How it's written on a deal memo
A kit rental is its own line on the deal memo, right under the rate. For a key makeup artist on a small feature:
Rate: $2,750 / week (5 days, 10 hours guaranteed per day)
Kit rental: $300 / week, shoot weeks only
Inventory: Attached, signed
Production pays the $2,750 through payroll and the $300 separately, often through accounts payable. Over a 4-week shoot, kit comes to 4 x $300 = $1,200.
Why it stays off payroll
Rental payments aren't wages, so fringes don't apply. If the kit rental were paid through payroll as wages, the $1,200 above would pick up employer payroll taxes and, on a union show, possibly benefit contributions. At a 15% fringe, that's $1,200 x 0.15 = $180 in avoidable cost. Kit should also stay out of the regular rate used for overtime, which is one more reason to keep it in a separate line.
The inventory matters
Productions ask for a signed kit inventory for two reasons. It shows the rental is for real equipment, which supports treating it as rent. And if something is lost or damaged, loss and damage claims go against the inventory, not a verbal list. Without a pre-shoot inventory, a claim for a stolen kit is hard to prove.
Where it goes in the budget
Kit rentals belong in each department's account, next to the labor lines: makeup kit in the makeup account, medic kit with the set medic, and so on. A budget that forgets them is short several hundred dollars a week per department. Consumables that get used up faster than expected, like extra blood for a horror shoot, are usually handled as purchases on a purchase order or through petty cash rather than by raising the kit fee.
Kit versus box
Many shows split personal supplies (kit) from tools and small equipment (box rental), but the budget treatment is the same. What matters is that the deal memo says which it is, the amount, the unit (day or week), and whether it applies to prep. The kit rentals and box rentals post has typical department examples.