or on contract. Per-call crew get a call slip for every day they work and are paid through settlements. A contract booking carries the whole fee: it is committed to the budget once, the person still appears on the call sheet, and no daily slip is written for them. Paying a contract fee in instalments — on signing, at the start of principal, on delivery — is not built yet; record those payments against the budget for now.
Does it check pay against union minimum rates?: Against the ones you record. You enter each minimum from your union or association agreement with its source and the date it applies from, and any booking below it is flagged on the production. ScenePaper does not supply the figures itself — minimums differ by union, state and craft, and change by circular, so a rate with no source would be a guess.
Is it free?: Every feature is free to use right now, cost reports and crew pay included, and there is no commission on crew you hire. There is no seat limit, so the size of your unit does not change what you pay, and no export paywall — the pay register and the cost ledger come out as spreadsheets whatever you are on.

Terms explained

Cost report: A cost report is the periodic statement, usually weekly, comparing what a production has spent and committed against what it budgeted, account by account. It carries the Estimated Final Cost and the variance, and it is the document a financier or guarantor monitors the production through.
Call slip: A call slip is the record of one person's work on one production on one day: how much of a call they worked, any overtime, and what that day pays them. Daily-wage crew are paid by adding up their call slips, so the slip — not the week — is the unit of money.
Junior artiste: A junior artiste is the term used across Indian film and television for a background performer — the crowd, villagers, passers-by or police in a scene. Junior artistes are usually booked in numbers through a coordinator or agent rather than individually, and are paid per head for each call they work.
Per diem: Per diem is a fixed daily amount paid to cast and crew working away from home to cover meals and incidental costs, on top of their wage. It is paid per day on location rather than per call, and is budgeted separately from pay so a location schedule shows its real cost.
Bata: Bata is the daily allowance paid on Indian film sets on top of a wage, originally for food and travel. Night bata is the extra allowance paid for working a night shoot. It is usually a fixed amount per person per day rather than a share of pay, and is budgeted separately from wages.
Scene budget: A scene budget is the cost of a single scene, worked out by pricing the elements on its breakdown sheet — cast, crew, location, equipment, effects, art department. It is the figure a category-based budget cannot give you, because that one is organised by account and every account feeds every scene.
Above the line: Above the line refers to the budget section covering the creative principals whose deals are usually negotiated before production begins — story and rights, producers, director, and principal cast. It sits above a literal dividing line in the traditional budget top sheet.
Below the line: Below the line refers to the budget section covering the technical and logistical cost of actually making the film — crew, equipment, locations, construction, transport, catering and post-production. These are the costs that scale directly with the number of shooting days.