Entries close tonight and the inbox is full
Your industry awards are a highlight of the year: a dinner, a shortlist in the trade press, and categories members compete hard to win. Entries close at midnight. Throughout the day, Word documents with supporting PDFs and videos arrive by email, some over the attachment limit, some for the wrong category, some without the entry fee paid. The events officer saves each one into a folder and adds a row to a spreadsheet.
Then judging. Each judge gets a zip file of entries and a scoring spreadsheet. Some judges work for member firms that have entered, so the events officer has to remove those entries from their pack by hand, and hope nothing was missed. Scores come back in different versions of the spreadsheet. Combining them takes a weekend.
Why awards admin is so fiddly
The awards are simple in principle. The admin is a mesh of entries, categories, payments, judges and conflicts, all tracked separately.
- Entry forms are Word templates, so criteria answers vary in length and structure.
- Payment of entry fees is checked against a bank statement or a separate payment tool.
- Conflicts of interest between judges and entrants are managed by memory and by hand.
- Scores come back in separate files and are combined manually.
- Shortlists and winners are copied into press releases and the dinner script by hand.
What goes wrong when it stays manual
A judge scoring a competitor's entry, or their own firm's, is the one that worries people most, because it damages the credibility of the awards. Lost or mis-categorised entries upset firms who paid to enter. Scoring errors are hard to spot in combined spreadsheets. And the events team spends its most pressured weeks on file handling instead of on the event.
Trade awards bring a particular risk: in a sector where everyone knows everyone, judges are usually drawn from member firms, and so are entrants. A judge from a large contractor may know half the entrants personally and compete with a few of them. The awards only carry weight if members believe the judging was clean, and belief is hard to maintain when the conflict check is one tired person scanning a spreadsheet at eleven at night.
There is also the long tail after the dinner. Winners want their logos and certificates, the trade press wants the full list, and firms that did not win ask for feedback on their entries. If the scores and judges' notes live in scattered files, feedback is either vague or never sent, and next year's entrants are fewer.
An entry and judging system for your awards
We build an awards system, or configure an existing awards platform if one fits your needs, connected to your member records and payments.
- Each category has its entry criteria set out as questions with word limits, plus the supporting files it accepts.
- Firms enter online, save drafts, and pay the entry fee by card through Stripe or by invoice; member rates are applied from your member records.
- Judges declare their employer and any interests; the system blocks them from seeing or scoring entries where a conflict exists.
- Judges score each entry against your criteria in the system, with notes, and the events officer sees progress by judge.
- Scores combine automatically under your rules (for example, averaging, dropping outliers or moderation), and shortlists come from the combined ranking for your panel to confirm.
- Confirmed shortlists and winners export to press releases, the dinner script and the website.
| Awards stage | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | Word document by email | Online form per category |
| Payment | Checked against the bank | Paid at entry or invoiced automatically |
| Conflict check | Events officer removes entries by hand | Blocked by declared interests |
| Scoring | Spreadsheets per judge | Scores in the system, live progress |
| Shortlist | Combined over a weekend | Calculated, then confirmed by the panel |
Awards season, reorganised
Entries arrive complete and in the right category, with payment attached. Judges log in, see only the entries they can judge, and score at their own pace. The events officer watches progress and nudges the slow judges. The panel meets with ranked results in front of it and spends its time on the close calls. The dinner script and press release use the same confirmed list.
Signs your awards admin has outgrown email
- Entries arrive as Word documents and attachments.
- Judges score in separate spreadsheets.
- Conflicts of interest are checked by hand.
- Combining scores takes days.
- Winners' names are retyped into several documents.