How to create an event budget
From team-building seminars to product launches, trade shows and board meetings, conferences or company retreats, corporate events can range from internal, low-budget affairs to expensive, time-consuming undertakings.All of these events can have numerous benefits: they can help you motivate high performers, reward teams for a job well done, build relationships and strengthen team bonding, work on projects, develop skills, grow your brand authority, and more.Even for remote and hybrid teams, in-person meetings, annual meetups, and other in-person events can be the “glue” that holds a company culture together.Whether your event is large or small, no great event happens without some monetary investment. Finance managers, event planners, and event managers or anyone with event experience will be familiar with the challenges of creating an accurate event budget.In this article, we’ll give you our best tips and tricks for planning an accurate event budget, so you can plan a successful event. Get started by following along with our event budget template as you read! Start by outlining the vision and details of your event
Event costs can vary greatly depending on when, where, and how your event is happening — not to mention the who and the what!For example, a company retreat with just your internal staff may be a small-scale event on-site with just 50 people for a few days. On the other hand, a conference for your industry can have thousands of attendees from all around the world, VIP speakers, and require dozens of hotel bookings, a major venue, and more.Figure out the who, what, when, where, and most importantly, why of your event first. Not only does this help you organize a truly memorable event, but it also helps you accurately estimate costs. That way, the event will be beneficial to employees and attendees, while also being profitable for your company.Factor in all the variables
There are many expenses to take into account during the event planning process. A budget breakdown can help you understand what the total cost will be, as well as what expense categories you need to consider.When planning out your event budget, break down your project budget into distinct allocation categories, such as: - Travel costs for team members joining from different places, such as train, plane, or bus tickets, rental car fees, and/or mileage reimbursements.
- Accommodation costs for team members from out of the area, such as hotel fees, apartment rentals, and so on.
- Venue costs, typically a fixed cost or cost-per-head from the venue rental.
- Food and drink, such as event catering services (usually cost-per-head or fixed cost), restaurant meals or refreshments.
- Activities and entertainment, such as fees speaker fees, fees for musicians, comedians, facilitators, team building activities, etc.
- “Swag” and gift bags, to use at the event or take home.
- Event marketing and social media costs, such as email marketing, promotion and advertisement for your event.
- Equipment rentals, such as tables, chairs, visual equipment, booths, and so on.
- Contractor fees, such as photographers, videographers, event coordinator, catering, staffing, etc.
- Miscellaneous event expenses like permits, decorations, etc.
Of course, this is just an event budget example. The categories and line items you’ll need, and estimated costs for each of these, can vary a lot, depending on factors like attendance, location, type of event, and more.Use an event budget template or spreadsheet
Tracking both your budget and expenses in one place makes it easier to both:- create accurate estimates based on planned line items, and
- track expenses accurately to see if you’re on-budget and avoid overspending.
If you’re just getting started with budget planning for your next event, our free event budget template is a great resource to have. Just open the proposal template worksheet in Excel or Google Sheets, then start filling in your specific needs to get started.Keep booking and expenses in one place with an events management software
While a budget spreadsheet is a great way to get started with your planning, in the long run, you may prefer an easier solution for keeping track of your event budget and expenditures. That’s where budgeting software and event apps come in.To get started with dedicated event expense tracking, check out our list of the 10 best travel & expense management software. These apps and software all integrate with our travel booking and expense management software, TravelPerk. Using the TravelPerk Events module, event organizers can easily manage the event travel planning process from start to finish—including budgeting.Instead of making your budget in a spreadsheet, juggling dozens of back-and-forth emails to book travel, managing many different travel websites and itineraries, and then tracking expenses somewhere else entirely, you can keep everything in one easy-to-access place.Hotjar experienced this firsthand when their company retreats grew from a team of 20 to a team of 70. Early on, they used to book all travel and plan the entire retreat manually — with lots of back and forth emails, price comparisons, and manual bookings.As their team grew, this quickly became unwieldy. Now, with TravelPerk, coordinators can set event details and parameters, and team members can individually book the travel, accommodation, transportation and whatever else they need — in accordance with company policy and budgets.“Our team loves using TravelPerk,” says Melissa Mauk, Finance Manager at Hotjar. “It’s a much easier, more user-friendly experience. They don’t have to go back and forth with the agency or with operations.” Monitor and analyze event spending and profitability
Finally, you want to make sure that your event is not just memorable, but meets your event goals and stays profitable. This requires careful project management and financial planning.With advanced reporting solutions, you get access to key data on travel spending, all organized in one single visual report. At a glance, you’ll understand who’s booking what, the types of transportation being booked, booking types, cancellations, recoverable VAT, and more, all in real-time.When you’re planning your budget and tracking expenses manually, this is difficult to track and analyze as you go. This often results in overspending and not realizing it until it’s too late. A good travel and events management software gives you the visibility you need to keep your event budget on track.Making event planning easy with TravelPerk
Whether you’re planning a sales meeting, a team building event, or an industry conference, TravelPerk Events makes it easier by helping you check off everything on your to-do list — all in one place.Curious to see how we can help make your next event a breeze? Contact us today to schedule your live, personalized demo. Or, get started planning ASAP with our printable event budget template to create a simple event budget for any type of get-together.?)
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