Budget every production from estimate to wrap.
Real-time collaboration, budget phases, industry templates, fringes, and custom PDF exports. From quick commercial estimates to features with thousands of line items.
Budgeting
The engine under the budget
Phases, fringes, union rates and incentives, all computed by one engine that also produces the cost report and every export. And when the work is driven by dates, you can see it as a calendar.
Budget Engine 2.0
Your budget, your cost report and every export run on one engine.
Rate packs
Verified union rates, versioned.
PhasesRebuilt
Estimate, committed, actual and rollup columns.
Auto-fill
Rates fill in as you type, from the source you turned on.
Fringes and markupsRebuilt
Stack them, cap them, and see the split on every line.
Tax incentive packs
Programs, rates and rules per jurisdiction, kept current.
Powerful filtering
Filter on dates, vendors or tags.
Universal imports
Movie Magic, Excel and any table you can export. Seconds, not hours.
Project Library
Seven kinds of reference data, current everywhere.
Collaborate
Collaboratively build budgets with line items, rates, fringes, and actuals. Start from industry-standard templates: feature film, TV, commercial, and more.
Projects
Group projects into folders, switch between workspaces, and stay on top of multiple productions without losing context.
Public API
Connect the tools you run on.
MCP server
Point your AI at your workspace.
Calendar
Give lines dates. See the spend as a calendar.
Flows and approvals
Send anything for approval, not just payments. Branch it, delay it, test it.
Issue Cards
Virtual cards spend instantly, physical ships in a week. One at a time or twenty-five at once.
More features
It doesn't stop here
Keyboard shortcuts
Every sheet action has a combo. Never leave the keys.
Workspace search
Hit ⌘K and jump to any line, document or charge.
Currency support
Budget in any currency.
Automatic fringes
Union fringes and payroll taxes, applied per crew line.
Globals and formulas
Define a value once, reference it everywhere.
Markups
A percentage on any subtotal.
Overtime calculator
Tiered OT from the base rate.
Keep notes where the numbers live
Attach rich notes directly to every project: call sheet details, location logistics, crew instructions, or anything your team needs to reference.
AICP, feature film, documentary, music video, branded content, and more. Start with a proven structure or build from scratch.
The same production finance layer used for budgeting, actuals, expense management, and payments.
Trusted across commercials, features, series, documentaries, music videos, and branded content.
Built for how production budgets actually work.
Spreadsheets were not designed for production finance. They break when teams collaborate, lose context when files get emailed, and force accounting to reconstruct what happened after the fact. Saturation was built from the ground up for production: every column, every workflow, every export.
REAL-TIME COLLABORATION
Stop emailing budget files back and forth.
Invite line producers, department heads, UPMs, and accounting into the same live budget. Everyone sees the same numbers. No version conflicts, no formula breakage, no file-naming nightmares.
ACCOUNT-BASED NAVIGATION
Your top sheet is a table of contents, not a prison.
Click into any account to see its sub-accounts and line items. Expand a line item into a full account when you need more detail. Collapse back to the top sheet when you need the big picture.
SCALES WITH YOUR PRODUCTION
One-page estimate or thousand-line feature. Same tool.
A photography gig with six lines, a commercial with standard AICP structure, a feature film with departmental sub-accounts — Saturation handles all of them without forcing you into a rigid format.
Jumpstart your projects
Utilize budget templates built from industry standards.
How production runs today
Producers juggle spreadsheets, email threads, disconnected accounting tools, and manual reports just to keep one production on track. See what changes when you move production finances off spreadsheets and legacy software to a platform built for the industry.
The old way
With Saturation
Coming from one of these?
When building a second scenario means duplicating the whole file again, or it breaks when someone pastes over a formula, you already know the workarounds. Curious how Saturation handles the things your current tool can't?
Production budgeting without the production tax.
Every hour spent wrestling with Excel formulas, reconciling file versions, or rebuilding a budget PDF is time not spent running the show. Saturation removes the tax so producers can focus on the work.
CORE CAPABILITIES
Built to connect budgeting, actuals, and payments in one production finance platform.
That is the difference between a budgeting tool and a financial operating system for production.
What makes Saturation budgeting production-native.
These are the workflows that matter once a budget stops being a planning document and becomes the operating system for real production spend.
Phases for versioning and scenarios
Create estimate, working, and committed phases side by side. Compare LA vs. New York. Lock a bid so nobody can touch it. Set currency per phase for international shoots.
Globals and variables
Change shoot days from 13 to 10 in one place and watch every linked line item recalculate. Use variables in any number column — quantity, rate, multiplier.
Overtime calculator
Set day rate hours, choose where time-and-a-half and double-time start, and let the calculator handle the rest. Adjust per state, per city, per negotiation.
Share views for every stakeholder
Give the art department only their accounts. Give the EP a top-sheet-only view. Give accounting full access. Each view is a link — no separate files, no data leakage.
Custom PDF exports
Build presentation-ready budget reports, cost reports, actuals details, or invoice summaries. Choose which accounts, phases, and columns to include. Save presets for reuse.
Tags for filtering and reporting
Tag line items by location, tax credit eligibility, internal vs. external cost, or anything else. Filter the budget view by tag to see only what you need.
Reports that look as good
as your numbers.
Generate beautiful, branded PDFs directly from your budget in seconds. Pick from professionally designed templates: AICP bid forms, cost summaries, film budgets, or build your own from a blank canvas.
Project Reports
START FRESH
BUDGET
Film Budget
Standard film budget report
- ⚡One-click PDF export from any budget or scenario
- 🎨Drag-and-drop report builder with branded headers and logos
- 📋Start from AICP bid forms, cost summaries, or build your own
- 🔗Share a link or download — clients get exactly what they need
Budgeting FAQs.
The questions producers, line producers, and UPMs ask when they are evaluating whether to move their budgets into Saturation.
What our customers are saying
The financial operating system of our production company. From budgeting to P-cards, AI receipt scanning, and QuickBooks sync, it replaced five separate tools.
Stephen Gray
Founder & Director, Tonal Films
TrustpilotSee more of Saturation
A budget is only a plan until money moves against it. The reports that measure it, the approvals that release it and the account it is spent from are the same system, so the plan and the actuals are never two different documents.
Reports
Drag blocks onto the page and split a row in two.
Flows
Branch it, delay it, dry-run it.
Banking
Saturation Pay: accounts, cards and bill pay in one place. Send ACH, wire or same-day.
Your next production deserves a budget that keeps up.
Start with a template or build from scratch. Invite your team. See the difference between a spreadsheet and a production finance platform in the first ten minutes.
Free tier available. No credit card required. SOC 2 compliant.