How To Choose The Best Production Tax Incentive Management Service For Your Film Or TV Show

If your next project is going for any film & TV production incentives, partnering with a company that offers a production tax incentive management service is the way to go. Doing so will facilitate your tax incentive’s end to end process, make sure you maximize your incentive proceeds, and ensure you complete a smooth audit without surprises. 

Below are some important reasons why you should consider partnering with a company that offers production tax incentive management services. 

Single Point of Contact

Hiring someone to manage your production tax incentives will save you time and money. 

Having a single point of contact is imperative when it is common for producers & accountants to be off on their next project once production wraps, leaving the tax credit process to remain stagnant. 

Without a team in place to monitor the lifecycle of your tax incentive, push along the process,  and prepare the necessary paperwork for the final audit, production could be leaving a lot of money on the table. 

That’s not ideal, to say the least. 

Expertise in the space 

Having a production tax incentive management team on your side will help you navigate the complexities of production incentives for film & TV. 

An experienced team can keep you up to  date with the latest program regulations, provide referrals and connect you with the best auditors, financiers, brokers, and film offices within the industry.   

Application Preparation

Certifying your final general ledger for audit and completing your financial & non-financial application documents can be a daunting task. 

You need a partner that can ensure items on your general ledger are classified properly and qualify for the production tax incentive you are applying for. 

You want an experienced production tax incentive management service that is not only familiar with the various tax incentive programs, but are familiar with the necessary forms required to successfully submit your final application. This will help streamline the final review process and aid in avoiding pitfalls that can cost you money.

Additionally, these are some of the qualities to look for when looking to engage a production tax incentive management team:

✅ Are they experienced in the industry?

✅ Are they responsive?

✅ Do they take ownership of their work?

✅ Do they communicate and set attainable expectations?

✅ Do they complete their tasks in a timely manner? 

✅ Will they treat you like a partner?

Throughout production it is critical to know what your data is saying about your tax incentive and you need a team that can help track your data each step of the way, so make sure to budget for a tax incentive management team whenever you are working on a project obtaining a tax incentive. 

How can you find a production tax incentive management service to partner with? 

Well, you’re in luck. You’re looking at one right now.

With GreenSlate you get a one stop solution for all your payroll, accounting and tax incentive management needs. Our tax credit specialists manage your data throughout the production lifecycle, and give you the best opportunity to get you all you're entitled to, quickly.

Leveraging over two decades of experience in the entertainment industry, GreenSlate advances the business of tax incentive management by seamlessly integrating people, process and technology to meet the essential tax incentive needs of production. 

Simplifying what shouldn't be overly complicated, GreenSlate provides the industry's most intuitive production accounting software, paperless payroll processing, and digital workflow solutions, all of which aids in a seamless final audit & final tax incentive application submission. 

Using GreenSlate allows you to manage your production incentives all on one transparent, secure platform. Filmmakers, producers, and financiers alike can get a complete picture of their entire portfolio of production tax incentives and can view, or share, results in real-time with transparent workflows and top of the line reporting tools GreenSlate offers. With our Incentives Dashboard you can:

• Centralize data and documents relating to your production incentive
• Track the status of your incentives
• Consolidate processes relating to your incentive
• View status of all your production incentives
• View estimates of your production incentives

Our end to end tax incentive management services enable filmmakers and production teams to focus more on what they do best - creating inspiring content. 

Opinion Letter Services

Does your lender or financier require an independent review and opinion on your potential tax incentive? 

Our teams can provide a non-binding opinion on the minimum expected value of your tax incentive and identify potential variables that may cause variances between the realized amount and expectations. 

Our strong relationships with auditors and film offices give us great insight as to what costs commonly get backed out of qualified spend  or scrutinized during the final review.    

Monitoring Services

As you begin to incur costs it is important to know where your tax incentive stands at any given time throughout production. With our monitoring service, our team can review the cost report, general ledger, payroll data and accounting software to determine if the project is on budget, and that the spending on qualified and non-qualified items is progressing in accordance with the initial estimates. 

Any variances from the budget or anticipated qualified spend are detailed on our issued reports. During this process our team will also review withholding rules to ensure payroll costs will qualify in accordance with specific program rules, if applicable, and address any questions regarding statutory production incentive rules as they apply to submitted expenses.

Final Application Services

Now for the grand finale: Preparing your final general ledger for audit and ultimate submission to the state! 

Our team has tons of experience reviewing the final data once spending in your selected jurisdiction has completed and preparing the necessary documents needed to successfully complete your audit. Our team has managed the tax incentives for projects ranging in budget sizes from sub - $1 million up to over $60 million. We know how to tag costs for tax incentives across the US, and analyze payroll & loan out requirements to ensure your labor costs are properly classified. 

Our team knows what states require which documents, and with our software’s powerful reporting tools we can generate all required financial reports, such as fully coded general ledgers, detailed payroll reports, state formatted employment reports, state formatted diversity reports, payroll withholding reports, vendor reports, state formatted final templates, and more. 

During the final audit, GreenSlate acts as a liaison between production and their auditor. Besides preparing all necessary application documents, we work hand in hand with your auditors to complete the general ledger & payroll testing, providing them with required back up such as invoices, AP check copies, W9’s, bank statements, receipts, p-card statements, startwork, timecards, and payroll check copies. 

We pride ourselves on our accuracy, audit turnaround time, and responsiveness - your tax incentive is in good hands with GreenSlate.

✅ We’re here for you with our production tax incentive management service, and I’m here to answer your questions, simply drop me a line.