Cash Flow

How cashflow works in APMS

Cashflow Setup

In APMS you set up the cashflow in Settings->Cashflow Setup with three elements that define your production on an abstract timeline.

1. MILESTONES are single important events like "The first day of principal shooting", "End of shooting", "Final cut" or whatever you think is an important milestone for your production.

2. PHASES define time spans for various phases of your production, like "Shooting", "Postproduction", "Editing" or whatever you think are important phases to set up your cashflow.

3. PROCESSES are series of events on the timeline, e.g. recurring payments like crew payments, or payments by a fund connected to milestones.

With these three elements you set up your production on an abstract timeline. In the budgets and financing plans you can use these elements to assign cashflow rules to the accounts.

The advantage of this is that you do not have to care about dates while in planning stage. You only have to define one single date (4) at the end and everything on the timeline will have a date as well. And if something changes in the planning of your production you will not have to change every single cashflow definition in your budget, but you can centrally control everything from this settings tab.

Add a milestone

Add/edit a milestone

Go to Settings, Cash Flow Setup

Click Settings (1) and switch to the Cash Flow Setup tab (2).

Create a new milestone

Create a new milestone by double clicking in the milestone area. You can drag the milestone by mouse to the desired position. Enter a name for the new milestone.

Using milestones as cash-flow rules

Add cashflow rules to your budget

To cash flow your budget, open the Budgeting module (1) and go the budget (2), category (3) and account (4) you want to adjust in cash flow.

Now click the small blue pen symbol next to Cashflow in the macro area (5).

Define milestone as cashflow rule

Select milestone-based (1) and choose your first milestone.

For example, you can schedule the camera rental payment in a 50% (2) installment seven days before (4) shooting begins (3), and add a second milestone by clicking "+" (5)…

Second milestone

…to add the final payment of another 50% seven days after shooting has ended. (1)

Click Ok (2) to proceed…

Result

…and see that a green circle (1) indicates this account has cash flow data, whereas the details can be seen in macro panel (2).

Create a new cash-flow set

Go the Cashflow module (1)
Hint: If you do not see the Cashflow and Cost Control module, make sure you upgrade to Cost Control from Project Manager.

Click the small "+" (2)

Choose a name, which budget plan or cost report to use as expenses and which financing plan to use as income source. (3)
…and click Ok (4)

Start with your cash flow

If your cash flow looks more or less like this, you need to define cash-flow rules for your expenses and incomes first.

Define cash flow milestones and phases at Settings (1) and set up cash flow rules for all accounts in Budgeting and Financing (2).

Set up first day of shooting

You can work with the cash flow module without setting a precise date, yet we do suggest you set a first day of shooting for better usability.

To do so, go to Settings (1), Cash Flow Setup (2), and dlick the date field (3).

Click Ok to leave the window. (4)

Using a cashflow process to cash flow a financing source

Go to Settings, Cash Flow Setup

Click Settings (1) and switch to the Cash Flow Setup tab (2).

Create a Cashflow Process by percentage (Payment plan)

To create a cashflow process, click the small "+" (1) and enter a name.

Choose costs should be split by percentage (2) and not by time in this process and click Ok (3).

Create a Cashflow Process by percentage (Payment plan)

To create them, double click in the timeline.

You have to define a certain percentage for every event.

Create a Cashflow Process by percentage (Payment plan)

Douple click in the process area to create your events. You have to define a certain percentage for every event, that will also show up in the upper left corner.

Assign payment plan to financing source

You can now use the process you just created to time budget accounts and financing sources. If, for example, your coproducer agreed to pay by this payment plan, try this:

Open the Financing module (1) and go to the finaning plan (2) you want to cash flow.

Now select all your coproducer's sources by holding Shift key (3) and click the small blue pen symbol (4) next to Cashflow in the macro area.

Assign payment plan to financing source

Click "process-based" (1) and choose the process (2).

Click Ok (3) to proceed.

Result

You will now see that green dots indicate that these sources have been assigned cash flow data (1) and see the details at the macro area (2).