Landing Page 3: Video Production & Content Studio Owners

TARGET PERSONA

Male/female video production studio owner, 32-45, founded studio 3-8 years ago after leaving agency. Produces branded content, commercials, music videos, documentaries. Bills $200-400/hour on project contracts ($15K-$80K) or retainers ($5K-$20K/month). Revenue $300K-$1.5M annually. Spends 3+ hours every Sunday doing own books. Uses 1099 contractors (DP, colorist, editor). Former Bench user traumatized by data hostage situation. Needs project-level profitability tracking + net-30/45 cash flow visibility.

HERO SECTION

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You bill $200/hour for creative work.

You're spending those hours on QuickBooks.

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Bags is the financial growth partner built for video production and content studio owners. We take the weekly bookkeeping completely off your plate—and show you which project type is actually your most profitable work.

Primary CTA

Book Your Free Financial Review →

Secondary CTA

See How It Works ↓

Trust Bar

✓ Project-Level Profitability Tracking

✓ You Own Your QuickBooks

✓ Weekly Bookkeeping Handled

✓ Former Bench Users Welcome

THE PROBLEM

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You're Billing Premium Rates. You're Doing Your Own Books.

You founded your studio 3-8 years ago after leaving an agency or brand-side creative team. You produce real work that pays real money:

  • Branded content for Fortune 500 companies

  • Commercial video for startups and mid-market brands

  • Music videos for artists and labels

  • Documentary projects

  • Corporate video for internal comms and recruiting

You bill on project-based contracts ($15K-$80K per project) or monthly retainers ($5K-$20K/month).

Revenue is consistent. Work is good. Clients keep coming back.

But every Sunday morning—or every late Friday after a production week wraps—you're sitting in QuickBooks catching up on three months of transactions you let slide.

Here's what you know:

You're billing at $200-$400/hour for creative work—and spending those same hours reconciling bank accounts and categorizing expenses.

You've calculated the math. Those 3 hours every Sunday are worth $600-$1,200 in billable time. Over a year, that's $31,200-$62,400 in lost revenue.

You've been telling yourself you'll fix it for two years. You haven't.

Meanwhile:

No monthly P&L. You have a rough idea of revenue. You invoice clients, you get paid, money comes in. But you have no idea what your actual profit margin is.

Is it 20%? 35%? 50%? You don't know. You're running a business on instinct.

No project-level profitability breakdown. You don't know if branded content makes you more money than commercial work. You don't know if your retainer clients are subsidizing your one-off projects. You're pricing by feel.

Your 1099 contractors—the DP, the colorist, the sound designer, the editor—are lumped into "Operating Expenses" instead of Cost of Goods Sold. Your gross margin calculation is wrong. It has been wrong since day one.

Your accountant shows up in April, files your taxes, and disappears until next year. In March, they send you an email: "You owe $40K in federal taxes." By then it's too late to do anything about it.

Net-30 and net-45 payment terms create cash gaps you manage by gut feel and credit cards. You invoice a client for $50K in January. They pay in March. Meanwhile, you're paying your 1099 crew in February. The cash flow gap hits your credit card. Every single time.

And if you were on Bench—you already know what it feels like when a bookkeeping service holds your data hostage.

When Bench shut down (or nearly did), you couldn't access your own books. You had to start over. That's not happening again.

WHAT BAGS DOES FOR YOU

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We Take Bookkeeping Off Your Plate. We Show You What's Profitable.

What SecureBags Actually Is:

SecureBags isn't software. It's a done-for-you bookkeeping + financial advisory service built for creative studios and production companies:

  • A dedicated accountant who specializes in project-based businesses (not someone who's going to ask you what a 1099 contractor is)

  • Weekly transaction categorization (we do the QuickBooks work so you never have to)

  • Monthly financial close by the 15th: P&L, Cash Flow Statement, Balance Sheet, CFO-level insights

  • Project-type profitability tracking (branded content vs. commercial vs. retainer—you'll see which work makes money)

  • A customer success manager + funding coach (connects you to equipment financing and working capital when books are ready)

  • Access to Bags platform: dashboard, cash flow forecasting, lender-ready documents

You don't buy a tool and do it yourself. You hire a team that does the work and teaches you how to price profitably.

1. We take the weekly bookkeeping completely off your plate

A dedicated accountant handles transaction categorization every week and closes your books by the 15th every month.

Those Sunday QuickBooks hours? They're gone. You get that time back.

You either spend it on production—or you don't work on Sunday. Your choice.

2. We build a project-level chart of accounts

Branded content vs. commercial vs. retainer vs. music video—tracked separately so you can see the margin on each type of work.

Here's what that looks like:

After 90 days of clean books, you know:

  • Which project type generates the highest gross margin

  • Which type of work is actually profitable after you factor in 1099 contractor costs

  • Which clients are worth keeping and which are subsidized by your better clients

Real Example from a Bags Client (Video Production Studio):

Before Bags:

  • "We do branded content, commercials, and music videos. Revenue is around $60K/month. We're profitable… I think?"

After Bags (90 days of project-level tracking):

  • Branded content projects: $25K avg project, 55% gross margin after 1099 costs

  • Commercial projects: $40K avg project, 62% gross margin (highest margin work)

  • Music video projects: $15K avg project, 28% gross margin (barely profitable after factoring in pre-production time)

  • Retainer clients: $8K/month avg, 70% margin (most profitable per hour worked)

Decision made: Stop bidding music videos under $25K. Focus on retainer clients + commercial work. Gross profit increased 18% in 6 months.

Most studio owners make a pricing change within 60 days of seeing this data.

The most common finding: One-off project work is significantly underpriced because pre-production time isn't being billed correctly.

Example: You bid a commercial at $40K. The shoot takes 2 days. Post takes a week. Looks profitable.

But pre-production—the strategy call, the treatment, the shot list, the location scout, the casting, the client revisions—took 3 weeks of your time. You never billed for it. You included it as "part of the creative process."

Here's the real math:

  • Billable budget: $40K

  • 1099 contractor costs (DP, editor, colorist, sound): $18K

  • Your time (4 weeks total at $200/hour, 30 hours/week): $24K

  • Gross profit after contractor costs: $22K

  • Net profit after factoring in your time: -$2K

You lost money on a project you thought was a win.

When you see the real numbers, you realize:

  • Pre-production needs to be billed separately (or the project rate needs to be $55K minimum)

  • Scope creep on revisions is killing margin (you need a revision cap in the contract)

  • You're underpricing because you're not tracking your own time as a cost

Bags shows you the real numbers. Then you fix your pricing.

3. We structure your 1099 contractor costs correctly

Your DP, colorist, sound designer, and editor are Cost of Goods Sold—direct cost of delivering the project.

They are not operating expenses.

Why this matters:

If your 1099 costs are buried in operating expenses, your gross margin looks way better than it actually is—and lenders will see through it immediately.

Wrong structure (what most production studios have):

  • Revenue: $500K

  • Operating expenses: $400K (including $200K in 1099 contractor costs lumped with rent, software, and insurance)

  • Gross margin: 100% (because COGS is zero)

  • Net margin: 20%

Lender sees this and thinks: "You have 100% gross margin? That's not a real production company. That's a one-person consulting business."

Correct structure (what Bags builds):

  • Revenue: $500K

  • COGS: $200K (1099 contractor costs for DP, editor, colorist, sound designer)

  • Gross margin: 60%

  • Operating expenses: $200K (rent, software, insurance, marketing)

  • Net margin: 20%

Same net income. Completely different story.

Lender sees this and thinks: "60% gross margin on project work? That's healthy. They're billing at a premium and managing contractor costs well. This is fundable."

Gross margin is what lenders use to assess scalability. If yours is wrong, you look like a lifestyle business with no growth potential. If it's right, you look like a production company that can scale with working capital.

Bags restructures your chart of accounts so your gross margin reflects what it actually costs to produce work—not just revenue minus rent and software.

4. We give you cash flow visibility on net-30 and net-45 terms

Every month, you get a Cash Flow Statement alongside your P&L.

CFO reporting that flags cash gaps before they hit.

You can see:

  • How much cash came in this month (collections from past invoices)

  • How much went out (payroll, 1099 contractors, rent, software)

  • What's left (your runway)

No more managing invoice timing by gut feel.

You know when to push clients for early payment. You know when to delay a big purchase. You know when you can afford to hire.

5. You own your books. Always.

We work inside your QuickBooks as a guest—view-only access.

Here's what that means:

  • We can see your transactions and categorize them

  • We can build reports and financial statements

  • We cannot move money, delete transactions, or make changes without your explicit permission

If you leave Bags tomorrow, your clean books leave with you.

We are not Bench. We do not hold your data. We do not own your books. You do.

If you were on Bench, you already know why this matters.

6. We connect you to funding for equipment, space, and working capital

Once books are clean, Bags connects you to lenders who finance:

  • Camera packages, editing suites, and studio buildouts (equipment financing)

  • Working capital lines sized to your net-30/net-45 invoice cycle (so you stop using credit cards to cover cash gaps)

Through our 60+ lender network.

We don't fund directly. We connect. We prepare. We guide.

HOW IT WORKS

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From Sunday QuickBooks to Zero QuickBooks in 30 Days

Step 1: Book a 15-minute financial review call

We review your QuickBooks setup, your project billing structure, and what your books should actually look like for a production studio.

Step 2: We restructure your chart of accounts by work type

Branded content, commercial, retainer, music video—tracked separately. 1099 contractors moved to COGS. Revenue and expenses categorized correctly.

Step 3: We take over the weekly bookkeeping and produce your first monthly P&L

Within 30 days, you'll have:

  • Your first clean monthly P&L

  • Cash Flow Statement

  • CFO report

You'll see project-type profitability for the first time.

Step 4: We become your ongoing financial partner

Every month by the 15th:

  • P&L, Cash Flow Statement, CFO report delivered

  • You stop doing your own books entirely

  • Less than 30 minutes of your time per month after onboarding

No annual contracts. No cancellation fees. Month-to-month.

PROOF

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We Work With Production Studios Every Day

✓ Video and content production is one of the most represented industries in Bags' $1,600–$3,200/month client tier

✓ Real clients in your exact situation:

  • Common Space Studios (Honolulu) — was spending 10 hours/week on categorization. "I hired you to do that."

  • Current Resident (LA) — 15 years of doing their own books. "I'm wildly over it."

  • Rise Media ($3,200/month), Heard Entertainment Texas ($1,911/month), Firefly CD ($2,580/month)

✓ Bags knows 1099 contractor workflows, project-based invoicing, and net-30/net-45 cash flow

You don't have to explain your business model from scratch. We already know it.

✓ Founders save 10+ hours per week on financial management after onboarding

✓ 4.5x higher approval rates at equitable lenders for Bags-managed clients

✓ 4,000+ entrepreneurs helped. $7 million raised. Backed by Google. Featured in Forbes and Black Enterprise.

What Clients Say

"All these service providers love to up-charge and try to sell you different things every day, but Bags is never like that. They're very easy to deal with and are very on top of everything."

— Video production studio owner, 20+ months active

"I wish I would have found Bags sooner! My journey to find funding was incredibly disheartening and I'm so grateful for a company like Bags that solved this problem for me."

— Content studio owner, secured equipment financing

PRICING

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You Should Be Billing Those Hours. Not Doing QuickBooks.

Bags Plus — Starting at $565/month

What's included:

✓ Weekly transaction categorization (you never touch QuickBooks again)

✓ Monthly P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement (delivered by the 15th)

✓ Project-level profitability tracking (branded content vs. commercial vs. retainer vs. music video)

✓ Dedicated accountant + customer success manager + funding coach

✓ Access to Bags platform (dashboard, lender-ready document reviews, AI-powered CFO insights)

✓ Custom debt strategy and funding support

Month-to-month. No contracts. No cancellation fees.

Pricing adjusts based on monthly revenue, reviewed quarterly.

Add-ons (billed separately):

  • Historical clean-up (if past books need fixing)

  • Tax prep and filing

  • Tax advisory ($100/hour)

FAQs

Q: What if I was on Bench and I'm worried about switching again?

A: We get it. Here's the difference:

You own your QuickBooks account. Bags works inside it as a guest. We never hold your data. If you leave tomorrow, your clean books go with you.

That's the point.

Q: How do you track project-level profitability?

A: We build a chart of accounts that separates revenue and COGS by project type (branded content, commercial, retainer, etc.). After 90 days, you'll see exactly which work is making you money and which isn't.

Q: What if my books are a complete disaster?

A: We've seen it all. If your books need historical clean-up (reconciling past months/years, fixing miscategorized 1099 contractors, rebuilding COGS), we'll give you a clear quote before we start. Clean-up starts at $160/month per fiscal year.

Q: Do I need to switch to a new QuickBooks account?

A: No. We work inside your existing QuickBooks account. You own it. We're guests.

Q: Can Bags help me get funding for equipment or a studio buildout?

A: Once your books are clean and lender-ready, our funding coach builds a custom funding plan, matches you with pre-qualified lenders who finance equipment and working capital, and guides you through the process. We connect—we don't fund directly.

FINAL CTA

Headline

You should be billing those hours.

Not doing QuickBooks.

Subheadline

We've taken bookkeeping off the plate for production studios just like yours. Let's do the same for you.

Primary CTA Button

Book Your Free Financial Review →

Secondary CTA

Final Trust Bar

✓ You own your QuickBooks (we're guests)

✓ Weekly bookkeeping handled

✓ Project-level profitability tracked

✓ No contracts, cancel anytime

Packages start at $565/month. First P&L delivered in 30 days.