Optimize the budget management of your internal photo studio

The budget management of your in-house photo studio starts with controlling costs and organizing your photo shoots in advance. Here are some tips for optimizing it.

Two budgets for your internal visuals

To effectively control the costs associated with your project internalization of product photographs, you can start by creating two budgets:

A budget to launch the project
An ongoing expenditure budget.

In two chapters, you will control all the expenses and costs of your project.

Before you start:

In order to implement these good management rules, here are some tips to put in place before even starting your project:

Create the necessary follow-up spreadsheets, which will be updated at each shooting,
Track the number of products photographed and the images produced each week,
Calculate the average cost per product and by image.

Expenses related to the launch of the project:

Most expenses related to starting the project are one-time costs that do not need to be included in your current budget. Here is a fairly exhaustive list:

Project management and planning take time, cost money, and should therefore be included in the start-up budget.
It's about collect the necessary information during meetings with user groups, human resources, warehouse and finance staff,
La Looking for a adapted camera equipment model, options related to this equipment, software, spare parts and the budget estimate also have a cost,
La staff training involved in your studio project: photographer, assistant, project manager, warehouse staff will be involved and trained,
La implementation of workflows. It is about designing and implementing the workflows that will be used for collecting and compiling image requirements.

Project operating expenses:

This budget item includes all the expenses you incur for your photo production operations; they are monitored daily or weekly.

The project manager : the full-time or part-time load - will depend on the size and complexity of your project. Calculating this person's hourly cost and tracking the number of hours they spend on the project allows you to track this position accurately.
The photographer and the assistant : the same principle of monitoring costs — by the hour or by the day — can be applied. Again, it's a question of calculating the hourly cost and following up on a daily or weekly basis.
Warehouse staff : the cost of using warehouse resources will be an estimate based on the time it takes for them to remove the products from the inventory, deliver them to the workshop, and return them to the inventory after the session.Formalized communication with the warehouse manager makes it possible to obtain this summary of the time spent on these activities and to estimate the average hourly cost.
E-commerce logistics: delivery and shipping costs : when the products to be photographed are not on the same site as the photo studio, shipping costs must be monitored and measured.
Studio maintenance : this position must include the time and the purchase of supplies necessary to maintain the Photo studio. For example the cleaning of the room or even the lenses. It can also include major items such as maintaining equipment or repairing a part in the workshop. These costs are recorded as and when.
The cost of The location of the real estate space : You may be asked to account for this position.
Spare parts : you will need to replace parts in your studio: this includes lights and possibly other rooms.
The software : if you need software applications complementary to software for your studio (for example, Photoshop), these associated expenses should be recorded.
Image editing : your editing needs - number of images, changes to be made - are hourly costs to take into account.
Image qualification : if the edited images are certified by an image editor or product manager, this process has an hourly cost that will be included in the project.
Formatting the image : once the images pass the qualification, they are formatted according to the needs of different user groups. Estimate the cost per hour for this activity and track the time and weekly cost.

The solution for creating your product photos in-house

Obviously, these processes and the associated expenses vary according to the size of your business and the quantities to be produced. PackshotCreator support, service and training solutions also allow you to master these best practices. [embed] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2od0Oc7gg2o[/embed]