I worked as a Production Accountant and Financial controller in the Film & TV business for 20 years before moving into the full-time CEO role at TPH Global where I’m in touch with our customers on a daily basis.
Two app’s we relied heavily on when working on a production was the Accounting system and the Budgeting system.
Frustrated by inadequate accounting systems I had to use, I went about building my own. In 1992 I released Film Accountant, 1998 Cosmo and 2004 Eclipse.
The budgeting tool we used was good but not great – it could have been a lot better and it has hardly changed much in 30 years since when I first used it as a Dos product. Having a monopoly in the market has helped fend off new competition but it has been an impediment to driving innovation and making the product it should be today.
With this monopoly and without the ability to read and write compatible files, it seemed pointless trying to create something similar.
However, in 2022 with co-founder Patrick Plummer on board we decided to spec out our vision. We are excited by the look and feel of our app and hope the industry will welcome new innovation in this area by supporting us.
Firstly this is a full web application so it works on browsers and iPad devices. If you have a budget loaded and you are offline you will still be able to continue working.
The three tier structure will be similar to what you are used to. Starting with the top sheet, categories and budget details.
All of the Globals, Groups, Fringes, Sets, Locations, Currency and Unit Desc are all easily accessible at anytime from the tabs across the top without having to open and close any windows.
There are a few notable differences straight away. You will see a CTD (Costs To Date) Tab, Currency conversion drop list and graphical widget representing the comparison variance.
CTD (Costs To Date) Tab,
We have added an easy way to be able to import all your costs to date in from a cost report or another source. You can then reference these amounts like you would a global in your budget. This is a great way to keep your budget up to date during budgeting and during the shoot. By having Total and Usage columns you can quickly check to make sure everything is accounted for and not overstated by referencing a CTD more than once. You will quickly see if you have a CTD that has not been referenced.
Currency conversion drop list
If you have ever worked with multiple currencies you know what a pain it is to change the base currency in your budgeting app and it creates all sorts of headaches with your variances, fringes and rebates. We wanted to make it as easy as it is in most production accounting systems to change base currencies on a report.
Variance widget
At each level of the budget you will be able to visually see what changes have had the biggest impact from underages and overages. You can also see these variances at the detail level so you know which lines changed to cause the variance and by how much.
Use Powerful Excel compatible formula’s.
Have you ever had the case where you updated someone’s rate but forgot to fix their overtime calc or updated their prep or post and forgot to update accom, per diems, box rental and vehicle hire?
One hack used is to setup everyone’s rate as a global and then reference that global in the detail level. You can do that in HB or you can just reference the rate as shown below. Updating the rate will instantly update the rate and overtime calc.
What’s next?
If you like what you see above, this is only the beginning. My next blog is guaranteed to blow your mind for our next installment of HB on what you thought was ever possible.
With your help and support we can truly build was never possible previously.
About the Author:
Kevin Plummer worked as a Production Accountant and financial controller for over 20 years across low budget, TV and block buster Feature Films. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0687635/
He is one of the founders of TPH and has been the CEO since 2010.
