Managing Petty Cash in Film Production

When production companies go on shoots, they often have a lot of ad-hoc expenses ranging from snacks to last-minute equipment rental. Historically, managing petty cash on set was handled through one shared card or petty cash. Both approaches present their own problems.

The Petty Cash Problem

With so much petty cash film production on site, petty cash leakage film production can happen easily. Cash can go missing, or just be spent for purchases that are out of policy. There's no real way of controlling these as they happen. To make matters worse, cash is reconciled after the shoot, meaning for 1-2 months or however long the shoot is happening, it's a black hole of spending. No one knows where the money is going, or how much is left, all they know is that it's been spent.

Lost receipts petty cash film set scenarios are incredibly common. Since shoots are often in multiple locations and across multiple days, teams don't have time to sit and manually enter receipt details and memos, saving them for after the shoot. As a result, receipts often get lost or damaged and aren't eligible for reimbursement.

The Shared Card Challenge

With a credit card, though there's more visibility into how much money is spent or left, it poses new challenges. You're not sure who is spending and what they're buying. The cardholder, often a senior member of the finance team or owner, is usually not on the shoot, causing them to be bombarded by OTPs and delay the rest of the shoot as they wait on OTPs to make critical purchases.

Typical petty cash problems in film production include scattered spending records and production crew petty cash reconciliation that takes weeks to complete. These petty cash reimbursement issues film create headaches for both crew members and accounting teams.

The Modern Solution: Qashio

Most production companies now use digital expense management platforms like Qashio. They create project-specific cards that can be assigned to a specific shoot or production. They also give each member of the shoot their own corporate card, also assigned to a specific shoot/production.

This approach addresses key challenges in how to manage petty cash during film shoots:

Real-Time Tracking

Instead of waiting months for reconciliation, production teams can track and manage production petty cash as it happens. This eliminates the black hole effect of traditional film shoot petty cash systems.

Automated Receipt Collection

They collect receipts on the go through WhatsApp bots or mobile apps. After the production team makes a purchase, they simply take a photo of their receipt and send it to the system. The AI bot extracts receipt info like trade license number, transaction amount, vendor details, and adds it into the system automatically.

Policy Enforcement

Setting up a petty cash system for film shoots now includes built-in policy controls that prevent out-of-scope spending before it happens, rather than discovering issues during reconciliation.

Results and Benefits

By implementing modern expense management solutions, production companies save over 400 hours each year on manual entry and book closing. They also reduce avoiding petty cash leakage on set by over 64%.

Best practices for petty cash in film production now include:

• Individual cards for each team member
• Real-time expense tracking
• Automated receipt capture
• Immediate policy enforcement
• Tracking petty cash expenses for film crews through integrated mobile apps

Preventing Common Issues

Modern systems address the most frequent production finance pain points:

Security and Fraud Prevention

Secure petty cash storage on film shoots is no longer about physical cash boxes. Digital systems create automatic audit trails that make preventing petty cash fraud in production much more manageable.

Streamlined Processes

The petty cash reimbursement process for production companies becomes automatic when crew members can instantly photograph receipts and have expenses pre-approved through integrated workflows.

Better Financial Control

Production expenses petty cash visibility helps production accountants maintain better budget control and on-set spend management throughout the entire shoot.

This shift from traditional cash advances for film shoots to integrated digital systems represents the evolution of production accounting petty cash management, giving production companies the visibility and control they need to run efficient, profitable shoots.

‍