Quarter end and five venue statements
You are on the recommended lists of five venues. One takes a percentage of food only. Another takes a percentage of food and beverage but not staff or hire. A third charges a flat fee per event plus a per-head amount over a certain guest count. Two others have their own variations, one of which changed at renewal last year.
At the end of each quarter, someone goes through every event at each venue, finds the final invoice, splits it into the right categories, applies the right rule and builds a statement. Credits, cancelled events with retained deposits and late guest number changes all need thinking about. It takes a couple of days and usually produces at least one query from a venue.
Each venue agreement has its own maths
Commission arrangements are negotiated venue by venue, and caterers accept terms that suit the relationship. The problem is not the terms. It is doing the calculations by hand across dozens of events with invoices not built for the purpose.
- Invoices do not always split food, drink, staff and hire in the categories each venue's terms use.
- Agreements are PDFs, and the current version is not always the one the spreadsheet follows.
- Cancelled events, retained deposits and credit notes are treated differently by different venues.
- Events are sometimes invoiced under the client's name with no clear link to the venue.
- Statements are built quarterly, long after the events, when the details are fuzzy.
The calculations are not difficult on their own. It is the number of variations and the manual gathering of data that make them slow and error prone.
The relationship cost of a wrong statement
Preferred supplier status is valuable, and the venue coordinator's opinion of you matters. A late or confusing statement, or one that the venue's finance team has to query, is a small irritation that adds up. Under-calculating commission, even innocently, can damage trust quickly.
Over-calculating costs you money directly, and nobody notices. Neither outcome is what you want from the one document that summarises your relationship with a venue each quarter.
Commission rules per venue, statements from invoices
- Each venue's commission terms are set up as rules with an effective date: base, rates, per-head elements, thresholds and exclusions. You confirm each one against the agreement.
- Every event is linked to its venue at booking, so the final invoice carries the venue reference.
- Invoice lines are categorised (food, drink, staff, hire, extras) when they are created, so each venue's base can be calculated from them.
- When an event's final invoice is issued, its commission for that venue is calculated and recorded.
- Cancellations, retained deposits and credit notes are handled according to each venue's rules, and anything the rules do not cover is flagged for a person.
- At the period end, statements are generated per venue with each event, its base and the commission, ready to send with a supplier invoice or self-billing note as your arrangement requires.
| Venue terms | Base used | Handled automatically |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage of food | Food lines only | Yes |
| Percentage of food and drink | Food and drink lines | Yes |
| Flat fee plus per head over threshold | Final guest count | Yes |
| Retained deposit on cancellation | Per venue's rule | Flagged if the rule is unclear |
Commission amounts can also be posted to Xero or QuickBooks as accruals as events happen, so the cost appears in the right month rather than in a lump at quarter end.
Statements that go out on time and add up
At quarter end, statements are already built. Someone reviews the flagged items, approves, and sends. Venues get a consistent statement listing every event, so their finance team can check it quickly.
You also see commission as a cost per event as it happens, which helps when judging which venue relationships are worth it and how to price events at each venue.
When an agreement changes at renewal, the rule is updated with an effective date, so events before and after the change are both calculated correctly without anyone having to remember which applied.
Is this your quarter end?
- Venue commission is calculated by hand from invoices.
- Each venue has different terms, and they have changed over time.
- Venues have queried or corrected your statements.
- Commission appears as a lump at quarter end rather than per event.