For event organisers · Event & conference budgets

One typed-over cell, and the total is quietly wrong.

Budget Master keeps your event budget in one table — block, category, supplier, quantity, price, status. From that table it computes everything the client asks: the total, the split by category and by event block, and the cost per participant. Change a price once. Every number follows. No formula to break, because there is no formula to type.

Test it free — no account → Own it · €99

Built from real budgetsWorld championships, corporate conferences

25+ years of event workBonacube · Finland

Calculator and budget documents on a desk

Total, per category, per block, per participant — one table answers all four.

You know this file

The budget answers to no one. Least of all to you.

Every total is =SUM(E18*G18) — a SUM that multiplies, typed 250 times. One row copied wrong, one number typed over a formula, and the grand total is wrong with a straight face.
The category letters live in a column: A for accommodation, C for catering. One row says "I " — with a trailing space — and the SUMIF quietly drops it from Other Costs. Nobody is told.
The follow-up column points at a deleted row: =SUM(O300-#REF!). It has said #REF! since March. Everyone scrolls past it.
Cost per participant means dividing by a hand-picked cell — 300 in one row, 250 in the next, 208 where someone remembered the hotel pax was different. Which one did the client see?
Cancelled costs get a status like "cancelled 7.4. — moved to HQ" typed into a text cell, the quantity set to 0, and a change-log row at the bottom with a minus number typed by hand. Three edits per change. Miss one and the story doesn't add up.

📄 Event Budget and Follow-up_v17042026.xlsx — two jobs, one fragile sheet

📄 Kopio CONFERENCE 2026_v1704… — a copy of the sheet, inside the same workbook

📄 Budget ver 1.0 / ver 1.1 / "> 9.2.2012" — versions typed into cells

The comparison formula=SUM(E7/F7-100%) — a SUM that divides

Follow-up column, row 300#REF! since March

Header row, 2022 fileColumn1 … Column9

Category letter, row 278"I " — the space SUMIF can't see

Status cell, row 39"cancelled 7.4. — moved to HQ"

The other way

Picture the steering meeting with a budget that holds.

One master table instead of formulas hand-copied down 250 rows. Every total — by category, by block, per participant — is computed from the lines, not maintained next to them. There is nothing to type over, so there is nothing to quietly break.

Every cost line entered once: block, category, supplier, qty × price
Totals by category and by event block compute themselves
Cost per participant always current — overall and per block
Committed money vs. open estimates visible in one bar

What it is

One master table. Every answer.

The Budget Master table is the working view: one row per cost line, grouped by event block. Line IDs assign themselves — OPE-001, PAR-007 — and each block header carries its subtotal and per-person cost, live. Write 35,02 the way you write it; if a quantity or price isn't a number, the cell turns red instead of adding a silent zero to the client's total.

The Budget Overview is the client's view: total budget, cost per participant, the split by category and by event block, how much is committed and which suppliers carry the weight. Drawn live from the master table — never one version behind. Every line has a status: Estimate, Offer, Booked, Confirmed or Cancelled. Cancelled lines stay visible, struck through, out of every total. The change log writes itself.

It runs in the browser — laptop, tablet, phone — and the logic comes from budgets that ran real events, genericised. This is the first working budget for client discussions and approval, not an accounting system. No invoices, no bookkeeping, nothing to configure.

Budget Master. Aurora Partner Summit 2027 Committed 50% ▶ Present

ID	Item	Supplier	Qty	Unit price	Total	Status
PARTNER AWARDS DINNER — WEDNESDAY PAX 210 · 22 533 € · 107,30 € / PAX
PAR-001	Hall hire 17:00–24:00	Old Mill Hall	1	2 950,00	2 950 €	Booked
PAR-003	Three-course dinner	Old Mill kitchen	200	52,00	10 400 €	Offer
PAR-006	Awards host / MC	Artist agency	1	1 600,00	1 600 €	Booked
PAR-010	Security & cloakroom (mandatory)	SafeCrew	3 pcs?	210,00	0 €	Confirmed
EVENT INVESTMENT TOTAL 152 443 € · 692,92 € / PARTICIPANT (220 PAX)

Why it works

Six problems from the real files. Six fixes.

Update once, totals follow

The master table is the only place anything is edited. Category totals, block subtotals, the grand total and cost per participant are computed from the lines — there is no summary section to maintain, and no SUMIF hunting for a category letter with a trailing space.

Numbers that behave

Write 35,02 or 1 234,56 the way European invoices write them. And when a cell says "n. 450" or "about 60", it turns red — in a spreadsheet that line silently becomes zero and the total lies until someone notices. Usually the client.

The change log writes itself

Cancel a line and it stays visible — struck through, out of every total, with your note on why. No quantity zeroed by hand, no minus-row typed at the bottom of the sheet, no story that doesn't add up in the steering meeting.

Cost per participant, always current

Set the event pax once, and pax per block where it differs — dinner for 285, hotels for 208. The per-person cost the client asks first is computed overall and per block, from the same table as everything else. No hand-picked divisor cells.

Whose number is this?

Every line is an Estimate, an Offer, Booked or Confirmed. The toolbar shows how much of the budget is committed money versus guesses — so "can we still cut catering?" has an answer, and the total stops pretending every number is equally real.

Your columns welcome

Cost centre, VAT class, invoice number, internal PO — add your own columns to the master table and they ride along in print and in the semicolon CSV that opens clean in Finnish Excel. The built-in columns feed the overview; yours are for you.

The second life

Present: the budget meeting, on one screen.

Full-screen view for steering meetings and client calls: the total, cost per participant, committed versus open, category bars, block totals. Large type, live clock. Nobody reads a 250-row spreadsheet off a wall. This they read.

And between meetings: 🔗 Share makes two view-only links — one opens the full master table for co-organisers, the other opens straight into the Budget Overview for the client. The whole budget travels inside the link. No account needed, nothing to install.

See it in the free test →

Budget Master. Aurora Partner Summit 2027 10:47:12

BUDGET OVERVIEW · 152 443 € TOTAL · 692,92 € / PARTICIPANT · COMMITTED 50%

A · Accommodation53 620 €

C · Catering45 277 €

D · Programme & technical50%17 722 €

B · Venue12 910 €

E · Production & staff8 930 €

G · Transport5 180 €

Who built this

An event director. Not a software company.

I'm Jesse Kiuru. I help event organisers and host cities bid, plan and run better events. Event director of the Lahti 2017 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. Currently structuring the Winter World Masters Games 2028.

Budget Master exists because I budgeted twenty years of events in the same workbook — every total a hand-typed formula, the categories a letter column feeding a SUMIF, the follow-up column pointing at #REF! since somebody deleted a row in March. The structure was right the whole time: blocks, categories, qty × price, status. The tool was fragile. This keeps the structure and deletes the formulas.

270,000spectators, Lahti 2017

3,000workforce coordinated

25+ yrschampionships to conferences

Pricing

Test first. Buy when it earns its place.

The free test runs on a full example event — a three-day partner summit with 58 budget lines across eight blocks, real statuses, cancelled lines and all. Everything works, nothing saves. When you want your own budget saved and shareable, one payment.

Budget Master · Full version

€99 one time · no subscription

Unlimited events, blocks and budget lines
One master table — every total computed from it live
Totals by category and event block, cost per participant
Commitment tracking: estimates, offers, booked, confirmed
Cancelled lines struck through and out of every total
Your own columns — cost centre, VAT class, anything
Line library — the standard costs of a corporate event, with honest notes
Present mode · view-only share links (working + client) · A3/A4 PDF · Excel/CSV · all updates included

Get Budget Master · €99 → or test it free first — no account, 2 minutes

Pairs with Agenda Master: the agenda sells the programme, Budget Master sells the number under it. Seven tools in the toolbox — any three for €199.

Questions

Asked before buying.

Do I need to install anything?

No. Budget Master runs in the browser — laptop, tablet or phone. Your events save automatically to your account.

Is this accounting software?

No, and on purpose. This is the first working budget — the one you build for client discussions and approval, and keep current through the planning months. No invoices, no ledgers, no approval workflows. When the event is over, your bookkeeper still does the books; they just get a budget that adds up.

Does it track actuals against the budget?

Version one is the budget side, kept honest: statuses tell you which numbers are estimates and which are committed money. If you track actuals, add an "Actual" column with ＋ column — it rides along in print and CSV. A dedicated follow-up view is on the roadmap; buyers get updates to the current version free.

Can the client edit the budget?

No — and that's the feature. The client gets a view-only link that opens straight into the Budget Overview: total, categories, blocks, per participant. They see the current numbers, always; they change nothing. The full line-level table stays yours.

Can I add my own columns?

Yes. ＋ column adds any column to the master table — cost centre, VAT class, invoice number. Your columns print and export with everything else. The built-in columns are the ones the overview computes from.

What does "free test" mean exactly?

The full tool on an example event — a three-day partner summit budget with 58 lines, eight blocks, offers, bookings and two honestly cancelled lines. Change a price and watch every total follow. Nothing saves — 100 people can test at once and never see each other's changes.