ACCOUNTING SERVICES · HOLLYWOOD
Back-office accounting for Hollywood production companies, agencies, and post houses.
A packaged monthly service for the businesses behind the credits — production LLCs, single-picture entities, post-production shops, boutique agencies, and streaming vendors. Job-costed books, month-end close, residual reconciliation, and payroll integration under one recurring engagement.
GET A SCOPING CALL →Who this fits
You are the owner of a production shop, a post house, a boutique agency, or a streaming-adjacent vendor business. You have between two and fifty employees. You run one operating entity plus one or two single-picture LLCs. Your bookkeeper has been fine until a residual statement showed up wrong, or a studio audit clause showed up in a contract, or a K-1 you sent got returned. You are ready for a monthly service that treats the books like a business system, not a shoebox.
Service menu
- Monthly bookkeeping (QBO) — categorized transactions, bank and credit-card reconciliation, subsidiary ledgers by project.
- Job costing and project P&L — per-show or per-title cost tracking, WIP, and cost-of-revenue treatment.
- Month-end close — accruals, deferred revenue on multi-episode deals, prepaids, and closed books by day 15.
- Financial statements — consolidated and per-entity, delivered monthly with partner commentary.
- Residual reconciliation — statement review, waterfall math, and dispute prep against studio and platform statements.
- Sales & use tax — CDTFA and multi-state where the business is triggered.
- 1099 compliance — vendor W-9 collection, year-end 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC.
- Payroll integration — Gusto, ADP, RUN for corporate overhead; coordination with Cast & Crew or Entertainment Partners for above/below-the-line where relevant.
- R&D credit studies — where the technical work qualifies (creative-tech, VFX pipeline development, tooling).
Onboarding — four steps, roughly 45 days
1. Discovery. A 30-minute scoping call. We map what the entity structure actually is versus what the QBO file thinks it is.
2. Data migration. QBO cleanup, chart of accounts rebuilt around project P&L, integration wiring for payroll and merchant data.
3. 30-day parallel run. We run alongside your existing setup for one full month so nothing goes dark during handoff — especially important during a production or delivery cycle.
4. Ongoing cadence. Month-end close by day 15. Quarterly review with the partner. Residual and 1099 workflow already primed for year-end.
Pricing signal
Recurring packages start in the mid four-figures per month. Multi-entity structures and heavy project accounting move the price up. We scope specifically after discovery.
Signals that a production or post shop should call
- A residual statement arrived that does not match your internal records.
- A studio audit clause is showing up in a new contract and your books are not audit-ready.
- You are wrapping a project and the WIP account has not been reconciled to per-project P&L.
- 1099s to talent or vendors were late or incorrect last year.
- You are launching a single-picture entity and need it set up correctly from day one.
- Your bookkeeper is fine on transaction entry but has no fluency in production-industry accruals.
Response times and cadence commitments
Same-business-day acknowledgment on email. Substantive response within 24 hours on non-urgent items, faster during production or delivery cycles. Month-end close by day 15. Quarterly review with the partner. Ad-hoc availability during a deliverable crunch is part of the engagement, not an extra.
Frequently asked
Q: Are you production accountants?
A: No — we are the corporate/entity accounting layer that sits underneath the production accountant. Single-picture entity work, corporate books, tax, and residual reconciliation are our lane. Set accounting is not.
Q: Can you consolidate across multiple entities?
A: Yes. Multi-entity consolidation with intercompany eliminations is standard.
Q: Do you review residual and back-end statements?
A: Yes, as part of the recurring engagement or as a discrete project. We have flagged material understatements on studio statements more than once.
Q: Union payroll?
A: We coordinate with Cast & Crew or Entertainment Partners for above-the-line and below-the-line payroll; we do not run union payroll directly.
Q: Can we start mid-year?
A: Yes. Mid-year onboarding includes a cleanup component to get books current before we start the recurring cadence.
One monthly engagement. The books, the projects, the states, the residuals.
Serving Hollywood production and creative businesses from South Robertson since 2013. Thirty-minute scoping call — no obligation.
GET A SCOPING CALL →CALL (866) 222-6060
Frequently Asked
Hollywood — questions we hear.
What accounting services do Hollywood professionals need most?
In Hollywood, the most-requested accounting services are loan-out corporation compliance, business management, multi-state and international tax filings, residual and royalty tracking, production accounting, and California PTE elections. Given the industry's project-based cash flow, quarterly tax planning is essential — Hollywood clients often go from high-income years to lower ones, and estimated payments need to track reality rather than default safe-harbor formulas.
How much do accounting services cost in Hollywood?
In Hollywood, monthly bookkeeping for smaller production entities typically runs $1,000-$3,000. Full business management for talent often prices at $3,000-$15,000 per month depending on entities and personal bill pay volume. Loan-out corporation compliance including payroll and returns usually runs $3,000-$6,000 annually. HNW entertainment tax returns commonly fall between $3,000-$10,000 depending on multi-state and international activity.
Can Hollywood accounting services be delivered remotely?
Yes. Most Hollywood accounting work runs through cloud platforms and secure portals, which means clients on location or on tour can stay current from anywhere. In-person meetings remain valuable for planning sessions, business management reviews, and coordination with agents and attorneys. Local Hollywood firms tend to respond faster and understand the industry-specific issues that come up during production cycles.
What's included in monthly accounting services for a Hollywood production company?
Monthly accounting services for a Hollywood production company typically include transaction categorization, bank reconciliation, per-project cost tracking, payroll oversight, sales and use tax on production purchases, monthly financial reports, and a scheduled CPA review call. For active productions, weekly rather than monthly close is common. Tax returns and California production tax credit work are usually priced separately from the ongoing retainer.
Do Hollywood accounting services include royalty and residual tracking?
Yes. Royalty and residual tracking is a specialty that Hollywood accounting firms handle regularly. It includes reconciling guild statements from SAG-AFTRA, WGA, and DGA, catching underpayments, coordinating with agents and attorneys on collection issues, and reporting the income correctly on the loan-out corporation or personal return. For established Hollywood clients, residual reconciliation frequently uncovers meaningful missed payments over multi-year periods.