The budget

The shape

Accounts, sections, a topsheet — and each level is the exact sum of the one below it, rounded the same way, so the topsheet equals its accounts. A budget that does not add up is the first thing a financier notices.

Globals

Set ShootDays = 21 once and write ShootDays * 2 in a line's units. Change the 21 and every line that uses it follows. A budget where the shoot length is typed into forty rows is a budget that is wrong after the first schedule change.

Fringes, and the thing to watch

A fringe is an employer cost on top of a wage — EPF, ESI, unemployment insurance, guild pension and health. ScriptLock applies them per person across every line somebody appears on, not per line, because a wage base applies once to a person. Applying it per line is the commonest way a budget is overstated.

Two things the report tells you about itself, and both matter:

• A rate that ships at zero is a line you have to fill in, not a fringe that costs nothing. The report lists them.
• A ceiling that is per month — EPF's ₹15,000 is — is currently applied once across the whole engagement, because a budget line does not say how many months it covers. Somebody on the unit for five months is therefore understated, and the report says so on its face. Ask your accountant and tell us; it is the next thing we will fix.

Every rate carries the date it was last confirmed. They change by notification, and ScriptLock does not give tax advice — it does the arithmetic and shows its source.

Against actuals

Enter expenses against accounts and the budget shows spent and variance per account. That is the report a producer looks at every week.

Who can see it

A writer never sees the budget — not the topsheet, not a total. An executive sees the topsheet only. Production and accounts see all of it. That is the matrix, enforced on the server, and no screen setting changes it.