How to sync a budget

A budget that Storiara filled with estimates can follow the project. When you add cast or crew, change the number of shoot days, or upload a new script, Sync works out what the budget should now say and shows you the difference before it saves anything.

Sync is only offered for budgets the app filled. A budget you uploaded to keep as it is, or created with Fill in estimates off, has no Sync button, because there are no estimates in it to update.

Steps

1. Open Budget under Financing.
2. Click Sync in the page header. The grid is replaced by Syncing the budget while it works.
3. If nothing in the project changes the budget, you get Budget is up to date and you're done.
4. Otherwise a review opens, titled Sync the budget with the project? Read the summary line and the grand total before and after.
5. Go through the lines marked to check. Each has a picker to move it to a different account.
6. Click Apply to save, or close the dialog to leave the budget untouched.

How long it takes

When the script has not changed, a sync takes a few seconds. What was read from the script last time is kept, so only the pricing runs again, and that kind of sync does not count against your plan's monthly AI requests. After a script change, only the changed parts are read again, which takes longer. Like a first build, a sync keeps going if you reload or leave the page.

Read the review

The summary reads like this: "12 added, 3 updated, 2 removed, 1 edited lines kept, 2 to check". Under it is the grand total, for example $4,480,000 to $4,612,500.

• Added lines are new estimates, such as a crew member you hired since the last sync.
• Updated lines changed amount, units, or rate. Three more shoot days turns a 22-day camera package into a 25-day one.
• Removed lines are estimates the project no longer needs.
• Edited lines kept are estimate lines you changed by hand. Sync leaves them alone.
• To check are lines the chart had no obvious account for. They sit in the department's general account until you move them. A move is remembered on later syncs.

What a sync never changes

• Your categories and accounts, their numbers, names, and order. No categories are added.
• Fringes, globals, groups, and charges.
• Any line you imported, typed, or pasted.
• Any estimate line you have edited.

That is why it is safe to work in the budget between syncs. Replace an estimated line with a real quote and the quote stays.

After a sync

If the budget is tagged for incentives, the lines a sync added are tagged for the same programs, and an Incentive tags updated message says how many. The Funding estimates follow the new budget.

If it doesn't work

• No Sync button: the budget was uploaded or created without estimates. Open Reconfigure and turn on Fill in estimates to fill it. After that it syncs like any other.
• AI limit reached: the plan's monthly AI requests are used up, and this sync needs to read the script.
• A red message with Try again: the sync did not finish and nothing was changed.

To change the level, target, or contingency instead of following the project, use Reconfigure. It previews the result the same way. The Budget guide covers both, and how to set up a budget covers the first build.