The complete guide to creating an event budget

Before creating your budget, start by asking yourself a few relevant questions about the purpose and structure of your event. If you’d like, write down the answers and use them as notes to review while planning for your event budget.Here are some points to address during the event planning process:

To make sure your budget estimates are accurate for your next event, be sure to have a look at any learnings from previous company events. For example:

Once you’ve given some serious thought to these areas, compiled data from previous events, and taken some notes, it’s time to get down to business and create your event budget.

As you get started with your event budget, you’ll need to consider all possible expenditures you may have. It’s easy to overlook something here, so it’s useful to have a checklist or template you can refer to and ensure you include all relevant items.Most likely, your event will involve different types of costs, including fixed costs and variable costs. Fixed costs don’t change and can be predicted beforehand (for example, a fixed venue rental fee), while variable costs depend on the number of people attending (like a cost per person for catering.)This is why you should set a firm RSVP date for the event—so you can get a good idea of who is coming, and how much you need to budget (while keeping in mind that unexpected circumstances happen!)Here are some of the cost types you should keep in mind when planning an event of any size, from a

company offsite

to a

retreat

or

teambuilding event

:

Are you planning an in-person event or hybrid event away from your usual workplace? If you have employees spread out at multiple offices, if your team is remote, or if you’re planning for a special retreat, you will need to account for the costs of travel and accommodation. Ask yourself:

Another factor to keep in mind is venue costs. To calculate these, you’ll need to have a solid idea of how many people are attending the event. Some venues, such as restaurants, charge per head (variable cost). If you’re booking a conference room or amphitheater, the venue may charge a fixed price—but you’ll still need to know how many people are attending, so you won’t exceed the venue’s maximum capacity.

Your venue may provide food and drinks for you, or you may need to hire a separate catering service. To estimate the cost of food and drink, keep in mind the number of attendees, as well as the type of event (fancy, casual, etc.)Don’t forget to check if people have special dietary needs—you might need to add extra menu options for allergies, vegan/vegetarian diets, religious requirements, etc.

For a fun and engaging event experience, you’ll need to provide some activities and entertainment.To decide what to book, go back to your planning notes and review the “event goals” section. For instance:

Swag and free gifts will help attendees go home with some good memories of the event. When deciding what to include in your “swag bag/box”, consider cost, eco-friendliness, and attendee preferences.If you’re not sure what you should choose, why not survey your teams to find out? You could also provide swag that attendees can use directly at the event (such as reusable cups or bottles for drinks, or notebooks and pens for taking notes.) This way, you can contribute to event sustainability while providing people with useful gifts.

Events are an internal and external marketing/branding opportunity. You may want to have someone live stream your event, film it, or post about it on social media. If you are planning a large event, why not ask the marketing team to create a few event-specific hashtags, so you can encourage more user-generated content from employees?Keep in mind that event marketing might involve additional costs, such as equipment rentals or staffing costs (for example, photographer or videographer fees).

Finally, there might be some logistical costs associated with your event, such as permits, equipment, decorations, or cleanup. Don’t forget to account for these in your budget as well.

As you can see, there are a lot of “moving pieces” to keep in mind when planning your event. Costs depend heavily on factors like event attendance—calculation mistakes or last-minute changes can quickly derail your budget.Luckily, there are event technology solutions and event apps out there to help you easily keep track of spending. For general help with expense tracking, check out our list of the

10 best expense management software solutions

.If you need help specifically with travel expense management and event management, have a look at

TravelPerk

—a business travel booking software that helps you manage your travel budgets all in one place.With our sophisticated

reporting solutions

and our all-in-one event management platform,

TravelPerk Events

, you can easily gain access to key data on travel spending. When creating an event in the platform, you can tag the event with a specific label (for example, “HR Team Retreat.”) This will allow you to track all the costs related to that event in real time, in one single report. 
Our sophisticated reporting dashboard provides visualizations of key data—such as the person booking, transport type, booking type, cancellations, recoverable VAT, and more—so you can easily understand your actual costs, and present them to stakeholders.To learn more about how TravelPerk Events can help you manage your event budget,

book a live, personalized demo today

.