The sheet is the chart of accounts for SALT FLATS, a 12-day indie road drama shooting around Bakersfield, with one row per account. Each row shows what belongs in the account, then splits the money into labor, fringes on that labor, and everything else. If you want every crew position, rental, and location fee on its own line, the indie film budget template is the same production broken out line by line, and the totals match to the dollar.
For the background on why budgets are split at "the line," read above the line vs. below the line. For what a budget has to cover before you open a spreadsheet, see what a film production budget template should include. This page covers the sheet and how to fill it in.
How the account numbers are laid out
The first digit tells you the section. The 1000 series is above the line: 1100 story and rights, 1200 producers, 1300 director, 1400 cast and stunts. The 2000 series is the production period, with a block of one hundred numbers for each department: 2000 production staff, 2300 camera, 2600 locations, 2800 property, and 2900 wardrobe, makeup, and hair, with the rest in between. Post-production takes the 3000 series for editorial, sound, music, and VFX, and the 4000 series for picture finishing and deliverables. The 5000 series is everything that isn't tied to a department: insurance, legal, accounting, travel and living, office, festivals.
Line items live inside each account. Camera is 2300, so the DP is 2301, the 1st AC 2302, and the A-camera package rental 2307. Those detail numbers matter after the budget is locked, because every invoice, time card, and petty cash receipt gets coded to one of them. If you renumber accounts halfway through prep, the first cost report won't reconcile. The SALT FLATS prop list totals against 2800 for the same reason. The film chart of accounts post covers how studios and budgeting programs number accounts differently.
Why labor and fringes have their own columns
Fringes are the employer's costs on top of wages, and they only apply to people paid through payroll. The writer, producer, director, and casting director on SALT FLATS are paid through loan-out companies, so those rows show $0 in both the labor and fringe columns and the whole fee sits under other costs.
Some of the fringe is fixed by law. The employer pays 6.2% Social Security and 1.45% Medicare on wages, which is 7.65%. Federal unemployment is 6.0% on the first $7,000 per employee, reduced to 0.6% once the state credit applies. A new California employer pays 3.4% state unemployment and 0.1% Employment Training Tax, each on the first $7,000. Workers' comp and the payroll company's handling fee come from quotes, and union pension and health comes from the agreement.
This template uses 18% for crew as an example rate. The math on the camera row is $29,200 in labor times 18%, which is $5,256, so the account total is $29,200 + $5,256 + $11,100 in rentals and drives = $45,556. Get a written quote from your payroll company before you lock the budget and replace the 18%.
Cast on 1400 carry two fringes. SAG-AFTRA's Moderate Low Budget Agreement sets pension and health at 22% of performer pay, effective September 6, 2026, and the cast are on payroll, so the 18% applies to them too. On $20,167 of cast payroll that's $4,437 of pension and health plus $3,630 of payroll taxes and fees, rounded to the dollar, for $8,067. The payroll itself is priced at the agreement's July 1, 2026 minimums of $449 a day and $1,560 a week, and the indie film budget shows which performers are on which.
Filling it in for your own film
- Enter the production details at the top: the script draft and date the budget is built from, prep and shoot weeks, and your fringe assumptions. A budget without a script date can't be defended later.
- Lock the schedule length first. Crew weeks, rentals, hotel nights, and catering all multiply off the shoot days, so a 12-day board and an 18-day board produce very different 2000 series.
- Fill in the 1000 series from the deals you have or expect. Mark loan-out fees as other costs and cast on payroll as labor.
- Work through each 2000-series account department by department. Put crew rates in the labor column and rentals, purchases, and fees in other costs.
- Apply the fringe rate to each labor cell. Background performers and stand-ins are on payroll, so 2100 carries fringes too.
- Price post from actual bids. A flat bid from a sound house for edit, foley, and mix is easier to hold than an hourly estimate.
- Add the 5000 series. E&O insurance is often bound close to delivery, but it belongs in the budget from the first draft.
- Total each section, add below-the-line sections together, and apply contingency. Then check that the grand total matches the budget top sheet.
Contingency, and what it's calculated on
Below the line on SALT FLATS is production $262,364 + post $42,836 + other $38,500 = $343,700. With $74,414 above the line, the accounts come to $418,114, and contingency is the $31,886 left under the $450,000 total: $74,414 + $343,700 + $31,886 = $450,000. That's 9.3% of below the line, less than the 10% ($34,370) many budgets carry, because the total is fixed and the cast is paid union minimums. Fees in the 1000 series are set by contract before prep, so they're left out of the base. How big the percentage should be, and when a bond company or investor will ask for more, is covered in how much contingency a film budget needs.
Mistakes that show up in the first cost report
Crew rates that don't clear minimum wage once overtime is counted can get a production into legal trouble. California's minimum wage in 2026 is $16.90 an hour, and Labor Code 510 requires time and a half after 8 hours in a day or 40 in a week, and double time after 12 hours in a day. SALT FLATS pays shooting crew day rates that guarantee 10 hours, the same structure as its crew deal memo. Ten hours is 8 straight plus 2 at time and a half, or 11 straight-time hours, so a $220 PA day has a $20 base. That clears $16.90, and hours 11 and 12 cost $30 each. The overtime allowance line in each account is those two hours on every shoot day: 3 x $220 / 11 = $60 a day for a PA.
Weekly rates need the same check. A six-day week of 12-hour days is five days of 14 straight-time hours (8 + 4 x 1.5), plus a sixth day where all 12 hours fall past 40 for the week, 18 more. That's 88 hours times $16.90, or $1,487.20, which is why no prep or shoot weekly rate on the budget is below $1,500. The editor and assistant editor have lower weekly rates because post weeks are five 8-hour days.
Other common problems:
- Background gets budgeted as a flat headcount with no fringe line, then shows up on the payroll invoice at 18% more.
- Hotel nights are counted for shoot days only. Out-of-town crew on SALT FLATS check in 10/1 for camera prep, so six rooms carry 16 nights each, plus 30 nights for cast.
- Catering is budgeted for the crew list and forgets cast, background, and drivers. SALT FLATS budgets 40 people a day for breakfast and lunch.
- Rentals are priced at the daily rate when rental houses quote weekly deals, or the reverse.
What this sheet feeds
The account totals roll up to the top sheet, which is the one page investors read. The same totals are spread across weeks and months on the cash flow schedule so you know when money has to be in the bank. Once shooting starts, the hot cost report tracks each day against the budget, using the same account numbers.
Building a budget in Storiara
Storiara's Budget module calculates line items from your breakdown and rate tables. Cast paid days come from the Day Out of Days, and crew, equipment, asset, and location rows use the rates you've entered, with built-in tier tables filling the gaps. A setup wizard asks for production type, union tier, shoot days, prep and post weeks, contingency, and an optional completion bond, and the result is a top sheet with a fringe column that you can export to Excel. Its account numbers aren't the same as this template's (camera is 3300 there), so map them before you merge the two. The budgeting feature page shows the layout.