Budgets

[Fiona]

Just curious - how much money do people keep back from the seperate departments during productions.....just incase of an emergency???

Personally I was always taught to lie and give a budget of approx 20% less than is actually available - thus giving you enough to play with and shuffle around if necessary.....ie when the Director comes up with 20 new ideas 2 weeks prior to the performance.....?? What do others tend to do.....am I being too mean??

[James C]

I like to keep 10% back, but I know a someone who works by assuming there is VAT to pay on everything when estimating costs then, having the VAT back as her contingency.

10% has served me pretty well, and I reckon that if you keep too much back for a contingency, you always end up dipping into it, and that makes you less bothered about dipping into it next time, so before you know it, you're in the mindset of using your contingency as if it was part of the original budget, and suddenly you have no contingency!

[Suzette]

My budgets have a varying amount of 'contingency' depending upon the director. I have several directors over the year, some of whom I know are really good and stick with what they asked for at the beginning (with just a small amount of 'changing minds').

Other directors are a nightmare, and you know that come the tech rehearsals they will ask for a million more things they have just thought of ....

20% is a decent amount each time to work with - if you can afford it. Sometimes budgets are so tight with just the things you know you need only 10 or 15% is available for "spare"!

I try to go with 20% if I have a new director that I don't know.....

 

And yes - I think a little white lie to a Director about budgets is not really bad <_< - just don't fib to the Finance people cos they always know in the end when the invoices come in!!

[Bryson]

The 17.5% / VAT thing is an old trick of mine (a hangover from a time when I did it by mistake...duh) It works admirably well.

[richard]

I usually keep an official contingency of 10% of the budget, but if I have a designer who I know always goes over I shrink their budget still further so that there is a chance that they won't spend too much

[Thirdtap]

Not a budget thing but I use +20% when ordering material and wood. In college I was taught this should be around 10%, but due to unforseen cuts in wood and cloth 20% has worked very well for me .....so far.

In one job during production meetings when departments were asked for quotes for each production, I used to roughly work out a figure then add £100. It seemed to go ok but sometimes I felt that the production manager would have let me have more money if I had given a higher total without any problems.