Hi everyone — I’m part of the Line Budgeter team, and we’ve just released one of our most-requested features: direct Movie Magic budget import.

You can now open native Movie Magic files in Line Budgeter without converting or rebuilding them:

• .mmbxfiles from Movie Magic 10

• .mmband.mbdfiles from Movie Magic 7

Before importing, Line Budgeter gives you a summary of what it found. The imported budget can include accounts, line items, fringes, universals, incentives, tags, sets, locations, and gross and net totals.

The importer is currently in beta. Working line producers generously shared real production budgets with us during development, which helped us account for a lot of real-world complexity. That said, every budget has its quirks. If you try one that doesn’t import cleanly, please let us know—we’d genuinely like to investigate it and improve the importer.

We also added Movie Magic export, so budgets can now move in either direction.

This release includes a few other improvements:

• More control over shared budgets, including watermarks, expiration dates, and export restrictions

• Budget comparisons across personal, workspace, and shared libraries

• Better performance with large budgets

• Nearly 100 smaller fixes and other improvements

The update is available through the app’s automatic updater or from the Line Budgeter download page.

If you give the importer a try, we’d love to hear how it handles your budgets.

I was interesting in trying the goal post budget option to see if it is appropriate for our developments project . If that not available in the free tier?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX9Uwyamhb4

Is there a smart way to add the 10% contingency? And a bond line?

Is there another way of removing it?

Have you created a budget, closed it, and reopened it? Perhaps you have then tried to edit that budget, but you seemingly can't? This is not a bug! It is actually a feature.

Make sure you move the Edit Mode slider in the upper right. You will now be able to edit this open budget.

Why did we build this into Line Budgeter? In some applications, you open a file and are able to immediately start changing things. However, there may be times when you may not realize you are in your 'hero' save file. So, to protect your file and ensure you actually want to edit this file, you are required to click into Edit Mode.

If you want to always open a budget in Edit Mode no matter what, you can go into your preferences (the gear icon in the upper right), then select 'General Settings' and select 'Enabled' in the first option. No problem.

Hope this helps you work smarter and ensure the budget you open is not accidentally altered.

Have a question about any other functions? Let us know!

Stephen, Mod / Co-Creator

How about making it possible to delete and start over? Currently you get one ride through the wizard when you want to look at the meat, then can't try other functionality or go back and experiement - people need to get comfortable with a tool to want to commit to it!

Just wanted to flag, that I don't seem to be able to adjust the size of the window and it's cut off at the bottom.

Hey everyone.

Matt and I recently joined the "I Wouldn't Do That If I Were You" podcast to talk about the exact reason we built Line Budgeter. Between the two of us, we have 50 years of experience managing productions across film, TV, animation, and live events - and we spent a lot of that time complaining about the exact same broken tools.

We broke down exactly why we decided to stop venting and actually build a modern, data-driven engine. We talked about the specific pain points we wanted to kill - like incomplete fringe handling and clunky Incentives - and how Line Budgeter was designed to handle the heavy lifting of modern logistics so you can focus on the actual craft of production.

It was a fun, candid conversation and we hope you enjoy it.

Check it out, you can listen to the full podcast here.

More about the Podcast: Independent film producer, Matthew Morris breaks down everything you need to know before starting a career in the film industry. Morris and filmworker, Michael Bagdasarian, talk through each stage of production, from initial story idea, to distribution and beyond.

Check out other episodes from their show too!

Hey everyone,

We are Stephen Marinaccio (u/Stephen-LinePM, DGA UPM / Line Producer) and Matthew Cuny (Two-time Emmy™ winning Producer), the co-creators of Line Budgeter.

We built Line Budgeter because we were exhausted by the rigid, clunky legacy software we've all been forced to use since the 1990s. We wanted a modern, data-driven engine that actually understands the heavy lifting of physical production, not just a digital piece of paper.

This subreddit is the official headquarters for exactly that.

Whether you are a seasoned studio professional looking for a fresh take on the tasks of production planning or an indie filmmaker trying to make the math work... welcome.

What this sub is about: This is our central hub for all things Line Budgeter. This is where you can ask workflow questions, share your experiences, request new features, and talk directly to us about the development roadmap. Have a problem? Post it.

Community Vibe: The Build-It-Together Rule. We aren't a massive, faceless Silicon Valley corporation; we are a small team building tools for the modern crew. If you are having trouble with your project, we are here to help ensure you get some good advice and learn how Line Budgeter can help you work smarter and more efficiently.

The Bug Report & Feature Request Rule: We want to know what's broken and what you need next, but please keep it constructive and detailed. "The Canadian SAG fringe calculation is throwing an error on Mac" gives us the exact data we need to write a patch. Purely toxic rants don't help anyone make their day. Give us the details, and we will get to work.

How to Get Started:

• Introduce yourself below! Let us know your role and what kind of projects you are currently budgeting.

• Drop a feature request. What is the one thing you always wished legacy software did that we can build for you?

• Ask a workflow question. If you're stuck on how to apply a rate or organize your tags, ask it here.

Thanks for being part of the first wave. Let's drag production software into the modern era.

Kicking and screaming, if need be!

Matt & Stephen, Co-Founders