Invoicing for freelance film crew

The idea

Film and TV freelancers get paid per production, and every invoice is a small math problem: base day rate, time-and-a-half after 10 hours, double time after 12, a penalty if turnaround between wrap and the next call dipped under 10 hours, plus kit rental, per diems, and mileage. Most crew do this arithmetic in their heads or in a battered spreadsheet at midnight on Friday, and they get it wrong in the production’s favor more often than their own. Generic invoicing tools have proven the willingness to pay — people pay $14/mo for Invoice Ninja — but none of them know what a turnaround penalty is.

The wedge is that the invoice is a derived artifact. The real input is the call-time log, which takes two taps a day. Capture call and wrap, and the OT tiers, penalties, and line items compute themselves. Nobody has built this because it looks like a niche, but the niche invoices weekly, per production, with real money attached to every miscalculated hour.

Who pays

The buyer is the freelancer themselves: camera ops, sound mixers, gaffers, ACs — anyone on a day rate with kit. $9/mo subscription, cheaper than the generic tools they already consider. Distribution runs through crew Facebook groups, r/cinematography, and word of mouth on set, which is unusually strong in this trade because everyone compares rates and paperwork between setups.

MVP scope

• Profile with role, day rate, kit rate, and editable OT rules
• Productions with client details and a two-tap daily call/wrap log
• Automatic OT tier and turnaround-penalty calculation
• One-click PDF invoice with sequential numbering and kit/per diem/mileage lines
• Stripe-gated free tier (2 invoices/month) and $9/mo unlimited
• Skip for v1: payment collection on invoices, multi-currency, union rate-card presets, mobile apps (responsive web is enough)

Build CrewSheet, a web app that turns a film crew freelancer's call-time log into a production-ready invoice. Stack: Next.js (App Router), Supabase for auth and Postgres, React PDF for invoice rendering, Stripe for subscriptions.

Core flow: 1) User creates a profile with their role, day rate, kit rental rate, and OT rules (default: 1.5x hourly after 10 hours, 2x after 12, where hourly = day rate / 10). 2) User creates a Production with client name, billing contact, and PO number. 3) Each work day, they log call time and wrap time in two taps; the app computes base day, OT tiers, and turnaround penalties (flag any gap under 10 hours between wrap and next call and add a penalty line). 4) At week end, one click generates a PDF invoice grouping days, OT, kit fees, per diems, and mileage as separate line items, numbered sequentially per user.

Pages: dashboard (open productions, unbilled days), production detail with day log, invoice history, settings, public invoice view link. Non-obvious details: store times in the production's timezone, not UTC display; OT math must be tier-split (hours 10-12 at 1.5x, beyond 12 at 2x), not flat-rate on total hours. Pricing: free for 2 invoices/month, $9/mo unlimited via Stripe Checkout.