Budget

Financial tracking for productions

Track what a production costs to stage. Budget figures are private to the show's creator until they invite someone in — no production role, not even Director or Producer, sees them automatically.

  • Getting started: Every show has a budget from the moment you create it — there is nothing to switch on. It starts private to you: until you invite someone, you are the only person on the show with a Budget tab at all
  • Approving spenders: Nobody can record spending until you approve them — not even a Director. On the Budget tab's Access panel (or the Cast & Crew list), set a collaborator to Approved spender View budget, or Manage budget. Only someone who already manages the budget can hand any of this out
  • What each level means: An approved spender gets an Expenses tab — they record money they spent, attach receipts, and see only their own submissions, never a total. View shows the whole budget read-only. Manage can edit everything, and can also record expenses directly
  • Pending invitations: People you've invited but who haven't joined yet appear in the Access panel marked Invite pending. You can set their access level right away — it grants nothing until they accept, then takes effect the moment they join
  • What people see: Budget viewers and managers get the Budget tab; approved spenders get an Expenses tab; everyone else sees no money tab at all
  • Recording an expense against a line: Budgeting an amount and spending it are two different acts, on two different tabs. Set the amount on the Line Items tab; when the money actually goes out, switch to the Expenses tab and use Record expense. The Budget line field at the bottom of that form is where you map it — start typing to find the line (e.g. "licensing") and pick it. That's what turns the $0.00 spent under a line item into a real figure
  • What counts as spent: Company card and cash expenses settle straight away and show as spent. A marketplace rental or an approved reimbursement shows as committed — money promised but not yet gone — until it's settled or marked reimbursed. Expenses still waiting to be filed count in neither, so an unreviewed receipt can't quietly move your totals
  • Filing submissions: Expenses recorded by an approved spender are marked pending, because they couldn't see the budget to categorise them. Anyone who manages the budget assigns the right category from the To file queue at the top of the Expenses tab
  • Reimbursements: When recording an expense, choose My own money — pay me back to file a reimbursement request instead of a settled cost. Filing the request approves the repayment: it shows in the budget as committed spend and joins the Reimbursements owed list, grouped by person so the treasurer can settle up in one payment. Once paid back, Mark reimbursed moves it to actual spend and records who repaid it and when. Spenders see their request move through requested → owed → reimbursed on their Expenses tab
  • Tracking what you're owed: If you've covered show costs yourself, your Expenses tab carries an Owed to you total of everything not yet repaid — split into what's been approved for repayment and what's still awaiting approval, so you can tell the difference between "agreed, waiting on the cheque" and "nobody has looked at it yet". Once an expense is repaid it names who paid you and on what date
  • Budget Categories: Set up categories (Costumes, Props, Sets, etc.) with allocated amounts
  • Receipts: Attach receipts to an expense when you record it — PDFs or photos. Attached receipts appear beside the expense with an eye icon to read the PDF in the app and a download icon to save it
  • Tracking: See spent vs. budgeted amounts
  • From your inventory: On an inventory item, each show it's assigned to has a Record in budget button. CueCall files it under the matching category and picks Rental or Purchase from how you acquired the item, carrying the vendor and dates across — no retyping
  • Cost per scene: Scene pages show what that scene has cost, combining expenses attributed to it directly with those for inventory assigned to it. An item used in several scenes counts in full against each, so scene costs don't add up to the show total
  • Marketplace rentals: An approved rental books into the budget as Committed, then settles to the final agreed amount when the item comes back
  • Import a spreadsheet: Already budgeting in Excel? Upload the file and CueCall reads your categories and line items. Nothing is saved until you review a preview showing exactly what was read and what was left out — subtotals, TOTAL rows and contingency lines are recognised as formulas rather than costs, and any income rows are skipped because CueCall budgets track production costs only. If our total doesn't match the total on your sheet, the preview says so before you commit
  • Choosing a sheet: If the workbook has several tabs, pick the right one in the preview and it re-reads. Accepts .xlsx, .xls, .csv and Apple Numbers (.numbers) up to 4MB
  • Importing over an existing budget: Replace swaps your categories for the ones in the spreadsheet; Add alongside keeps both. Either way, expenses you've already recorded are kept — a replace sends them back to the unfiled queue so you can re-file them against the new categories
  • Export to Excel: Download the whole budget — budget, committed, actual, remaining and variance per line — for a board meeting or your own records. The exported file imports straight back into CueCall
  • Revoking access: Set someone back to No budget at any time. CueCall keeps a record of who had access and who removed it

Related features

  • Budgets & Expenses — Budget lines and recorded expenses with receipts, where who can see or spend against the budget is granted person by person.

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Your first two shows are free for a full year each, with every feature and unlimited users. Pricing is per show, not per user.