Turn Production Expenses into a Cost Report You Can Review and Share
Pull receipts from Gmail and card statements, group spending by production phase, and generate a workbook with category totals first, detailed expenses, supporting-document links, contractor costs, and an optional Canadian worksheet.
Free trial • No credit card • $10/mo flat after
The Problem Every Indie Producer Faces After Wrap
Production wraps. Your executive producers send the email: "Can you get us a cost report by Friday?" And suddenly you're trying to reconstruct two years of production spending from four different credit cards, two of which are closed, a PayPal account you used for festival submissions, and a Venmo history you exported before it expired.
Movie Magic Budgeting is excellent at pre-production budget building — you enter estimated costs by line item before the camera rolls. But it doesn't help you reconstruct what you actually spent from receipts after the fact. If you weren't logging actively during production (and most indie producers aren't), Movie Magic gives you blanks where the numbers should be.
ExpenseBot starts from the other end: your actual receipts. Gmail order confirmations from B&H Photo and Adorama. PDF statements from the Amex card you closed after picture lock. Bank exports covering pre-production through delivery. ExpenseBot pulls them together and turns the actual spending into a workbook that starts with category totals and keeps the supporting detail one click away.
How ExpenseBot Reconstructs Your Production Budget
Most production spending leaves a digital trail — you just need to find it and consolidate it.
ExpenseBot scans connected Gmail accounts for production vendor receipts — B&H Photo, Adorama, RED Digital Cinema, airline and hotel confirmations, catering invoices, and location rental receipts.
Upload PDF bank or credit card statements from closed accounts. ExpenseBot extracts transactions via OCR (even from scanned PDFs) and adds them to your production ledger.
The same camera purchase may appear as a Gmail confirmation AND a credit card line item. ExpenseBot matches merchant + amount + date and deduplicates so the same expense isn't counted twice.
Months of personal spending mixed with production spending? The Personal Identifier wizard flags charges that don't belong in the cost report — personal meals, home expenses, non-production purchases — and excludes them before the report generates.
The Production Cost Report
The workbook is built for review: category totals first, then the expense-level detail and supporting links behind those totals.
See production-phase and category totals first, followed by the vendors and amounts that make up each total.
Review each expense, its payment and evidence status, and the source-document link available for verification.
See contractor and freelancer costs together when your records identify who was paid.
Include a separate Canadian production working view when it is useful for the production.
Film tags group known production phases directly. When a Film tag is missing, the report uses the expense category; anything unmatched remains visible so it can be reviewed instead of disappearing from the total.
For a deeper walk through the AICP topsheet format, see our guide to AICP topsheets for indie filmmakers.
See How It Works
From Post-Wrap Chaos to Executive-Producer-Ready Cost Report
An AI-narrated overview of how ExpenseBot reconstructs production spending from Gmail receipts and generates a reviewable cost workbook.
🎙️ AI-generated overview · ~5 min
Built for How Documentary Filmmakers Actually Work
Not every filmmaker tags expenses meticulously during production. ExpenseBot handles both workflows:
Use the Film tag bundle: Film – ATL, Film – Production, Film – Post, Film – Other (plus 4 documentary-specific tags). Tag created on the Filmmaker tag bundle auto-creates all 8 tags for you. The cost report buckets by tag directly — fastest, most accurate path.
Already have expenses in generic categories? The report uses a category-string heuristic to map them: Equipment/Travel/Meals → Production, Software/Music → Post, Insurance/Legal → Other, Professional Fees → ATL. Anything unmatched stays visible for review.
The tag bundle auto-creates with 4 base production tags + 4 documentary-specific tags on first use. No manual setup — open the Filmmaker tag bundle and all 8 categories appear in your tagging panel.
$10/mo vs $500 for Movie Magic
These tools solve different problems at different stages. Here's where each fits:
| ExpenseBot | Movie Magic Budgeting | Saturation.io | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $10/mo flat | ~$500+ (desktop, one-time) | ~$30/mo subscription |
| Platform | Web / cloud | Desktop (Windows/Mac) | Web |
| Primary use | Post-wrap reconstruction from receipts | Pre-production budget building | Active expense logging during production |
| Starts from | Receipts you already have | Blank budget template | Manual entry or import |
| Production cost workbook | Yes — generated from actual expenses | Yes — from planned budget | Limited |
| Gmail receipt scan | Yes — connected Gmail | No | No |
| PDF statement import | Yes — closed cards | No | No |
| Tax filing (Schedule C/T2125) | Yes — included | No | Limited |
Honest framing: ExpenseBot complements Movie Magic — it doesn't replace it. Movie Magic is the right tool when you're building a budget before production starts. ExpenseBot is the right tool when production has wrapped and you need to reconstruct what actually happened from receipts. Many producers use both. See our comparison of Movie Magic vs post-wrap receipt reconstruction for the full breakdown.
What You Also Get: The Freelancer Companion
Most indie filmmakers file as sole proprietors or single-member LLCs on Schedule C (US) or T2125 (Canada). The same $10/mo subscription that generates your production cost report also gives you:
Schedule C / T2125 ready. All production expenses already categorized from the cost report — no re-entry at tax time.
A recommended cash reserve based on recorded taxable profit, your planning rate, and payments entered, with the next standard US or Canadian estimated-tax date shown separately.
Catches forgotten recurring charges — Avid, Pro Tools, Adobe Creative Cloud, Frame.io, DaVinci Resolve Studio — the subscriptions you kept running after the project ended.
Track grant income from Sundance Institute, MacArthur Foundation, ITVS, NEA, and other funders. Stripe, PayPal, and direct deposit income captured automatically from Gmail.
See the full freelancer expense tracker for the complete Schedule C / T2125 workflow, including how to separate production income from grant income and deferred crew payout documentation. For a full walkthrough of building the executive-producer cost report, see Documentary Cost Report for Executive Producers.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I prepare a cost report for my executive producers?
Scan or upload your production expenses, review their Film tags, then open My Reports → Production Cost Report. Enter the production name and date range and preview the workbook. It shows category totals first, followed by detailed expenses with evidence status and source-document links. Contractor costs appear when your data identifies a contractor or freelancer. Canadian productions can include an optional Canadian worksheet.
Can I track expenses from credit cards I no longer have access to?
Yes — upload PDF statements from closed accounts. ExpenseBot extracts transactions from PDFs (even scanned ones via OCR) and de-duplicates against Gmail receipts to avoid double-counting. This is specifically designed for post-wrap reconstruction where production cards have been closed, accounts consolidated, or years have passed since principal photography. Request a PDF export from your bank's online portal — most banks hold 7 years of statements.
How does ExpenseBot handle cancelled flights or returned equipment?
The Refund Pair Detector flags refund transactions that match an earlier charge from the same vendor within 14 days. Common examples: a flight booked then cancelled in the 24-hour window, a camera body purchased then returned within store policy, or an equipment rental deposit refunded. The report lists every detected pair so you can review and confirm before signing. It does not auto-delete — you decide whether to remove both rows or keep them with a "Cancelled — refunded" note for the audit trail.
Is ExpenseBot a replacement for Movie Magic Budgeting?
No — different stages of the production lifecycle. Movie Magic Budgeting (~$500+, desktop software) is for pre-production budget building: you enter estimated costs by line item before the camera rolls. ExpenseBot is for post-wrap reconstruction from actual receipts: you start with what you actually spent and build the cost report backward from your Gmail inbox and PDF statements. Many producers use both — Movie Magic during production for budget planning, ExpenseBot after wrap for the actual cost report and tax filing.
Your Receipts Are Already in Gmail. The Cost Report Is 3 Clicks Away.
Free trial. No credit card. $10/mo flat after. Category totals, detailed expenses, and supporting-document links in one workbook.
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