🎤 Speakers console, fees & expenses

Invite speakers, assign them to sessions, chase their tasks, and settle fees and travel claims.

ℹ️ Note

Speaker work is split across three places: speakers and their session assignments come from the agenda importer, tasks are assigned from ✉️ Comms, and money — fees and travel claims — lives on 🎤 Speakers, which is titled Speaker compensation. This page covers all three.

➕ Getting speakers into the event

Speaker records are created by the 📥 Import agenda assistant: paste an agenda that names its speakers and it creates each person and links them to their sessions in one pass. That's the intended route, and it's much faster than any form.

Once a speaker exists and is linked to a session, four things follow automatically:

They appear in the public 🎤 Speakers directory and on their session pages. The directory includes anyone presenting a session, so it stays complete even before roles are tidied up.
They can sign in to /{event}/portal with that email address and see their sessions, tasks and fee.
They can be registered as Zoom webinar panelists by 🎤 Sync webinar panelists.
Speaker role grants them ticket-gated video access without buying a ticket.

⚠️ Heads up

Get the email address right. It's what they sign in with, and it's where Zoom sends their panelist link. A typo means a speaker who can't reach their portal and can't present.

✅ Assigning tasks

Tasks are created from ✉️ Comms → Tasks → + Assign a task: pick a participant (speakers are marked (speaker) in the dropdown), give it a title — "Upload your slides" — optional details, and a due date. The button says it: Assign (deadline reminders automatic).

The speaker sees it in their portal as Tasks (2/5 done) with a Mark done button, overdue items in red. Your side shows the same list with ✅ / ⬜, the assignee and the due date, so chasing is a glance rather than a spreadsheet.

ℹ️ Note

The emails are automatic in both directions: the speaker is told when you assign a task, reminded 48 hours before it's due and chased once if it goes overdue, and you get an email the moment they mark it done. Chasing is not a polling loop.

💡 Tip

A task is a checklist item, not an upload form — "send us your headshot" still needs somewhere to send it. Put the how in the description, or they'll tick it having done nothing.

💰 Speaker fees

On 🎤 Speakers, the Speaker fees section lists every speaker with a dollar box and a Save button. Enter the agreed fee and save. The header keeps a running total.

The speaker sees it in their portal as a green banner — 🎤 Your speaker fee for this event: $500.00 — so entering it is also how you confirm the number to them. Leave it blank for unpaid speakers and no banner appears.

Once you've actually paid someone, press 💸 Mark paid next to their name. The platform moves no money — this is the bookkeeping flag, exactly like marking a travel claim paid.

ℹ️ Note

Fees sync to the budget as a locked system line: Speaker fees under a Speakers expense category. Estimated and committed carry every fee you've entered; actual carries the ones you've marked paid. So marking paid is what moves a fee from committed to actual in your budget. 💰 Budget →

✈️ Travel billing

At the top of the page is a toggle: ✈️ Speaker travel billing: ON — speakers can submit travel expenses from their portal, or OFF — speakers see no expense form. Press Allow travel billing to turn it on, Turn off to withdraw it.

⚠️ Heads up

Turning it on tells every speaker, in their portal, that "the organizers cover speaker travel for this event". That's a commitment in writing — turn it on only once you've decided, and only when you know what you're willing to cover, because the form itself has no policy field.

🧾 Reviewing expense claims

Claims appear under Expense claims (3 pending), with pending ones outlined in blue so they stand out. Each row shows the speaker, the category, the amount, the date, the description, a receipt link if they provided one, and the status.

Open the receipt link and check the claim matches. A link you can't open is the most common reason to reject.
Press ✓ Approve or ✕ Reject. There's a Note (optional) box beside the buttons — always use it on a rejection, because the note is what the speaker sees on their row as · organizer: …, and it's the difference between a fixed resubmission and an email exchange.
Pay the speaker however you normally pay people — bank transfer, check, your accounts department. The platform moves no money.
Come back and press 💸 Mark paid so the record and the budget match reality.

Status	Meaning
submitted	Awaiting your review. The speaker sees ⏳ pending review.
approved	Accepted, not yet paid. Still needs a Mark paid once you've settled it.
rejected	Declined, with your note shown to the speaker.
paid	Settled. This is a bookkeeping flag you set — it doesn't transfer anything.

📊 How it reaches the budget

The page header states the arithmetic — "$4,500.00 in fees · $1,280.00 approved travel — both sync to the budget as system lines" — and the two lines behave differently:

Speaker fees	Estimated and committed = the sum of every fee entered. Actual stays zero.
Speaker travel	Committed = approved plus paid claims. Actual = paid claims only. So Mark paid is what moves money from committed to actual in your budget — which is why it matters even though it transfers nothing.

Both are locked 🔒 system lines in the budget: maintained automatically, not editable by hand. Change a fee or decide a claim and the budget follows.

💡 Tip

Give your speakers the link to 🧾 Fees & travel expense claims when you turn travel billing on. It tells them one claim per expense, to make receipt links publicly viewable, and that paid means you've settled it outside the platform — which heads off most of the questions.