How Chris Rupert's Nametag Films Ditched Excel for Good
Dec 23, 2025
You know that moment when you're knee-deep in Excel, trying to reconcile petty cash receipts at 2 AM, and you realize you became a filmmaker to tell stories, not to chase down missing receipts? Chris Rupert gets it.
The owner and executive producer of Dallas-based Nametag Films has been in those trenches for over a decade, building one of Texas's most respected commercial production companies. But here's what sets Chris apart: he's not afraid to admit that the business side of production nearly broke him and he found a way to fix it.
"You're asking the most creative wardrobe or art department person that excels at designing a room and buying props to all of a sudden become the most meticulous accountant," Chris explains during our conversation. It's a tension every producer knows: the very people who make your production sing visually are often the ones you're asking to tape up receipts and build Excel spreadsheets at wrap.
When Values Meet Spreadsheets: The Nametag Story
Chris and his wife Diesa founded Nametag Films in 2013 with a radical idea for the commercial production world: treat everyone (from clients to PAs) with the same respect. Born from Chris's faith-driven approach to business, they built something different. While other production companies in Dallas were fighting for scraps from LA and New York, Nametag mastered the art of making their budgets look bigger.
But here's the thing about running a values-driven production company: your good intentions don't mean much if you're drowning in financial chaos.
"Pre-production is the most underrated part of everything," Chris emphasizes. The financial decisions you make before you're on set establish how successful a job is. Yet for years, Chris was stuck building budgets in Excel. What he calls "the worst thing to build a visual presentation."
The Hot Budget Trap (And Why Everyone Falls For It)
Like a lot of producers, Chris started initially by using Hot Budget. As a production company that meets AICP standards, at the time this was the default tool for commercial producers and agencies understood it. But here's what nobody talks about at those production meetings: Hot Budget was built on Excel macros that broke every time your Mac updated.
"You can never update your Mac, or if your Excel accidentally auto-updates at night, it would break your Hot Budget," Chris recalls. "There were always these hacks of reinforcing an old update of Excel."
Imagine a world of no collaboration, no real-time updates. No way to know if you were over budget until a week after wrap when receipts started trickling in. Sound familiar?
The Petty Cash Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About
Let's talk about the elephant on every set: petty cash. Chris breaks down the nightmare scenario every producer knows:
"We would typically do three or four days of pulling out ten grand at the bank at a time." Each department gets their cash envelope. Wardrobe might have a $4,000 budget but spend $15,000, planning to return most of it. The art department needs cash for last-minute props. The grip truck needs fuel money.
Then comes wrap day. Each department tapes up receipts (if they haven't lost them), creates their own Excel spreadsheet, and tries to account for every dollar. Some people are meticulous. Others? "They stuff a few hundred in their pocket, pour it out on the table at night, a hundred goes missing."
Between physical and virtual cards, Nametag has achieved something that seemed impossible: zero cash productions.
Real Numbers, Real Time: How Nametag Rebuilt Their Workflow
When Chris discovered Saturation, he didn't just dip his toes in. From their very first job using the platform, they went all-in with features like Saturation Pay. Chris breaks down a three-day shoot across Dallas and Houston with multiple locations and constantly shifting crew.
Here's what that actually looked like:
Virtual cards for remote crew: Crafty person in Houston gets a virtual card with spending limits before the team even arrives
Physical cards for department heads: No more cash envelopes, just trackable, accountable spending
Real-time actualization: Instead of waiting two weeks to know if you're over budget, Chris sees expenses as they happen
Auto-categorization: Receipts uploaded through the app automatically match to budget line items
"The ability to assign virtual cards and physical cards was a really nice element," Chris explains. When you've got a crew spread across multiple cities, being able to instantly send them purchasing power, with limits and categories, it changes everything.
The Cost of "Business As Usual"
Here's what most producers won't admit: the traditional system isn't just inefficient. It's actually expensive. Think about lost receipts becoming lost money, time spent reconciling becomes un-billable overhead, or delayed payments strain vendor relationships.
Chris shares a painfully familiar scenario: "We constantly had invoices fall through the cracks. People were not getting paid. Or we had people get paid twice."
The Saturation workflow flipped this completely. Vendors get payment links, upload their invoices with W-9s attached, and the system routes approvals automatically. The platform's Bill Pay feature transforms vendor payments, allowing ACH and wire transfers directly from the budget to their bank accounts.
When Creative Freedom Means Financial Control
The beauty of Chris's approach? It's not about choosing between creativity and accounting, it's about making the accounting invisible so creativity can thrive.
Take Nametag's ability to bid multiple versions quickly. "It wasn't uncommon for us to bid one job eight times," Chris notes. Different locations, varying talent counts, adjusted shoot days. With Saturation's phase comparison features, what used to require building entirely new budgets now happens with a few clicks.
During that three-day multi-camera shoot, Chris used phases to bid two different directors simultaneously. His line producer handled one director's budget while Chris managed the other, all in the same project, all transparent to the client.
Your Move
Chris Rupert didn't just adopt new software. He fundamentally rethought how a production company handles money. Nametag Films isn't some massive operation with dedicated accounting departments. They're a boutique commercial production company that found a way to compete with bigger players by being smarter about their financial workflow.
The question isn't whether you can afford to switch from spreadsheets and Hot Budget. It's whether you can afford not to.
Because while you're reconciling receipts at 2 AM, your competitors are already reviewing tomorrow's real-time spending reports. While you're building your eighth budget revision in Excel, they're comparing phases with a single click. While you're chasing down missing petty cash, they're seeing every expense as it happens.
Chris put it best: "I became a filmmaker to be creative, not realizing I would end up becoming an accountant."
Maybe it's time to become a filmmaker again.
Ready to see how Nametag Films transformed their production workflow?
You know that moment when you're knee-deep in Excel, trying to reconcile petty cash receipts at 2 AM, and you realize you became a filmmaker to tell stories, not to chase down missing receipts? Chris Rupert gets it.
The owner and executive producer of Dallas-based Nametag Films has been in those trenches for over a decade, building one of Texas's most respected commercial production companies. But here's what sets Chris apart: he's not afraid to admit that the business side of production nearly broke him and he found a way to fix it.
"You're asking the most creative wardrobe or art department person that excels at designing a room and buying props to all of a sudden become the most meticulous accountant," Chris explains during our conversation. It's a tension every producer knows: the very people who make your production sing visually are often the ones you're asking to tape up receipts and build Excel spreadsheets at wrap.
When Values Meet Spreadsheets: The Nametag Story
Chris and his wife Diesa founded Nametag Films in 2013 with a radical idea for the commercial production world: treat everyone (from clients to PAs) with the same respect. Born from Chris's faith-driven approach to business, they built something different. While other production companies in Dallas were fighting for scraps from LA and New York, Nametag mastered the art of making their budgets look bigger.
But here's the thing about running a values-driven production company: your good intentions don't mean much if you're drowning in financial chaos.
"Pre-production is the most underrated part of everything," Chris emphasizes. The financial decisions you make before you're on set establish how successful a job is. Yet for years, Chris was stuck building budgets in Excel. What he calls "the worst thing to build a visual presentation."
The Hot Budget Trap (And Why Everyone Falls For It)
Like a lot of producers, Chris started initially by using Hot Budget. As a production company that meets AICP standards, at the time this was the default tool for commercial producers and agencies understood it. But here's what nobody talks about at those production meetings: Hot Budget was built on Excel macros that broke every time your Mac updated.
"You can never update your Mac, or if your Excel accidentally auto-updates at night, it would break your Hot Budget," Chris recalls. "There were always these hacks of reinforcing an old update of Excel."
Imagine a world of no collaboration, no real-time updates. No way to know if you were over budget until a week after wrap when receipts started trickling in. Sound familiar?
The Petty Cash Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About
Let's talk about the elephant on every set: petty cash. Chris breaks down the nightmare scenario every producer knows:
"We would typically do three or four days of pulling out ten grand at the bank at a time." Each department gets their cash envelope. Wardrobe might have a $4,000 budget but spend $15,000, planning to return most of it. The art department needs cash for last-minute props. The grip truck needs fuel money.
Then comes wrap day. Each department tapes up receipts (if they haven't lost them), creates their own Excel spreadsheet, and tries to account for every dollar. Some people are meticulous. Others? "They stuff a few hundred in their pocket, pour it out on the table at night, a hundred goes missing."
Between physical and virtual cards, Nametag has achieved something that seemed impossible: zero cash productions.
Real Numbers, Real Time: How Nametag Rebuilt Their Workflow
When Chris discovered Saturation, he didn't just dip his toes in. From their very first job using the platform, they went all-in with features like Saturation Pay. Chris breaks down a three-day shoot across Dallas and Houston with multiple locations and constantly shifting crew.
Here's what that actually looked like:
Virtual cards for remote crew: Crafty person in Houston gets a virtual card with spending limits before the team even arrives
Physical cards for department heads: No more cash envelopes, just trackable, accountable spending
Real-time actualization: Instead of waiting two weeks to know if you're over budget, Chris sees expenses as they happen
Auto-categorization: Receipts uploaded through the app automatically match to budget line items
"The ability to assign virtual cards and physical cards was a really nice element," Chris explains. When you've got a crew spread across multiple cities, being able to instantly send them purchasing power, with limits and categories, it changes everything.
The Cost of "Business As Usual"
Here's what most producers won't admit: the traditional system isn't just inefficient. It's actually expensive. Think about lost receipts becoming lost money, time spent reconciling becomes un-billable overhead, or delayed payments strain vendor relationships.
Chris shares a painfully familiar scenario: "We constantly had invoices fall through the cracks. People were not getting paid. Or we had people get paid twice."
The Saturation workflow flipped this completely. Vendors get payment links, upload their invoices with W-9s attached, and the system routes approvals automatically. The platform's Bill Pay feature transforms vendor payments, allowing ACH and wire transfers directly from the budget to their bank accounts.
When Creative Freedom Means Financial Control
The beauty of Chris's approach? It's not about choosing between creativity and accounting, it's about making the accounting invisible so creativity can thrive.
Take Nametag's ability to bid multiple versions quickly. "It wasn't uncommon for us to bid one job eight times," Chris notes. Different locations, varying talent counts, adjusted shoot days. With Saturation's phase comparison features, what used to require building entirely new budgets now happens with a few clicks.
During that three-day multi-camera shoot, Chris used phases to bid two different directors simultaneously. His line producer handled one director's budget while Chris managed the other, all in the same project, all transparent to the client.
Your Move
Chris Rupert didn't just adopt new software. He fundamentally rethought how a production company handles money. Nametag Films isn't some massive operation with dedicated accounting departments. They're a boutique commercial production company that found a way to compete with bigger players by being smarter about their financial workflow.
The question isn't whether you can afford to switch from spreadsheets and Hot Budget. It's whether you can afford not to.
Because while you're reconciling receipts at 2 AM, your competitors are already reviewing tomorrow's real-time spending reports. While you're building your eighth budget revision in Excel, they're comparing phases with a single click. While you're chasing down missing petty cash, they're seeing every expense as it happens.
Chris put it best: "I became a filmmaker to be creative, not realizing I would end up becoming an accountant."
Maybe it's time to become a filmmaker again.
Ready to see how Nametag Films transformed their production workflow?
You know that moment when you're knee-deep in Excel, trying to reconcile petty cash receipts at 2 AM, and you realize you became a filmmaker to tell stories, not to chase down missing receipts? Chris Rupert gets it.
The owner and executive producer of Dallas-based Nametag Films has been in those trenches for over a decade, building one of Texas's most respected commercial production companies. But here's what sets Chris apart: he's not afraid to admit that the business side of production nearly broke him and he found a way to fix it.
"You're asking the most creative wardrobe or art department person that excels at designing a room and buying props to all of a sudden become the most meticulous accountant," Chris explains during our conversation. It's a tension every producer knows: the very people who make your production sing visually are often the ones you're asking to tape up receipts and build Excel spreadsheets at wrap.
When Values Meet Spreadsheets: The Nametag Story
Chris and his wife Diesa founded Nametag Films in 2013 with a radical idea for the commercial production world: treat everyone (from clients to PAs) with the same respect. Born from Chris's faith-driven approach to business, they built something different. While other production companies in Dallas were fighting for scraps from LA and New York, Nametag mastered the art of making their budgets look bigger.
But here's the thing about running a values-driven production company: your good intentions don't mean much if you're drowning in financial chaos.
"Pre-production is the most underrated part of everything," Chris emphasizes. The financial decisions you make before you're on set establish how successful a job is. Yet for years, Chris was stuck building budgets in Excel. What he calls "the worst thing to build a visual presentation."
The Hot Budget Trap (And Why Everyone Falls For It)
Like a lot of producers, Chris started initially by using Hot Budget. As a production company that meets AICP standards, at the time this was the default tool for commercial producers and agencies understood it. But here's what nobody talks about at those production meetings: Hot Budget was built on Excel macros that broke every time your Mac updated.
"You can never update your Mac, or if your Excel accidentally auto-updates at night, it would break your Hot Budget," Chris recalls. "There were always these hacks of reinforcing an old update of Excel."
Imagine a world of no collaboration, no real-time updates. No way to know if you were over budget until a week after wrap when receipts started trickling in. Sound familiar?
The Petty Cash Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About
Let's talk about the elephant on every set: petty cash. Chris breaks down the nightmare scenario every producer knows:
"We would typically do three or four days of pulling out ten grand at the bank at a time." Each department gets their cash envelope. Wardrobe might have a $4,000 budget but spend $15,000, planning to return most of it. The art department needs cash for last-minute props. The grip truck needs fuel money.
Then comes wrap day. Each department tapes up receipts (if they haven't lost them), creates their own Excel spreadsheet, and tries to account for every dollar. Some people are meticulous. Others? "They stuff a few hundred in their pocket, pour it out on the table at night, a hundred goes missing."
Between physical and virtual cards, Nametag has achieved something that seemed impossible: zero cash productions.
Real Numbers, Real Time: How Nametag Rebuilt Their Workflow
When Chris discovered Saturation, he didn't just dip his toes in. From their very first job using the platform, they went all-in with features like Saturation Pay. Chris breaks down a three-day shoot across Dallas and Houston with multiple locations and constantly shifting crew.
Here's what that actually looked like:
Virtual cards for remote crew: Crafty person in Houston gets a virtual card with spending limits before the team even arrives
Physical cards for department heads: No more cash envelopes, just trackable, accountable spending
Real-time actualization: Instead of waiting two weeks to know if you're over budget, Chris sees expenses as they happen
Auto-categorization: Receipts uploaded through the app automatically match to budget line items
"The ability to assign virtual cards and physical cards was a really nice element," Chris explains. When you've got a crew spread across multiple cities, being able to instantly send them purchasing power, with limits and categories, it changes everything.
The Cost of "Business As Usual"
Here's what most producers won't admit: the traditional system isn't just inefficient. It's actually expensive. Think about lost receipts becoming lost money, time spent reconciling becomes un-billable overhead, or delayed payments strain vendor relationships.
Chris shares a painfully familiar scenario: "We constantly had invoices fall through the cracks. People were not getting paid. Or we had people get paid twice."
The Saturation workflow flipped this completely. Vendors get payment links, upload their invoices with W-9s attached, and the system routes approvals automatically. The platform's Bill Pay feature transforms vendor payments, allowing ACH and wire transfers directly from the budget to their bank accounts.
When Creative Freedom Means Financial Control
The beauty of Chris's approach? It's not about choosing between creativity and accounting, it's about making the accounting invisible so creativity can thrive.
Take Nametag's ability to bid multiple versions quickly. "It wasn't uncommon for us to bid one job eight times," Chris notes. Different locations, varying talent counts, adjusted shoot days. With Saturation's phase comparison features, what used to require building entirely new budgets now happens with a few clicks.
During that three-day multi-camera shoot, Chris used phases to bid two different directors simultaneously. His line producer handled one director's budget while Chris managed the other, all in the same project, all transparent to the client.
Your Move
Chris Rupert didn't just adopt new software. He fundamentally rethought how a production company handles money. Nametag Films isn't some massive operation with dedicated accounting departments. They're a boutique commercial production company that found a way to compete with bigger players by being smarter about their financial workflow.
The question isn't whether you can afford to switch from spreadsheets and Hot Budget. It's whether you can afford not to.
Because while you're reconciling receipts at 2 AM, your competitors are already reviewing tomorrow's real-time spending reports. While you're building your eighth budget revision in Excel, they're comparing phases with a single click. While you're chasing down missing petty cash, they're seeing every expense as it happens.
Chris put it best: "I became a filmmaker to be creative, not realizing I would end up becoming an accountant."
Maybe it's time to become a filmmaker again.
Ready to see how Nametag Films transformed their production workflow?
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