As producers or line producers, it’s easy to get busy and caught up in the day-to-day running of your production. But don’t let your finances fall to the side. 

Below are 4 common mistakes you should avoid – and some tips you can try to help you track and manage your money better.

These tips are inspired by other blogs as well.

Mistake #1 : Mixing personal and production funds

To accurately track your production finances and avoid any issues, you need to completely separate your personal finances from your production finances.

Because if you don’t, it’s hard to know how your production is doing financially. When you use one account for both production and personal expenses, trying to sort out income and deductions takes a lot of time.

Making a bank account for your production is strongly encouraged and use them only for production-related expenses. If you transfer money from your production account to your personal account—or vice versa—document the reason.

Mistake #2: Cutting Down Someone’s Fund

If you’re collecting fund from crew members, never let them cut down the amount they must pay. For example, someone uses $7 from his own personal bank account to pay for something. He should be paying $10, but he cuts it down to only $3 because he has paid $7 himself.

If financial mistakes happen, this can make the process of finding the mistake harder. Because what’s noted in the book and the receipt won’t be same.

It is highly recommended to collect the exact amount they have to pay. If the amount is pretty big, break it down to a few amount every week. After they pay, have it noted right away in your business book. Using receipt to document the income is even better.

Mistake #3: Not keeping receipts for expenses

How many times have you lost your receipts?

Without a receipt providing details about the charge, you may incorrectly categorize transactions.

— Non-digital receipts

Try to keep an envelope in your purse, laptop bag or car to save your receipts. Some vendors don’t provide receipts, so be sure to bring a receipt book and a pen so they can write down the costs.

Afterwards, you can keep the original receipt in a folder. It is also recommended to scan them and store a copy digitally. Better yet, take advantage of cloud accounting software that lets you take a photo of your receipts on the go (e.g. Wallet).

— Digital receipts

If you transfer money from your production account to someone else’s account—or vice versa—always write the reason.

Print out the bank account mutations every week or bi-weekly because usually after a month it will be gone. If you decide to save it digitally, always have backup of the data.

Don’t forget to check if there are additional expenses such as administration fees and compare it to your original budget.

Mistake #4: Not Staying on top of bookkeeping

Put a couple hours on your calendar once a week or bi-weekly to review your expenses and stay on top of your invoices. Go through those receipts and ensure you’ve logged the expenses in your business book. If it’s a digital business book, make sure you always backup the data in an editable version.

Track your actuals against the budget you’ve created, taking note of any variances or reasons why your budget came in over or under. With regular bookkeeping, you can anticipate possible problems sooner if the budget is less than needed.