# Days in PAI In PAI, a Day is not simply a calendar date — it's a logical entity with its own attributes, its own set of expense lines, and its own production documents. Understanding this is the key to understanding how PAI connects the estimate to the budget to the call sheet. --- ## What a Day Is When you add line items to an estimate using the **Day** unit type, PAI creates logical days behind the scenes. A Camera Operator at QTY 1, UNIT QTY 3 days creates three logical days. Each of those days is a discrete container: it holds the resources assigned to it, it has a name, a type, a date, and a location, and it generates production documents appropriate to its type when the budget is created. A day does not have to correspond to a unique calendar date. Two days can share the same date — for example, a prep unit and a shoot unit happening on the same day can exist as separate logical days in PAI, each with their own crew and expense lines. This lets you structure scope in whatever way is operationally meaningful, not just chronologically. Each day carries: - **Name** — a label for identification (e.g., "Shoot Day 1", "Tech Scout", "Color Grade") - **Day Type** — determines what documents the day generates (see below) - **Date** — the calendar date, assigned when scheduling - **Location** — physical location for the day - **Notes** — internal context --- ## Day Types The day type assigned to each logical day determines how it behaves in the production and budget modules. **Shoot** — generates a call sheet. Expense lines assigned to a Shoot day and categorized as Labor or Equipment appear in the call sheet for crew assignment and logistics. **Prep** — does not generate an externalized document. Used to track prep days in the schedule and budget without producing a call sheet. **Wrap** — does not generate an externalized document. Used to track wrap days. **Travel** — does not generate an externalized document. Used to track travel days in the schedule. **Post** — used for post-production days. Expense lines assigned to Post days are managed through the budget; deliverables are tracked separately in [Deliverables](./Deliverables.md). Day type can be set and changed in the Days view or Timeline view of the estimate, and updated in the budget after conversion. --- ## How Days Are Created Days are created automatically when you add Day-unit line items to an estimate. Adding your first Day-unit item establishes Day 1. Increasing the Unit Quantity — say, from 1 to 3 — prompts a confirmation before creating the additional logical days. PAI asks for confirmation because adding or removing days affects the entire project structure: resource allocation, budget expense lines, and production documents all follow from it. For how to work with days during estimation — assigning resources to specific days, scheduling in Timeline view, and the Days view — see [Estimate Views](../02-Bidding-a-Project/Estimate-Views.md). --- ## Flat and Hourly Items Only Day-unit line items create logical days and can be assigned to specific production days. Flat-rate and hourly line items are treated as project-wide — PAI has no way to distribute them across the timeline, because their unit type doesn't imply a specific day. In the estimate's Timeline and Days views, these items appear in a separate section and can't be toggled onto individual days. If you need a resource scheduled to a specific day in the budget or call sheet, it needs to be a Day-unit line item in the estimate. --- ## Days in the Budget When an approved estimate converts to a budget, each logical day's expense lines carry over with the day assignment intact. A Camera Operator on Day 2 becomes expense lines assigned to Day 2 in the budget, and those lines connect automatically to the call sheet for that day. From there, days in the budget are primarily managed through the calendar and call sheets. For how expense lines, day assignments, and call sheet sync work, see [Working with the Budget](./Working-with-the-Budget.md) and [Call Sheets](./Call-Sheets.md).