Airgead (Financing) — module user guide

# Airgead (Financing) — User Guide

The production-finance module of Togra: how it works, surface by surface, and how it makes assembling, drawing down and controlling a production's money easier — and where the line sits between Airgead and the Cuntasaíocht book of record.

1. What Airgead is for

A film or TV production is, financially, three jobs at once: raise the money (a finance plan stitched from soft money, tax credits, pre-sales, broadcaster licences, equity and gap), draw it down on time (tranches, drawdowns, completion-closing conditions), and control the spend (a cost report against the budget, hot costs during the shoot, a clean wrap). On top of that sit the tax-credit claims (S481, S487A, AVEC and the overseas equivalents) that often are the financing, and the compliance that funders require before they release a cent.

Airgead is where all of that lives. It is Togra's production-finance hub — the home for the money side of a project from first finance-plan sketch to final close-out and credit claim. Its job is to:

1. Assemble the finance plan — every source, its status and confidence, against the budget, with the gap always visible.
2. Track the money in — soft money, pre-sales, drawdowns and tranches, with nudges when a decision or drawdown is overdue.
3. Control the money out — a cost report whose actuals read straight from the ledger, hot costs during the shoot, and a per-project close-out.
4. Claim the credits — S481 / S487A / AVEC trackers and the cultural / AICE / state-aid checks that gate them.
5. Satisfy the funders — recoupment corridors, completion bonds, bank accounts, tax clearance, progress reports and investor packs.

Airgead is management finance, not the book of record. The double-entry general ledger, purchase orders, accounts payable, payment runs, VAT returns and financial statements live in the Cuntasaíocht (Accounts) module. Airgead's cost-control surfaces — the cost report, petty cash, the production-accountant dashboard, and outbound invoices — read from and post to that ledger, but they stay in Airgead because they're the producer's and line producer's tools. (See section 5 for exactly where the line sits.)

2. The financing lifecycle, end to end

How the surfaces fit together as money is raised, drawn and controlled:

1. Sketch the numbers → the Finance Calculator for a quick what-if; the Budget Tool for the real chart-of-accounts budget (seed it from a Budget template).
2. Build the finance plan → the Finance Plan assembles every source against the budget, showing raised / gap / confidence-weighted totals; compare scenarios.
3. Raise the soft money and pre-sales → Soft Money tracks sources and tranches; Presales and Commissions track distributor MGs and broadcaster deals; Funder Rounds lists where to apply.
4. Check it's allowed → State-aid cumulation against the EU 50% cap; the Cultural Test and AICE audit that gate S481; the Recoupment Corridor for the Irish-talent share.
5. Close the finance → Completion Bond, Cost of Money (gap/bridge interest), Tax clearance, Project bank accounts, DAC compliance — the conditions funders require at financial closing.
6. Cashflow it → Cashflow (week-by-week against the plan) and Slate cash (the whole slate, 12 months).
7. Control the spend → the Cost Report (actuals vs budget, straight from the ledger), Hot costs (weekly during the shoot), the Production Accountant dashboard, Petty cash.
8. Bill and collect → Invoices (sales-agent MGs, advances, licence fees) — which post to the ledger as receivables.
9. Claim the credits → the S481 / S487A / AVEC trackers (with their Tab J / Tab Z / Diversity / Cultural Test inputs); application packs themselves live in the Iarratas module.
10. Wrap → Close-out (budget vs actual, soft money in, net position) and the Investor Compliance Pack.

The whole module reads against one budget (locked before the cost report opens) and one finance plan, and posts its money movements into the Cuntasaíocht ledger.

3. How the module is laid out

Airgead's Home (airgead.php) is a launcher organised into six tabs — the authoritative map of the module:

• Plan — Finance Calculator · Finance Plan · Finance Plan Compare · Finance Model · (Teoranta Forecasting, one level up)
• Fund — Soft Money · Presales · Funder Rounds · State-aid cumulation · SI Recoupment Corridor · Commissions · SI Locked Box · Funder applications → (Iarratas)
• Closing — Completion Bond · Cost of Money · Tax clearance log · Project bank accounts · DAC Compliance
• Track — Budget Tool · AICE audit · Test screenings · Cashflow · Cost Report · Petty Cash · Production Accountant · Budget Import / Export · Funder Progress Report · Investor Compliance Pack
• Tax credits — S481 · S487A (+ DCCS submissions) · AVEC · CAVCO · QAP · Cultural Test
• Compliance — Tab J (writers) · Tab Z (talent) · Diversity Standards · Sustainability · DAC Compliance

A shorter quick-access strip (the module sub-nav) surfaces the everyday ones — Home · Finance plan · Soft money · Cashflow · Cost report · Hot costs · Budget templates — with Slate cash, Invoices, Close-out and the tax-credit trackers behind More ▾.

Most surfaces are project-scoped (a project picker if opened bare); a few are slate-wide (Funder rounds, Slate cash, Invoices, the Finance Calculator).

4. The surfaces in detail

Plan

Finance Calculator (finance-calculator.php) — a standalone what-if for tax credits, soft money and completion bond. No project required; use it to sanity-check a structure before building the real plan.

Budget Tool (budget-tool.php) — the production budget editor with a chart of accounts (handles both development and production budgets). Seed it from a Budget template (budget-templates.php) — format-specific chart-of-accounts skeletons including the TG4 Production Budget Summary — or import a Movie Magic / Excel budget (budget-import.php, which maps lines to the chart of accounts) and export to Movie Magic / XLSX / PDF (budget-export.php). The budget is the spine everything else measures against; lock it before the cost report opens.

Finance Plan (finance-plan.php) — the per-project funding structure. Each line is a source of one of fifteen types (Soft money · S481 tax credit · Tax credit (other) · Tax shelter · Broadcaster licence · Pre-sale / MG · Distribution advance · Sales advance · Equity / investor · Deferral · Gap finance · Bridge facility · Co-pro partner · In-kind · Other) with a status (Identified · Informal interest · LOI · Contract · Drawn · At risk). The page shows total budget · raised · gap · confidence-weighted totals (each status carries a default confidence weighting), and you can pull lines automatically from Soft money, facilities and co-pro scenarios, and sync actuals from the ledger. Plans export to XLSX and PDF, and you can compare two side by side (finance-plan-compare.php). When a project has been green-lit, the plan shows a "development costs to recoup" note carried from the green-light snapshot. The Finance Model (finance-model.php) wraps this with an integrated S481 + AVEC calculator and push-to-Teoranta; its S481 calculator pre-fills the eligible-spend input from the budget's S481 tags (with a one-click "use tagged" and a mismatch warning), so the credit number and the tagged budget stay in step.

Fund

Soft Money (softmoney.php) — soft-money sources by territory (grants, regional funding, tax credits, presales), each with a status (Identified · Applied · Awarded · Drawing down · Reconciled · Declined) and tranches (expected → requested → received). Overdue decisions and overdue drawdowns raise nudges in your inbox.

Presales (presales.php) — distributor pre-sales, MGs and territory commitments tracked against the finance plan. Commissions (commissions.php) — the broadcaster lifecycle (RTÉ · TG4 · Virgin · BBC NI · C4) from deal memo to long-form contract. Funder Rounds (funder-rounds.php) — a catalogue of funding rounds across IE / UK / NI / CA / AU you can apply to per project (a closing round raises a nudge).

State-aid cumulation (state-aid.php) — total state aid against the EU 50% cap, summing S481 + CnaM + SI + NI Screen + BFI + MEDIA per project, flagging breaches and the low-budget / difficult-film exemptions. SI Recoupment Corridor (si-recoupment-corridor.php) — the Irish-talent + producer recoupment share per the SI Production Funding Guidelines, auto-suggested from who's Irish among writer/director/producer. SI Locked Box (locked-box.php) — the recycled-loan facility on the producer account (€75k cap, reinvest within 24 months), tracked slate-wide.

Funder applications → the application packs (SI / DCCS / HMRC) live in the Iarratas module — Airgead links across to them rather than duplicating.

Closing

The conditions funders require at financial closing: Completion Bond (completion-bond.php) — bond party, fee, trigger conditions, margin held; Cost of Money (cost-of-money.php) — interest / gap / bridging cost, computed at quote stage so quotes are comparable before a loan draws (stale quotes and due repayments raise nudges); Tax clearance log (tax-clearance.php) — Revenue/HMRC clearance per legal entity (Producer Co + DAC + co-producers); Project bank accounts (project-bank-accounts.php) — the production accounts at closing (IBAN/BIC/signatories, escrow accounts, no-set-off letters); DAC compliance (dac-compliance.php) — the designated activity company an S481 scripted/animation/doc project needs in place at closing.

Track

This is where the spend is controlled during prep, shoot and post.

Cost Report (cost-report.php) — actuals vs budget with variance and drill-down. Its actuals read straight from the ledger (the WIP account, by cost code), so anything posted to the book of record flows in automatically; it requires a locked budget, and it exports to DOCX/PDF and can be published as an audited statement to funders, co-pro partners and lenders. Hot costs (hot-costs.php) — the weekly running-cost-vs-budget view during the shoot: spend this window and to date per cost code, with overspend flags and shoot-day count, and prev/this/next-week navigation. AICE audit (aice-audit.php) — cross-checks producer-tagged Irish-creative budget lines against SI's eligibility list, runs the 1.5:1 AICE ratio, and feeds the SI Production Application. Test screenings (test-screenings.php) — logs pre-delivery screenings (first assembly → picture lock), tracking the SI Executive attendance that is a funding condition.

Cashflow (cashflow.php) — week-by-week forecast against the finance plan plus actual receipts. Petty Cash (petty-cash.php) — float ledgers and daily-rate categorisation that post to the ledger. Production Accountant (production-accountant.php) — the PA dashboard (weekly summaries, variance flags, suppliers awaiting payment, payment-run preview). Funder Progress Report (funder-progress-report.php) and Investor Compliance Pack (investor-compliance-publish.php) — the period-end updates funders and lenders expect, published as dated artefacts.

Invoices (invoices.php) — outbound sales invoices (Sales agent MG · Broadcaster/distributor advance · Licence fee · Service-mode billing · Residual catch-up · Other), each moving Draft → Sent → Part-paid → Paid (or Overdue / Cancelled). An issued invoice posts to the ledger (Dr AR 1100 / Cr Income 4000 / Cr Output VAT 2200) — it is the receivables mirror of Accounts payable, so it's also surfaced on the Accounts home.

Tax credits

The trackers that turn eligibility into a claim. S481 Tracker (s481-tracker.php) — the Irish credit for scripted / animation / documentary: provisional → final → audit, with the eligible-expenditure cap calc and the 32% rate (40% Scéal regional uplift), the 80% and €125m caps. It now leads with an eligible-expenditure roll-up read live from the tagged budget — the eligible base (and % of global budget), Irish-creative spend, the labour / services split, and a Reg-12 non-qualifying breakdown by category — so what the line-level S481 tags add up to is visible without opening the budget. S487A (s487a-tracker.php) — the unscripted credit: 20% on the lowest of (eligible / 80% × total / €15M), minimum €125k eligible and €250k total, the DCCS cultural test (28/56), sunset 31 December 2028 — with a per-project DCCS submissions audit log. AVEC Tracker (avec-tracker.php) — the UK Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit (S1179BA scoring + CT600 tracking). Plus CAVCO (Canada), QAP (Australia) and the Cultural Test that gates S481 / AVEC. The application packs live in Iarratas; these trackers manage the claim lifecycle.

Compliance (credit inputs)

Tab J (tab-j.php) — the S481 writers register (classification + difficult criteria). Tab Z (tab-z.php) — the S481 talent register (cast/crew demographics + tax residency + Part B attestation). Diversity Standards (diversity-standards.php) — the BFI four-standard self-assessment that feeds the Industry Development Test. Sustainability (sustainability.php) — carbon report + BAFTA Albert tracking. DAC Compliance — Companies Act tracking for the project's DAC.

5. Airgead and the rest of Togra

Airgead deliberately overlaps three neighbours, with clear canonical homes:

• Cuntasaíocht (Accounts) — the book of record. The general ledger, purchase orders, accounts payable, payment runs, PCard, VAT returns, bank rec, financial statements, WIP release and GL exports live there. Airgead's Cost report, Petty cash, Production-accountant dashboard and Invoices post to / read from that same ledger but stay canonical in Airgead because they're production-finance tools — each is cross-listed on the Accounts home with a "Canonical home: Airgead" pointer so it's discoverable from the books. The rule of thumb: if it's a statutory double-entry record, it's in Accounts; if it's the producer assembling or controlling the money, it's in Airgead.
• Teoranta (Forecasting) — one level up. Airgead is per-project (and slate cash); Teoranta is the company's 10-year P&L + cashflow forecast. The Finance Model can push a project up into the Teoranta forecast.
• Iarratas — the application packs. Airgead's tax-credit trackers manage the claim lifecycle; the SI / DCCS / HMRC application packs themselves are authored in Iarratas.

Deadline nudges. Airgead's dates surface in your approvals inbox (and optional email): soft-money decision overdue, soft-money drawdown overdue, facility repayment due, facility quote stale, and funder round closing. So a drawdown isn't missed and a gap-loan quote doesn't go stale unnoticed.

The green-light handoff (from Forbairt). When a project is green-lit in development, the recoupable dev spend is snapshotted and the finance plan shows it as a "development costs to recoup" note — so development money flows into the production financing cleanly.

6. How this makes financing easier for a production company

• The gap is always honest. The finance plan shows raised vs budget vs a confidence-weighted total, so you know not just what you've raised but what you can rely on — and exactly how big the hole still is.
• Money in is never missed. Soft-money decisions, drawdowns, facility repayments and closing funder rounds all nudge you in time — drawdowns are cash you've earned but have to ask for, and they slip easily.
• Spend control is wired to the books. Because the cost report's actuals read straight from the ledger, there is one set of numbers — the producer's cost report and the accountant's book of record can't drift apart, and the report can be published to funders as an audited statement.
• The credits are de-risked. The S481 / S487A / AVEC trackers, the AICE audit, the state-aid cumulation check and the cultural test mean the credit — often the largest single source — is monitored against its caps and conditions from the start, not discovered at audit.
• Closing conditions are a checklist, not a scramble. Completion bond, tax clearance, bank accounts and the DAC are tracked as the gating items they are, so financial closing isn't held up by a missing letter.
• One source from sketch to wrap. The same budget and finance plan carry from the first calculator what-if, through cashflow and cost control, to close-out and the investor pack — nothing is re-keyed, and the wrap report writes itself from the data already there.

7. Worked examples

A. Building a finance plan. Start the budget in the Budget Tool (seeded from a template or imported from Movie Magic) and lock it. In the Finance Plan, add each source — broadcaster licence, S481, soft money, a pre-sale, a gap facility — each with a status; pull the soft-money and co-pro lines automatically. Watch raised, gap and the confidence-weighted total. Run the State-aid cumulation check to confirm you're under the 50% cap, and the AICE audit to confirm the Irish-creative spend qualifies. Compare two scenarios before you commit.

B. Not missing a drawdown. Each soft-money source in Soft Money carries tranches (expected → requested → received). As an expected tranche's date arrives, the drawdown-overdue nudge appears — prompting you to request the money you've already been awarded.

C. Controlling the shoot. With the budget locked, the Cost Report shows actuals (read from the ledger) against budget; during the shoot, Hot costs gives the weekly running view with overspend flags. The Production Accountant dashboard surfaces suppliers awaiting payment and previews the next payment run (which executes in Accounts). At wrap, Close-out reconciles budget vs actual, soft money in, and the net position.

D. Claiming S481. Keep the S481 Tracker moving provisional → final → audit; feed it from Tab J (writers), Tab Z (talent), the Cultural Test and Diversity Standards; confirm eligible spend with the AICE audit. The application pack itself is assembled in Iarratas; the tracker manages the claim and its caps (32% / 40% uplift, 80%, €125m).

This guide reflects the Airgead module as shipped. Each surface carries its own in-app contextual hints; the Forbairt guide covers development, and the in-app manual + Eolas cover the Cuntasaíocht book of record, Teoranta forecasting, and the Iarratas application packs.