How to tag a budget for incentives

Before a tax credit application, someone has to say line by line what qualifies. Auto tag does a first pass over the whole budget in seconds and asks you only about the lines it is unsure of. Tagging never changes a number in the budget. It adds groups and a credit, and those drive the estimate.

It works on any budget, including one you uploaded and kept as it is. You need budget edit access to tag. Viewers can read the result.

Steps

1. Open Budget under Financing and click Auto tag in the page header.
2. Under Which incentive?, tick the programs to tag for. Programs you track on the Funding page and programs where your locations are get suggested. Use + Add another incentive for any other.
3. If the programs are in more than one place, set You shoot in.
4. Click the big button under Tag the budget. The first time it reads "Tag 539 lines" with your own line count. Afterwards it reads Tag new and changed lines.
5. Read What it means. Each program shows the estimated credit and a bar splitting the budget into Qualifies, Doesn't qualify, Spent elsewhere, and Needs a look.
6. Under "Check these lines (biggest first)", go through the lines it was unsure about. Click Looks right to accept the suggestion, or Change to set what the line pays for, where it is spent, and for labor whether it is a Local hire or Brought in. All look right accepts every suggestion at once.

When nothing is left to check, the panel says every line is tagged.

What a tag says

Each line gets up to three decisions: what it pays for (above-the-line pay, crew pay, goods and services, post production, visual effects, overhead, or something that never qualifies), where it is spent, and for labor whether the hire is local. Each program then turns those into its own answer, so the same wages can qualify in one state and not in another.

Check minimums against the real budget

If a program has a minimum spend or a minimum budget, the result for that program shows a red line when it is not met, with the required figure and yours. For example: "Minimum qualified spend of $500,000 not met ($412,300)". The check uses the budget's real totals, so a $17,000,000 budget is measured as $17,000,000.

Fix a tag from the grid

Select one or more lines in the budget grid, open Apply, and choose Incentive tag. Under Pays for pick the category, or pick Spent where we shoot, Spent elsewhere, Local hire, or Brought in. Selecting an account or category applies it to every line underneath. Your choice is kept on every later run and used to tag similar lines.

Keep tags current

• After you add or edit lines, open Auto tag and click Tag new and changed lines. Lines added since the last run show under Needs a look until then.
• After a sync, the lines the sync added are tagged for the same programs automatically.
• Under More options, "Next time, re-check every line" re-decides everything except your own choices. Show the credits on the topsheet puts each program's credit on the topsheet. Remove all incentive tags takes the groups, credits, and your corrections off. Budget numbers do not change, and you can undo it.

Where the tags go next

The Funding page estimates each tagged program from the tags, line by line, instead of from assumed shares. Export .mmbx carries the tags into Movie Magic Budgeting as groups.

If it doesn't work

• The Auto tag button is missing until the budget has loaded in the grid.
• Tagging failed: try again. One run counts as one of the plan's monthly AI requests.
• An estimated credit of zero with a red line means a minimum is not met or no spend qualifies.

The estimate is a planning figure. Read the program's own rules before you rely on it. The qualified spend and minimum spend entries explain the terms, and how to find incentives with Funding covers choosing programs.