A busy summer, an average bank balance
You did more events this summer than last. The diary was full, the team was stretched and the reviews were good. Yet the accounts show a profit that does not feel like it matches the effort. Somewhere, some events made less than you thought.
When you try to work out which, you hit a wall. Food was ordered for several events at once. Staff hours are in payroll by person, not by event. Hire invoices mention the date but not always the client. The extra van hired for one weekend is in the general costs. The quote for each event is in a folder, but nothing compares it with what happened.
Costs are recorded by supplier, not by event
Accounts are organised to satisfy the tax return and the bank: costs by supplier and category, income by customer. That is correct for accounts, but it hides the question you care about operationally, which is how each job performed.
- Supplier invoices cover several events and are not split.
- Staff hours are paid per person per period, not per event.
- Hire invoices, travel and extras are booked to general cost lines.
- On-the-day overtime and last-minute purchases are not linked to the event.
- The quote's cost assumptions are not stored in a form that can be compared.
Without event-level costs, pricing next year's events is based on instinct and the overall figure, not evidence.
What you cannot see, you cannot price
Some event types, venues or clients may be consistently less profitable: a venue with a long walk from the van, a style of menu that needs extra chefs, a client who always adds guests on the day. You probably have a feeling about a few of them. Without figures, you cannot be sure, and you keep quoting the same way.
It also makes it hard to have confident conversations. When a client pushes back on price, knowing what similar events really cost you makes the discussion much easier to handle.
And it hides the events where the quote was fine but the delivery drifted: the extra chef who was added the week before, the supervisor who kept six people on for an hour after the client left, the hire top-up ordered on the Friday. Each is reasonable on its own. Together, across a season, they are where margin goes.
Actual costs matched to each event
- Each quote's assumptions are stored as structured lines: food cost, staff hours by role, hire, travel and extras.
- Food cost is allocated to events from your production plan or ordering, so a shared supplier invoice is split across the events it served.
- Staff hours come from event timesheets and are costed at each person's rate.
- Hire invoices, extra vehicles and on-the-day purchases are tagged to the event when they are entered, with a prompt for anything untagged.
- After each event, a quote-against-actual view shows each cost line and the resulting margin.
- Reports group events by type, venue, month and client, so patterns show up across a season.
| Cost line | Quoted | Actual comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Food | Recipe cost per head | Supplier invoices allocated by production plan |
| Staff | Hours by role | Event timesheets at each person's rate |
| Hire | Hire quote | Hire company invoice for that event |
| Travel and vans | Estimate | Mileage and vehicle hire tagged to the event |
| Extras | None usually | On-the-day purchases and overtime |
Allocations will never be perfect, and they do not need to be. A consistent method gives you comparable figures, which is what you need to spot patterns.
A season you can learn from
A week after each event, its figures are available with the quote alongside. You can see that a barn venue needed two more staff than quoted, or that the sharing-style menu used more food than the plated version. Those become adjustments in your next quote for similar events.
At the end of the season, you sit down with a report rather than a feeling. Which event types, venues and months were strongest, where the quote was consistently optimistic, and what to change for next year. The accountant still does the accounts; this is your view of how the work performed.
Does this sound like you?
- You know turnover per event but not the cost of each one.
- Shared supplier invoices are never split across events.
- Staff hours are paid by person, not tracked by event.
- You suspect some venues or event types make less, but cannot show it.
- Next year's prices are set from instinct and the overall result.