💰 Budget & break-even

Plan what the event costs, watch real revenue land against it, and see how many tickets you need.

💰 Budget plans what the event costs, and then keeps itself honest — real ticket and sponsorship revenue lands in it automatically, so the same page answers "what did we think?" and "where are we actually?"

📊 The tiles

Revenue (actual)	Real money in — from paid orders and paid sponsor invoices.
Expenses est / committed / actual	Your three expense columns side by side, so you can see how much of the plan is still a guess.
Projected expenses	The number to plan against: each line's actual where it's been billed, else what you've committed to, else your estimate — added up line by line. So entering one real invoice doesn't change your total cost picture, it just makes one line of it certain.
Net P&L	Revenue minus projected expenses. Green when positive, red when not.
Cost per attendee	Projected expenses divided by valid tickets.
Break-even	340 tickets (212 sold) — how many you need, and where you are, with a ✓ once you're past it.

🧾 Categories and lines

The budget is grouped into categories (Venue, AV, Catering, Marketing, Speakers, Revenue) and each category holds lines. Adding a line takes a Category (the placeholder suggests Venue, AV…), an Item, a Vendor, a quantity and a $ unit cost — naming a category that doesn't exist yet creates it.

Each line carries three money columns, and the distinction is the whole point:

Column	Meaning
Estimated	What you think it will cost. Fill this in while planning.
Committed	What you're contractually on the hook for — a signed venue contract, a confirmed catering order. Your real exposure, even before an invoice arrives.
Actual	What you've genuinely been billed or paid.

Lines show a variance once an actual exists, so overruns surface as you enter invoices rather than at the end.

For every total the page derives — projected expenses, Net P&L, cost per attendee and break-even — each line contributes its actual if it has one, otherwise its committed, otherwise its estimate. A line never counts twice, and a line you haven't been billed for yet never counts as zero.

💡 Tip

Keep committed up to date and the budget becomes a decision tool rather than a record. It answers "can we afford the better AV package?" correctly, because it knows what you've already promised away.

⚖️ Fixed versus variable

Every line is fixed by default, or variable if you mark it so. Fixed costs don't move with headcount (venue hire, AV, a speaker fee); variable ones are per-person (lunch, badges, tote bags).

⚠️ Heads up

This flag drives the break-even calculation: break-even is fixed costs divided by (average ticket price − variable cost per attendee). Mark catering as fixed and your break-even number is wrong — and wrong in the optimistic direction. It's the one field worth being pedantic about.

✨ The AI budget drafter

Rather than typing thirty lines, describe the event — "250 in-person, hotel venue, 2 tracks, catered lunches…" — and let it draft a budget. Each proposed line comes with a quantity, a unit cost, a fixed/variable classification and a short rationale for why it's there.

Describe the event's shape: headcount, venue type, format, what's included.
Read the draft — particularly the fixed/variable flags and anything that looks like a placeholder price. It knows event budgets in general, not your venue's quote.
Apply it, then correct the numbers as real quotes come in.

💡 Tip

Its real value is completeness — it remembers the line items first-time organizers forget (insurance, signage, contingency, card processing fees) more reliably than you will. Treat the numbers as placeholders and the list as the deliverable.

🔒 Automatic system lines

Some lines are maintained by the platform and marked with a 🔒 — they aren't editable by hand, because they mirror what actually happened:

Line	Kept in step with
Ticket sales (auto)	Revenue category. Actual = the total of all paid orders. Updates as tickets sell. 🎟️ Ticketing →
Sponsorships (auto)	Revenue category. Actual = paid sponsor invoices, so it moves when you mark an invoice paid. 🏢 Exhibitors →
Speaker fees	Speakers category. Estimated and committed = every fee entered; actual = the fees you've marked paid. 💸 Mark paid on a fee is what moves it from committed to actual, the same as on a travel claim.
Speaker travel	Speakers category. Committed = approved plus paid claims; actual = paid claims. So 💸 Mark paid on a claim is what moves it from committed to actual. 🎤 Speakers →

ℹ️ Note

Because revenue is automatic, the Net P&L tile is live throughout the sales period — you can watch the event cross into profit rather than finding out afterwards.

↩️ What refunds do to the budget

Refunded orders leave paid status, so the Ticket sales (auto) line falls the next time it's recalculated. Break-even and cost-per-attendee shift with it, since both count valid tickets.

⚠️ Heads up

Refunds don't reverse your expense commitments — the catering order stays placed. After a wave of refunds, re-read the break-even tile before agreeing to any further spend.

🎯 Using break-even well

Get it right before you set prices. Enter fixed and variable costs, read the break-even number, and sanity-check it against the audience you can realistically reach. If break-even needs more people than the room holds, the price is wrong.
Watch it as early-bird pricing rolls over. Break-even uses the average ticket actually sold, so the number moves as your mix changes.
Use it to decide on extras. "We're 40 tickets past break-even" is a much better basis for approving the reception than a feeling.
Reconcile afterwards. Enter the final invoices as actuals, then keep the event as the reference for next year's draft.