Film management

As accountant and Production Accountant the place is called, which takes over the financial and accounting monitoring and handling of film and television productions.

history

In the early days of the film but some went film production company in bankruptcy since little or no effective cost control during production was available. As a rule, very few of the film creatives of the first hour also had business knowledge and experience with the subject. Inadequate financial project planning and, accordingly, incorrectly worked out or even missing business plans led to the fact that either no sponsors and / or investors could be found for a film project, or the budget was dangerously overloaded due to the uncontrolled financial transactions. If there was no commercial success at the box office, the film company and its operators were often bankrupt afterwards ; Tax debts usually rounded off the picture. In order to prevent such disastrous effects, business people were increasingly integrated into the shooting process to ensure proper business management.

Definition of the job description

The film management is subordinate to the film production management in the hierarchy, but works largely autonomously. She is responsible for the administration of the budget of the shooting project and has to ensure a smooth financial process through the proper cost allocation , the timely processing of receipts and the creation of current cost statuses . The film management regularly determines the financial requirements in order to be able to guarantee the reliable settlement of liabilities . She is also responsible for wages , salaries and fees to actors, extras and the work team in front of and behind the camera; and thus also an important contact for personnel matters. At the end of the film production, the film management completes the financial processing up to the determination of the final costs .

Area of responsibility

The exact work focus is divided into the areas of financial accounting and payroll accounting, as well as financial organization and cost / performance accounting and is simplified as follows:

	External accounting = financial accounting (FiBu)	Internal accounting = cost / performance accounting (KLR)
Basics	Legal regulations: commercial and tax law	Individual, operational requirements
Addressees	Shareholder	Corporate governance tool
Involved	Creditors / Suppliers, Employees, State
Functions	Tax assessment function, wealth and success determination function	Control function, performance audit control, documentation function, publication function, planning function, calculation function, ancillary calculations
Basic sizes	Effort and income	Costs and benefits

Table quoted from Yagapen .

Financial accounting (FiBu)

The film management must be able to adapt very flexibly to the cost framework of the respective production processes. In contrast to other average, medium-sized companies, the processing of the documents and the scope of the organizational requirements vary considerably. In a conventional company, a fixed vendor base with an average of 20 to 50 suppliers can be expected, whereas in the case of films, there will be changing vendors or 100 to 150 suppliers. The scope of cash payment processes is also many times higher for film than for conventional companies. In an ongoing production, however, cashless payment transactions are almost impossible and, for the sake of financial transparency, also undesirable, so that a large number of receipts have to be processed in the production phase.

According to Section 238 of the Commercial Code ( HGB ), every businessman is obliged to keep a proper commercial bookkeeping. According to § 239 HGB, a living language must be used and the meaning of the abbreviations, numbers, letters and symbols used must be specified. All entries in the books must be comprehensible, technically and factually correct and be able to be reproduced at any time. According to Section 242 of the German Commercial Code (HGB), annual financial statements must be drawn up at the end of each financial year , which represent the company's assets, financial and earnings position and which serve as the basis for setting taxes.

Payroll accounting

In a film project, depending on its size, many hundreds of people have to be hired and fired for a short period of time. There is a high proportion of short-term, marginal and non-permanent employees who have to be registered and deregistered with health insurances and insurance companies ; unlike conventional companies that have a fixed number of employees over a fixed period of time and can count on it in a fixed manner. This requires strict coordination and flexible planning, which are always associated with high costs, time and effort, so that no "chaos" arises and the shooting planning and sequence can be carried out unimpaired.

A distinction is usually made between wages, salaries and fees. Wages are the wages of the workers , the wages are those of the employees and the wages are those of the creative staff (in the film mostly what is in front of the camera). This distinction is particularly necessary for the various insurance companies such as LVA or BFA . The classification depends on the contribution group of the pension insurance. The number "1" stands for manual workers , "2" for salaried employees . This is relevant to the extent that the activity providers can be divided into different categories within a field of work. So is z. If, for example, a sound assistant is initially to be classified as a worker, and if he suddenly becomes a sound master during the shoot , he is then considered an employee and must be reassigned to a different insurance fund and class accordingly.

Cost and performance accounting (KLR)

Based on the script , a cost calculation must be carried out and the calculated figures must be compared with the actual data. The data must be analyzed, identified and broken down, especially if the film from a variety of pots ( film promotion , sponsorship , donations will be financed, co-production with other film productions, etc.). With ongoing production, there can be up to 300 cost types that must be allocated and posted.

Usually, in the breakdown of the costs of the budget, a preliminary cost estimate must first be made, the so-called preliminary calculation, then an ongoing budget control must take place and finally the operating result is determined with an income statement. The total values of the individual projects are summarized in the cost accounting to a single result.

education

The professional title of film manager is not protected. There is therefore no regulated or special training, nor are there any binding teaching and / or training and examination guidelines. In any case, basic knowledge of commercial and business management as well as tax law and multilingualism are essential for practicing the profession. The necessary experience is usually taken from previous training or studies or learned directly on the set; it is also possible to enter the profession through an internship and then through an assistant position. More recently, advanced training institutes such as the Münchner Filmwerkstatt or the Kölner Filmhaus as well as film schools have been offering courses on film management as part of their film education.

literature

Markus Yagapen: Film management . 1st edition. Bleicher Verlag, Gerlingen 2001, ISBN 3-88350-909-4 . (Series of publications: Produktionspraxis, Vol. 7; edited by Bastian Clevé )
Wolfgang Brehm: Film Law. Practical manual . 1st edition. Bleicher Verlag, Gerlingen 2001, ISBN 3-88350-908-6 . (Series of publications: Produktionspraxis, Vol. 8; edited by Bastian Clevé)
Diana Iljine, Klaus Keil: The producer: the job description of the film and television producer in Germany. Attempt a definition 2., revised. and updated edition. TR-Verl.-Union, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-8058-3474-8 .
Bastian Clevé (Ed.): From the idea to the film: Production management for film and television . 4th, completely redesigned. Edition. UVK-Verl.-Ges., Konstanz 2004, ISBN 3-89669-444-8 . (Series of publications: Praxis Film, 6)
Bastian Clevé: Ways to Money: Film, TV and Multimedia Financing . 4th, revised. Edition. Bleicher Verlag, Gerlingen 2000, ISBN 3-88350-907-8 .
Commercial code: without maritime trade law, with publicity law, securities trading law, bill of exchange law and check law . 45., revised. Edition. Special edition: Text edition m. detailed Subject index ue introduction of Holger Fleischer. German Taschenbuch-Verlag, ISBN 3-423-05002-0 . (Series of publications: Beck texts in dtv, dtv 5002; secondary title: HGB )

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Mark Yagapen: accountant . 1st edition, Bleicher Verlag, Gerlingen 2001, ISBN 3-88350-909-4 . (see p. 100)
↑
HGB, § 238 accounting obligation:
1. Every merchant is obliged to keep books and to make his commercial transactions and the position of his assets visible in these according to the principles of proper bookkeeping. The bookkeeping must be such that it can provide an expert third party with an overview of the business transactions and the situation of the company within a reasonable time. The business transactions must be traceable in their development and processing.
2. The merchant is obliged to retain a reproduction of the commercial letters sent (copy, print, copy or other reproduction of the wording on a written, image or other data carrier) that corresponds to the original .

[1] Mark Yagapen: accountant . 1st edition, Bleicher Verlag, Gerlingen 2001, ISBN 3-88350-909-4 . (see p. 100)

[2] HGB, § 238 accounting obligation:

Every merchant is obliged to keep books and to make his commercial transactions and the position of his assets visible in these according to the principles of proper bookkeeping. The bookkeeping must be such that it can provide an expert third party with an overview of the business transactions and the situation of the company within a reasonable time. The business transactions must be traceable in their development and processing.

The merchant is obliged to retain a reproduction of the commercial letters sent (copy, print, copy or other reproduction of the wording on a written, image or other data carrier) that corresponds to the original .

[3] Every merchant is obliged to keep books and to make his commercial transactions and the position of his assets visible in these according to the principles of proper bookkeeping. The bookkeeping must be such that it can provide an expert third party with an overview of the business transactions and the situation of the company within a reasonable time. The business transactions must be traceable in their development and processing.

[4] The merchant is obliged to retain a reproduction of the commercial letters sent (copy, print, copy or other reproduction of the wording on a written, image or other data carrier) that corresponds to the original .