Deposits, deadlines and the payment calendar nobody gives you

Nobody hands you a payment schedule for your event. You sign twelve contracts over eighteen months, each with its own deposit, its own balance date and its own method, and none of the suppliers coordinate with each other.

The result is a year of unexpected invoices, and a final month where an alarming proportion of the total falls due at once.

Build one calendar, at the start

A single sheet. For every supplier: deposit amount and date paid, balance amount, balance due date, payment method, and whether it is refundable.

Add each new supplier as you book them. It takes two minutes per contract and it is the difference between managing the budget and discovering it.

What the shape usually is

Most suppliers take 20 to 50 per cent on booking, then the balance somewhere between a month out and the day itself. Venues are often different, running progress payments across the year with a final balance seven to fourteen days before.

Plotted on a calendar, this produces a predictable spike: a large share of the total falls due in the final four weeks, at exactly the point when everything else is also happening.

Read three things in every contract

• What the deposit secures — the date, or the date and a named person?
• The cancellation terms — what you lose, and at what point.
• The postponement terms. Different from cancellation, and much more likely to matter. Can you move the date, how far, and at what cost?

Postponement terms became standard after 2020 and are still often generous. They are worth reading before you need them.

Pay in a way you can recover

Credit card for deposits wherever possible. The fee is typically one to two per cent, and it buys chargeback rights that a bank transfer does not have. For a first deposit to a supplier you have not worked with, that is cheap protection.

Be alert to invoices that arrive with changed bank details close to the day. Invoice interception is a real and increasingly common fraud in this industry. Confirm any change of account details by phone, on a number you already had.

Sort the day-of payments the week before

Anything due on the day — final balances, tips, cash for a supplier who wants it — into labelled envelopes, handed to the person running the day. Nobody should be making transfers on the morning, and nobody should be chasing you for money while you are getting ready.