We sit down with Amy Denning Winfrey, a highly regarded payroll accountant whose career journey took her from production assistant to supervising payroll accountant. Winfrey shares candid insights into the world of payroll accounting, reflecting on the challenges, responsibilities, and often-overlooked importance of this critical role in film production.
The conversation explores the evolution of payroll practices, from traditional processes to today’s digital systems, and how these tools have transformed the way productions operate. Winfrey highlights the impact of remote work on payroll management, the need for updated contracts to provide clarity, and why strong payroll coordination can ultimately make or break a production.
Alongside guest host Emily Rice, the discussion emphasizes the importance of community, mentorship, and recognition among production accountants. From training newcomers to building networks that provide valuable resources, both Winfrey and Rice underscore how teaching, sharing knowledge, and supporting one another are vital for the health of the industry.
Listeners will also gain perspective on the realities of hiring practices, the undervaluation of payroll accountants, and why having a reliable payroll coordinator is non-negotiable. This episode shines a light on the professionals who keep productions running smoothly behind the scenes and reminds us of the human connections that sustain the industry.
About Wrapbook
Wrapbook is a smart, intuitive platform that makes production payroll and accounting easier, faster, and more secure. We provide a unified payroll platform that seamlessly connects your entire team—production, accounting, cast, and crew—all in one place.
Wrapbook empowers production teams to manage projects, pay cast and crew, track expenses, and generate data-driven insights, while enabling workers to manage timecards, track pay, and onboard to new projects from any device. Wrapbook brings clarity and dependability to production payroll, while increasing the productivity of your whole team.
For crew: The Wrapbook app eliminates the headaches of production payroll by providing a fast, transparent, and secure solution for workers to complete startwork, submit timecards, and track pay.
Trusted by companies of all sizes, Wrapbook powers payroll for some of the industry’s top production companies, including SMUGGLER, Tuff, and GhostRobot. Our growing team of 250+ people includes entertainment and technology experts from SAG-AFTRA, DGA, IATSE, Teamsters, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and more.
Wrapbook is backed by top-tier investors, including Jeffrey Katzenberg’s WndrCo, Andreessen Horowitz, and A* Capital.
Get started at https://www.wrapbook.com/