When the event budget outgrows the spreadsheet
Where spreadsheets still work for event budgets, where they break (approvals, FX, audit trail, per-event P&L), and what Cashbox does instead.
| Spreadsheet | Cashbox | |
|---|---|---|
| Budget and actuals | ||
| Budget per event, by category | ||
| Actuals roll up as expenses land | Manual formulas | |
| Same structure on every event | Copy of the last file | |
| Portfolio view across active events | Linked sheets | |
| Spend and approvals | ||
| Receipt attached to the line | Link to a drive | |
| Capture from a phone at the venue | ||
| Approval over a spend threshold | Email thread | |
| Record of who approved what, and when | ||
| Money | ||
| Original currency kept on every line | If someone remembers | |
| Exchange rate stored at entry | ||
| History unchanged when rates move | ||
| Access and hand-off | ||
| Roles with different permissions | Share settings | Four roles |
| CSV export for your accountant | ||
| Works offline | ||
| Cost | Free | From €39/month |
A spreadsheet is the right place to start an event budget. Everyone on the team can open one, nobody needs training, and a single show with one person holding the numbers rarely needs anything else.
The trouble starts when the budget stops being one person's file. This page is an honest look at where that happens, and at what changes when the budget, the spend, and the approvals live in one place.
Where a spreadsheet still wins
- It costs nothing. If you run one show a year with a small crew, a well-kept sheet is hard to beat on price.
- It bends to anything. A new column, a one-off calculation, a scenario tab: a spreadsheet never tells you no.
- It works without a connection. Cashbox is a web app and needs signal to save. A spreadsheet on a laptop does not.
- Your accountant already reads it. Cashbox is not accounting software either. It exports to CSV for whoever files the books.
If that describes your year, keep the spreadsheet. The rest of this page is for teams where it has started to hurt.
Where it breaks
Every event starts as a copy of the last one
The master template gets duplicated, a formula gets fixed in one copy and not the others, and by the third show of the season the files no longer agree on what a category means. Comparing two events turns into reconciling two spreadsheets first.
In Cashbox every event uses the same structure, so actuals roll up the same way on every show, and the portfolio view reads across all of them without anyone linking sheets together.
Approvals live in email
Who said yes to the staging upgrade? The answer is in a thread called "Re: re: invoice", if it is anywhere. A spreadsheet can hold the number but not the decision behind it.
In Cashbox a spend over your threshold goes to management for approval, and the approval is recorded on the expense: who approved it, when, and with the receipt attached. Anything under the threshold posts straight to the ledger.
Currencies drift
A festival with an international line-up pays fees in one currency, sells tickets in another, and books suppliers in a third. In a spreadsheet the exchange rate is whatever someone typed on the day, and when a rate cell gets updated, every historical total that referenced it quietly changes too.
Cashbox keeps the original currency on every line and stores the rate at the moment the line is entered. Last season's numbers stay last season's numbers when rates move.
Receipts are somewhere else
Receipts arrive as photos in chat threads and scans in someone's downloads folder. The sheet has a row for the expense; the evidence lives elsewhere, if it survives at all.
In Cashbox the receipt is attached to the expense it belongs to. On a phone the capture button opens the camera, so a stage manager can file a fuel receipt at the venue instead of carrying it home.
You find out the margin weeks later
When actuals are typed in after the fact, the P&L only exists once the bookkeeping catches up, often after the next show is already in build. Whatever the numbers say by then is too late to act on.
In Cashbox revenue and expenses land on the same event as they happen, so the P&L is current during the show, not reconstructed after it.
Moving from a spreadsheet
You don't have to start from nothing. Cashbox imports expenses and revenue from CSV, and the importer maps your existing column names and categories instead of making you reshape the file first. You can bring over the current season and leave older files where they are. If you're starting a budget from scratch, our free festival budget template comes in a version shaped for that import.
There is a 15-day free trial with no card, so you can import a real event and compare it against your sheet before deciding.
Try it on a real event
Import one event and compare it with your sheet.
Bring the CSV you already have. The importer maps your columns and categories, so you see your own numbers in Cashbox on day one.
- 15-day free trial
- No card required
- CSV import included