Event budget template is the first document you need for any event you are planning. The event budget impacts lots of other planning factors, such as number of guests, event venue, staff involved in the project, etc. Event budget template allows you to monitor all your expenses and shows you how many financial resources are left for the next planning stages. It is always useful to draw up an event budget template in advance and to effectively allot all the resources into different categories of costs. ?Overspending? is the worst word you may hear or even think about while planning an event. To avoid the risk of spending more than needed, an event budget template is a perfect solution for you to stay within your budget limits.
People planning an event for the first time may have difficulties in drawing up an event budget, that?s why an event budget template is extremely helpful. Besides, having an event budget template excel, you will save your time making calculations. An event budget template excel will also help you to avoid errors and mistakes in the numbers of your event budget template.
If you are planning a unique event and would like to start with an empty budget spreadsheet, you will need to set your budget criteria. It is always important to break your event planning budget template into main spending categories: a) location (event venue); b) catering; c) decorations and floral design; d) staff involved; e) marketing; f) PR and advertising; g) technologies; h) travel and accommodation.
The first thing to do is to add details and activities to all the listed categories and then fill in the costs. Make sure you have added all the activities, for example, the ?decorations and floral design? section includes details, such as flower centrepieces, decoration rentals and supplies. The ?event location section? includes details, such as sound, light and stage, parking, security, rental fees, etc.; the ?catering? section may include types of menus served, staff involved in the catering, desserts and cake, etc.
The good thing in creating an event budget template excel is filling in multiple columns with different offers of the vendors and venues. For example, considering five venues for your event, you can fill in all your expenses in your event budget template xls and see the total costs for certain location. Besides, you can always negotiate prices and conditions with the preferred venue, especially if you are planning a 50+ guests event.
Having communications and negotiations with the venues, make you have discussed other important planning parts. For example, catering (does the venue provide menus according to your preferences? Do they serve dietary meals and menus for the kids? Is it possible to order a cake onsite? Does the venue have cake-cutting fees?). Or accommodation (for example, is it possible to reduce rental fees in case of 40+ guests? accommodation at the venue? Or, is it possible to get discounts for accommodation?).
Remember to split your event budget template xls into the details. For example, the catering section needs to be divided into ?cake?, ?drinks?, ?alcohol? (if needed), ?buffet? or ?seated meals?, ?desserts?, ?tea and coffee?, etc. This will help you to understand your event expenses better. Also, in your event budget template excel you can create additional columns, such as ?estimated costs? and ?actual costs? to have a better vision of planning of your future events.
A good idea is having a separate column in your event planning budget template, where you indicate your revenues from sponsorships, vendors, or other donations.
Don?t forget to create a contingency plan column, which will include the costs for emergencies and unexpected cases. You never know, what may happen at your event. So, make sure you have a plan to cover the costs if something goes wrong.
Event professionals always want to make the calculations in the event planning budget template as simple as possible, without forgetting any detail. Now there are digital online technologies which aim to make these calculations easier. Filling in the costs for a certain vendor, such tools can even create invoices automatically and save your time.
If you are planning an event such as wedding, and you want to see how to allot your expenses, you can have a look at the wedding budget planner, where you can find the distribution of costs percentage into different budget sections.
You will find an excel event budget template introduced by eazyplan helpful and useful for your event planning. You can download it here and customise it according to your event planning needs and expectations.
