Buyer's Guide · 8 min read ·
What Features Should an AV Production Management Platform Include?
Software demos are designed to dazzle. Here is a sober checklist of what an AV production management platform actually has to do, organized by the workflow it supports.
Sales demos are a poor way to evaluate AV production software features. Every vendor will show you a beautiful dashboard. Far fewer can show you an honest day-in-the-life of a busy production company. Use this list to keep your evaluation grounded.
Inventory and equipment
- Item-level tracking with serial numbers, photos, and per-item rental rates.
- Categories, kits, and packages with consistent pricing rules.
- Maintenance, calibration, and repair status that removes items from availability automatically.
- Multi-warehouse and sub-rental support.
- Photo-rich audits and a print-ready inventory list.
Orders and quoting
- Full lifecycle: inquiry → quoted → confirmed → active → completed.
- Branded PDF quotes that match your visual identity, not a generic template.
- Real-time availability checks and conflict warnings on every line item.
- Optional AI-assisted quoting from a free-text show description.
- Customer-facing quote acceptance and signature without an extra app.
Crew and labor
- Roster with positions, certifications, and per-position hourly rates.
- Show-level crew assignments with role and call-time.
- Self-serve clock-in / clock-out from the crew member's phone.
- Per-job pay overrides and snapshot of hourly rate at clock-in time so retroactive rate changes do not corrupt history.
- Approval workflow for time-entry corrections.
Money: invoices, payments, accounting
- One-click conversion from order to invoice.
- Branded PDFs with company logo, address, and pay link.
- Card-on-file via Stripe or Square so customers can pay without calling.
- Aging report and overdue tracking.
- Chart of accounts, expense capture, and a real P&L view, not just revenue.
Logistics
- Routes with driver and vehicle assignment.
- Pickup and drop-off windows tied to the order calendar.
- Status visibility for the office while crews are on the road.
Reporting and insights
- Revenue MTD/YTD with month-over-month and year-over-year trend.
- Inventory utilization so you know what gear actually pays for itself.
- Labor versus budget on a per-job basis.
- Client revenue and order history.
- Activity log for compliance and accountability.
Administration and trust
- Role-based and seat-level permissions.
- Multi-tenant isolation so your data is not commingled with another company's.
- Forced password change on first login for invited users.
- Activity audit trail.
- Branded transactional email so customers see your company, not the platform's.
An event production management system that handles all of the above lets your team stop bouncing between four tools. My Show Flow was designed against exactly this checklist — every feature above is in the product today.