Money

What this is for

Most of us find out how an event did weeks later, once the credit card
statements land and somebody rebuilds a spreadsheet from receipts. The
Finance add-on flips that around. As you run the season — booking flights,
signing a venue, paying staff, taking registrations — Herding Cats is
quietly adding those numbers up per event. You open a tab and the profit
and loss is already there.

The one page to know: an event’s Financials tab

Open any event, then the Financials tab. At the top is a single
sentence of arithmetic:

Revenue − (Travel + Venue + Payroll) = Net

Then the real dollar figures, and the net in big green or red type.

Below that are the sections those figures come from:

• Revenue — money coming in. If you use registration, this is the line
  Registration payments (net of refunds).
• Travel — flights, hotel, and rental cars for the people you sent.
• Venue — the Venue contract amount, plus any venue bills.
• Payroll — what your staff earn for the weekend.
• Other costs — a fourth cost section for everything that doesn’t fit
  the three above.

You didn’t type any of that in. It comes from the flights you booked, the
rooms you blocked, the staff you assigned, the venue cost on the event, and
the bills you entered. Change a flight and the number changes.

Estimated vs. Actual

Every line on the Financials tab wears one of two small badges.

Estimated means it’s your best guess. Nobody has sent you a bill yet.
You can add one yourself: at the bottom of any cost section, click
Add estimate, type what it’s for and the dollar amount, and click
Add.

Actual means it’s real — a bill you entered and approved, a payment
that came in, payroll you recorded.

The two never double-count. When a real bill lands that covers something
you had estimated, the estimate stays visible but gets crossed out and
labeled superseded, with a note like Replaced by posted bill. The
total only counts the real one.

Anywhere a total includes a guess, you’ll see the words
includes estimated lines or a small est. tag. That’s your reminder
that the bottom line can still move.

The season view

The Finance page in your main menu is every event’s bottom line on one
screen. Four tiles across the top — Revenue, Expenses, Net,
Margin — then a choice of two views:

• Executive — totals, a Margin trend chart with one bar per event,
  and Revenue breakdown / Expense breakdown cards.
• Event manager — the Season P&L by event table, one row per event.
  Click an event name to jump to its Financials tab.

You can filter by Season, by Brand (if you run more than one), and
by a From / To date range. The Export button hands you the same
numbers as an Excel file or a CSV.

If some of what you’re looking at is still a guess, you’ll see
includes estimated lines under the Net tile.

The rest of the Finance area

Along the top of the Finance page are four tabs:

Two more menu items sit next to Finance:

• Payables — money going out, with a Bills tab and a Vendors
  tab. See Bills and vendors.
• Receivables — money owed to you, with Invoices, Statements,
  and Credit memos tabs. See Invoices.

And on each event, next to Financials, there’s a Settlement tab for the
cash you count at the end of the weekend. See
Show-day settlement.

Where every number comes from

If you ever wonder “why does it say that?”, here’s the short answer.

Where to go next

• Bills and vendors — money going out
• Invoices — money coming in from studios
• Show-day settlement — counting the weekend’s cash
• QuickBooks export — handing it all to your accountant