Several meals at an event translate to several ways to budget for each meal. Thus step one in attacking the F&B portion of the budget starts with setting up each meal as its own sub-total. So at the detail-level of the budget we set up a supporting document for Monday Continental Breakfast, Monday AM Break, Monday Lunch, Monday PM Break, Monday Reception, etc.
This gives us the flexibility to look at each F&B event separately to consider several factors including number of attendees, type of event andcost factors specific to that type of F&B event.
When it comes to estimating number of attendees there is a little “art” and a little “science” involved. Ultimately experience helps guide these guarantees. That is the “art.” The “science” is taking into consideration such factors as breakfast at an all day conference is less popular than a breakfast at a morning-only conference or expecting more no-shows if dinner isn’t at the host hotel. . Each F&B event may have its own estimated attendance for the budget. If you are building a budget for 500 attendees you may estimate 300 for the early morning breakfast, 500 for lunch and 400 for the dinner; setting up each F&B event separately in your budget allows you to estimate more accurately with varying attendance estimates.
Another advantage to separately budgeting for each F&B event is that various F&B events require a variety of budget formats. While the continental breakfast and lunch can be a per-person charge, breaks’ F&B might be on consumption and your reception might be a mix of per-person rates (a cheese tray) and consumption (drinks). Thus each F&B event has its own formula for estimating costs.
Further, a variety of unique-to-that format expenses exists with F&B events. The reception might have a “cork fee,” or a bartender cost and potentially a cashier expense (if you have a cash bar). Your event may have charges for cake cutting, carving station, passed hors d’oeuvres, and so forth. Some of these are per-person expenses, some are hourly and some are flat rate costs. Since expenses such as these do not apply universally it is advantageous to establish a detailed sub-total for each F&B event.
Food and Beverage is an important line item on your conference budget. Getting to that line item requires a lot of work on the back pages of the budget. To facilitate better budget estimation it is best to establish each F&B event as its own sub-total allowing you to budget each F&B event separately to account for a unique attendee estimate, a variety of budget formats and consideration for expenses unique to that food service style.
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