Budgeting
You know why the timeline exists, the difference between a work phase and a milestone, and why First Shooting Day is the one milestone every other date depends on.
The timeline turns your production schedule into numbers the rest of the budget can use. Instead of typing the same dates and durations into a dozen different accounts and cash flow rules by hand, you draw the schedule once — as work phases and milestones — and every formula, quantity and payment date that depends on it reads it from there.
Preparation, shoot, wrap. A phase has a start, an end, and two day counts:
- **Total Days (TD)** — calendar days from start to end. - **Work Days (WD)** — the days actually worked, weekends and breaks excluded.
Both matter because budgets use both: a rented vehicle costs by calendar day, a crew member is paid by work day. Every phase automatically becomes two variables, `<name>_duration` and `<name>_workdays`, usable in any formula. A phase also feeds cash flow rules directly — a payment cycle can be framed by a phase's own span instead of a fixed start and end, so it resizes when the phase does. See [use phases in payment cycles](/kb/article/use-phases-in-payment-cycles).
Contract signature, picture lock, delivery. A milestone has a date and a **payment delay** in days, for terms like "30 days after delivery". Milestones feed cash flow rules: a payment can be scheduled at a milestone instead of at a fixed date, so it moves automatically if the milestone does.
Every budget starts with a **First Shooting Day** milestone already on the timeline. You cannot delete it, and until you give it a date, every other phase and milestone can only be positioned by its **offset** from it — "5 days before First Shooting Day" — because there is no calendar to place them on yet.
Double-click First Shooting Day to set its date, and the whole timeline converts to real calendar dates at once. Set it as early as you can: every phase date, every other milestone, and every cash flow rule that reads one of them depends on it.
A budget wired to the timeline **re-plans itself**. The shoot gains a week: phase durations change, so every quantity referencing them changes, and every payment scheduled at a milestone moves with it.
A budget not wired to it needs someone to find every affected number by hand — and the risk is not the time that takes, it is the ones they miss.
Set up [work phases](/kb/article/set-up-work-phases) and [milestones](/kb/article/set-up-milestones) early, before the accounts reference them.
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