Closing the books after a festival

The festival ends on Sunday night. The finances don't. Invoices keep arriving for weeks, the ticketing company pays out on its own schedule, artists need settling, and somewhere in all that is the answer everyone wants: did we make money, and why?

A good close-out answers that question with numbers you can stand behind, and leaves the next edition starting from facts rather than memory. This checklist follows the order that avoids doing anything twice.

1. Set a cut-off, and tell your suppliers

Pick a date by which every supplier invoice must arrive, typically a few weeks after the event, and send it to every supplier you used. Late invoices are the most common reason a festival's result changes months after it was announced.

For costs you know about but haven't been invoiced for yet, record an estimate against the right line so the result isn't flattered by missing bills.

2. Match every cost to the budget line it belongs to

Go through the costs line by line against the budget. Each one needs a receipt or an invoice, the line it belongs to, and the approval if it was above your threshold. Costs that were paid but never recorded show up here, usually as card payments made on site.

Watch for duplicates: a deposit paid in spring and the final invoice that includes it.

3. Reconcile ticket income

Your ticketing company's statement is the source, not the sales dashboard. Reconcile:

• Tickets sold by type, against the statement.
• Fees and commission the ticketing company deducted.
• Refunds and chargebacks, which can keep arriving after the event.
• The payout that actually reached your bank account.

Then confirm what you're still owed and when it will be paid.

4. Reconcile the bar, food and merchandise

If you run the bar yourself, match takings by payment method against stock used and the cash counted. If a partner runs it for a share of takings, check their statement against your agreement and invoice your share. Merchandise works the same way: units sold, stock left, and the payment provider's deductions.

5. Settle with artists

Flat fees are simple: confirm the balance after the deposit. Deals that depend on ticket sales, like a guarantee against a percentage of the net after costs, need the box office figures from step 3, and only the costs the contract allows. Our free artist settlement sheet does that arithmetic and keeps each step visible to both sides.

6. Close out sponsors and grants

Check that every sponsor has been invoiced for every instalment and that the deliverables you promised were delivered, with proof (photos, reach figures) ready to send. Grants often require a final report with actual spend against the approved budget, so take the figures from the close-out, not from the original application.

7. Check the VAT position

Separate the VAT you charged on tickets, sponsorship and the bar from the VAT you paid on costs, and make sure every cost carries the right rate and an invoice that supports reclaiming it. Artists and suppliers from other countries can follow different VAT rules, so flag those for your accountant rather than guessing.

8. Close the P&L, and read it

With costs and income complete, compare actuals with the budget, line by line. Then ask the useful questions:

• Which lines ran over, and was it a price change, a scope change, or an estimate that was wrong from the start?
• How did the ticket mix and sell-through compare with the plan, and with your break-even?
• Which per-head costs grew faster than attendance?

Write the answers down while people still remember them. They are the most valuable input to the next budget.

9. Hand over, and carry forward

Send your accountant everything in one place: costs and income by account, the VAT summary, and the invoices. Then close the event so its numbers stop changing.

Finally, start the next edition's budget from this edition's actuals, with the notes from step 8 beside them. Recurring sponsors and multi-year deals carry over as the first lines of next year's plan.

Where Cashbox fits

Most of the close-out effort goes into finding things: receipts, approvals, which rate a foreign fee was paid at. In Cashbox those are kept on every line as it is entered, so closing out is a matter of checking. The accountant export puts the totals by account and VAT rate, plus the invoices, in one ZIP, and counts the lines still missing a code or an invoice before your accountant has to ask. When you set up the next edition, sponsors' payments carry over as instalments to confirm.