Here are some notes and thoughts to help you navigate your budget’s account categories. Different studios and networks use different budgeting software, but the account numbers are almost always the same across the industry. 

Above The Line

1100 - STORY, RIGHTS & CONTINUITY 
Fixed costs. This is where your episodic script cost will be, the salaries for your writers, assistants, script coordinator, and often writer office costs, snacks, etc. Writer royalties will also be in this account. 

1200 - STORY, RIGHTS & CONTINUITY 
Fixed costs. This is where your producer salaries will be. This sometimes includes your writer-producers, but sometimes not (they are often under the 1100 story rights category). Your producing director and line producer will be here, along with any associate producers, your post-production producer, their assistants and the costs associated with your producers.

1300 - DIRECTORS 
Fixed costs. This is where the cost of your pilot/episodic director will be. Your pilot director’s royalty payment will also appear under this account. 

1400 - CAST 
There are several separate categories under the 1400 Cast category that you need to be familiar with –

1401 -- Fixed costs. This is for your regular cast members, your stars. The actors who are under contract to appear in all your episodes.  

1405 – Discretionary costs. This is for your top of show and day players. All the actors that are not regulars and under the 1401. Basically, all the roles you write into each episode. Top of show refers to actors who are going to be employed throughout the episode. Day players are exactly what is sounds like, actors who are only working for a day or a few days.

1406 and 1407 – Discretionary costs. Your stunt coordinator and stunt performers. This account will grow or decrease based on how many stunts are in the episode.

Your loop group will be under the 1400 account, along with your casting director and their assistants. These are fixed costs.

1410 – Overtime. Discretionary cost. There’s usually an allowance in this account for some cast overtime payments. If you structure your schedules to avoid cast overtime, this allowance becomes available to you to spend elsewhere.

1800 - GUARANTEED ADVANCES 
Many studios will put the Above The Line (ATL) Amortization into this account.  This is a bit of grab bag of fixed costs related to your writers, director, producers and cast. It may include a series production bonus to you. Airfares to bring your regular actors in from where they live (this will be a larger amount when shooting outside of Los Angeles and New York). Relocation payments for your regular actors who are moving to where you’re shooting. Even legal expenses for helping minor actors become emancipated minors. 

PRODUCTION

2000 - PRODUCTION STAFF
Fixed costs. This account covers your Unit Production Manager (UPM), Assistant Directors, Script Supervisor, Location Managers, Production Coordinator, Accountants, Office PAs, and their computer rentals, meals and auto allowances. Everyone hired in this account is hired for the run of the show.

2100 - EXTRA TALENT
Discretionary costs. Use more extras, you spend more. Use less, you have savings. This account also includes your stand-ins (who stand in for lighting for your regular cast), your teacher/welfare worker if you have minors in your show, and car payments for any extras who will be driving their own vehicle in front of camera for your show.

2200 - SET DESIGN
Fixed costs. This account covers your Production Designer, Art Director, Set Designer, Art Department Coordinator, their assistants, car allowances, computer rentals, and the materials they need to create their plans and sketches.

2300 - SET CONSTRUCTION
Fixed costs with some discretionary costs. Your Construction Foreman, Construction Coordinator, Paint Foreman, Medic for the construction crew, car allowances, and box rentals (for their specialty tools. These are all fixed costs. Discretionary costs in this account are related to plant rentals (Greens), materials that need to be purchased, sets to be built, etc. If you don’t have to build a set for that episode, you will have savings. If you have to build more than you had budgeted in your Series Pattern, you will have an overage. 

2400 - SET STRIKING
Fixed cost. This is just an allowance amount for striking any set you build for that episode and the cost of your trash and construction waste removal.

2500 - SET OPERATIONS
Fixed costs with some discretionary costs. Set operations is an unnecessarily vague term for your grips, dolly grip, craft service, and stand-by painters. It also includes your rigging crew – which is the grip crew that goes to your locations a day or two in advance of your shooting the location to lay cables, set up scaffolding, etc. so your shooting company can just show up and the location is ready to be lit and shot. It will also include your grip package, which is the grip equipment you rent for your series, dollies, C-stands, diffusion frames, etc. – and that is available to you at all times on stage and in your trucks for location work. 

The discretionary areas under this account include any additional grip department rentals necessary to accomplish what’s in your episodic script (exterior night, you may find lots of extra condors and platforms), your cranes and techno cranes and other “special” grip equipment that might be necessary for this specific episode. Pay attention to these additional equipment needs; they can really add up. Does your director and/or DP have shots they need special equipment for that you may not want them to do? This is an area to discuss during prep when you get your initial episodic budgets and see overages in your Set Operations account. 

2600 - SPECIAL EFFECTS
A few fixed costs, but mostly discretionary. The fixed costs are your Special Effects Supervisor. Their box rental (tools and specialized equipment) and, sometimes, a full time Special Effects Assistant. 

The discretionary costs are any additional SFX technicians and assistants, outside rentals and purchases. This will be determined by how many special effects you write into your scripts and how much manpower and outside rental equipment you’ll need to accomplish them. 

2700 - SET DRESSING
Your set decorators are fixed costs. The Set Decorator, Leadman and permanent crew that comes with them to furnish your sets (furniture, drapes, carpet – anything the actors won’t handle as props). 

But there are significant discretionary amounts in the Set Dressing account on each episode based on how many locations and sets you’re going to need, how many extra laborers will be needed to dress them, and the rentals and purchases necessary to dress them. You can have significant savings in this account if you reduce the number of locations and/or sets you need to use in the episode.

2800 - PROPERTY
Your fixed costs are your Property Master, Assistant Property Master and any other full time Assistants you have in your property department.

This is another account where you will see significant swings in costs and where you have real discretionary spending power. Props expenditures also include food stylists (cooks) and the cost of food put in front of your cast and extras. A restaurant scene or large family Thanksgiving dinner will be expensive. Firearms and armorers are in this account. Outside rentals and purchases of all sorts of specialized props are in this account. Animal trainers (you wrote a dog into the episode) fall into this account. Cut the dog and you will likely save a minimum of five thousand dollars – or more. 

2900 - WARDROBE
The fixed costs in Wardrobe are your Costume Designer, Wardrobe Supervisor, Lead Costumer and Set Costumers. 

Your discretionary costs are everything else. And it can be a lot. How many cast members have you written that need to be costumed? How many different costumes (days) are in your script? How many multiples (duplicates) of your costumes will be needed. This number will increase if there are stunts that could damage a costume during shooting. How many extras need costumes? Is it a period piece where period rentals will have to come from costume rental houses? Will you have tailors and seamstresses to build period costumes from scratch? How many uniforms will you need (police, fire, military, etc.)? Every one of these decisions will impact your budget and changes you make in the script can have significant impacts on these costs. 

3000 - ACTION PROPS, PICTURE VEHICLES
Action props are picture cars (cars that will be seen on screen) and any special moving equipment (military vehicles, police and fire vehicles, ambulances). This is all discretionary. Removing or reducing the number of action props and vehicles can mean big savings for your episode’s budget.

3100 - MAKE-UP & HAIRDRESSING
Your Hair and Make-Up Keys (department heads), Assistant Make-up Artists and Hair Stylists, and there needed supplies and equipment are fixed costs.

Discretionary costs in Make-Up and Hair are tied to how many cast members and extras you’ve written into your episodic script. If you have large casts working on certain days, lots of extras, period hairstyles (often requiring wigs) you’ll need additional Make-up and Hair personnel to handle the volume of work.

3200 - LIGHTING
Your fixed costs in the lighting account include your Gaffer (head lighting technician), Best Boy, Lighting Technicians, lighting rigging crew, and the permanent lighting equipment that will be on your sets and on your trucks for location shooting.

The discretionary costs are tied to how many locations will be used, how much night, and how many additional Lighting Technicians and how much additional equipment will be needed for those locations. This account will balloon up quickly if you have a lot of night exteriors and particularly if they’re large night exteriors that will require you to light a large area.

3300 - CAMERA
Fixed costs in your camera account are your Director of Photography (DP), your Camera Operators, First and Second Camera Assistants, Digital Utility Assistants and your Digital Imaging Technician (DIT), your camera rentals which usually includes two and sometimes three cameras and lens rentals.

Discretionary costs in this account are if you’re also using a Steadycam (Operator cost and rental cost), additional cameras for action sequences and stunts plus the Assistants to operate them, Drone units, and underwater cameras.  

3400 - PRODUCTION SOUND
Fixed costs for your onstage sound team that records your actors. Video playback is also in this account as well as the costs of renting the walkie-talkies crew members use and the rental of all of the sound equipment. 

3500 - TRANSPORTATION
Transportation is always one of the largest, if not the largest, expenditure account in your budget. There are many fixed costs including your Transportation Coordinator, Transportation Captain, and the many Drivers who ferry your camera, sound, prop, grip and electrical equipment trucks. Your dressing rooms, Honeywagons (restrooms), make-up and hair trailers, minivans for moving cast and crew from base camps to sets and meals. Your location scouting vans, your set dressing and construction trucks, water trucks, picture car carriers, generators, catering trucks. You name it, they drive it. You’re a circus and they’re the drivers of your circus. The fixed costs also include the rental of all these vehicles, the fuel and maintenance of this mini fleets. 

Discretionary costs in your transportation account include any number of possible additional expenses based on what you’ve written into your episodic script. Extra cast members beyond what’s in your Series Pattern Budget? You’ll need extra cast trailers and the drivers to drive them. Lots of extras? You’ll need an additional make-up and hair trailer and an additional driver to drive it, along with more mini vans to ferry the additional cast members and extras to and from set. All of this can add up quickly to significant non-budgeted costs.

3600 - LOCATIONS
Another one of your largest financial accounts. Most of which is discretionary. Fixed costs include your Location Manager and their Assistant Locations Managers. 

Discretionary costs include the rental costs of the locations you choose, the crew and truck parking fees, security and police (sometimes also fire) personnel, the catered meals for all the cast, crew, and extras. The tents and tables and chairs for where you serve the meal. Heaters or air conditioning for where you do your meal and for your extras to have a place to wait until they’re needed. Every day you’re out on local location is expensive, and every individual location adds costs. This is always an area of your budget to examine to make sure you really need all the locations and extras you’ve written. Reducing some can lead to significant cost savings across this account and many other accounts. 

3700 - PRODUCTION FILM & LAB
Fixed costs for processing your film (digital but still referred to as film and lab), creating your dailies and streaming them to secure viewing sites, and other costs of processing the images that you’ve shot.

Post Production

4600 - MUSIC
Some fixed costs for your Composer and Music Supervisor but most of this category is the discretionary costs of music rights for music you wish to license and use in your show. Strongly advise you discourage writing specific music into the scripts you would like to license – other than using the music as markers for the tone you’d like to create. Getting too attached in the writing to specific tracks can lead to a great deal of heartbreak when you can’t afford to license them, or the licensee (musician) isn’t interested in licensing it to your show.

5100 - FILM POST PRODUCTION
Fixed costs for your editors, editing equipment, Post Coordinator, Post Supervisor (if they’re not a producer), color correction of your picture, dubbing and mixing your sound, ADR (automatic dialogue replacement), music editors, etc. Very little to no discretionary costs in this account. 

Other Costs

6500 - PUBLICITY
Some studios will charge you for a portion of their publicity department costs on your budget. 

6700 - INSURANCE
Fixed costs for exactly what it sounds like- the insurance for your show.

7600 - TV AMORTIZATION
Fixed costs. See Julia’s amortization explanation here for details on how amorts work.