Method Budget 0.4.0

Method Budget 0.4.0

A schedule's days drive your globals, a shared budget can say who may change what, one
person's cutoffs count once across accounts, and incentive programs show what they are
worth before you apply them. Reviewers can comment on a copy, and the app works better
with a screen reader.

Your schedule sets the days

• Import Schedule Days. File > Import > Import Schedule Days… reads the days file
  Method Schedule exports. A review shows each figure with the global it sets, the value
  now and the new value. Total shoot days go to SHOOT_DAYS; days at a location, on a
  set, in a week or for a cast member go to globals you pick. Applying is one undo step.
• Import again when the schedule changes. Each global remembers which figure it came
  from, so the next import ticks it again and says what changed. A figure that has left
  the schedule is never set to 0 unless you pick it.

Working together with roles

• Who may change what. In a budget shared through a folder, the owner can make each
  person an admin, an editor, an editor of some categories only, actuals only, comments
  only or read only, and can make an admin a co-owner. Changes beyond someone's role are
  refused on every computer, and the app lists them with who, when and why.
• Good to know before you set the first role. Roles stop people changing what they
  shouldn't by accident. They don't stop someone who edits the shared folder's files
  directly. Everyone sharing the budget needs 0.4.0 or later once a role is set.

Money that adds up the way payroll does

• One cutoff per person. Give lines a person, and that person's fringe cutoffs count
  once across every account they are paid in, shared over their lines by pay. A new
  Person column shows how close each person is to each cutoff.
• Incentive estimates by location. A credit can be limited to locations, and every
  credit, applied or not, now shows its qualified spend and an estimate after caps and
  the broker's discount. Budget Setup's Credits tab puts the programs side by side, next
  to the spend at each location. You write the programs from the public rules; nothing
  is bundled.

Reviews, new budgets and access

• Review files. File > Open for Review… opens a budget read-only and keeps comments
  on lines, accounts and categories in a small file beside it. The author opens it with
  File > Open Review Comments… and merges comments in as dated notes, or dismisses them.
• New Budget brings in your setup. Tick your setup library or any setup pack, and its
  fringes, globals and the rest come into the new budget.
• Screen readers. The budget grid says where you are ("45.00, Rate, Gaffer"), changes
  to the net total are read out, dialogs behave as dialogs, and low-contrast text is
  darker.

Good to know

• Updates come through the suite's shared updater. Checking, downloading and
  installing work as before, from the same Help menu.
• Command line and agents in shared budgets. On a budget shared through a folder,
  method-budget set and apply and the agent server now record their changes in the
  shared history as you, within your role, instead of rewriting the file.
• Roles need this version everywhere. Once a role is set, an older copy of Method
  Budget opens the shared budget on its own and says the shared changes are newer than it
  reads.
• Mac builds are for Apple silicon. Windows and Linux builds are included but not yet
  tested by hand.