After the event: invoices paid and sponsor reports
What the Events pack checks after an event: sponsors and exhibitors invoiced and paid, sponsor reports sent, visitor details shared only with consent.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Events businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
The last guest leaves, the crew strikes the stage, and the team goes home exhausted. The next morning, everyone's attention jumps to the next event. That is exactly when money and goodwill slip away: an exhibitor's balance that nobody chases, a sponsor who never receives the report they were promised, a list of visitor details sent to a partner without anyone checking who agreed to it.
A short, firm wrap-up routine protects the revenue of the event just held and the sponsorships of the next one. The Events & trade shows pack in Achekam's Industry CRM includes a post-event workflow for exactly this.
What the post-event workflow covers
After the event, the pack's workflow does three things:
- It checks that every sponsor and every exhibitor was invoiced and has paid.
- It sends the sponsor reports.
- It passes on visitor details only for people who agreed to share them.
Each becomes a set of tasks for the team. Tasks can hold subtasks up to three levels deep, so "sponsor reports" can break down into one report per sponsor, and each report into gathering photos, collecting figures and sending.
Every sponsor and exhibitor invoiced and paid
The first check is the least glamorous and the most valuable. The Events pack keeps Sponsorships and Exhibitor booths as records of their own, so the question "has every one of them been invoiced and paid?" has a definite answer rather than a best guess.
Two kinds of gap tend to show up:
- Never invoiced. A late add-on, such as an extra booth, a last-minute sponsorship upgrade or additional power for a stand, agreed on the phone and never billed. Invoice it now, while the exhibitor still remembers asking for it.
- Invoiced, not paid. These show in your receivables, which are aged into 0-30, 31-60, 61-90, 91-120 and over 120 days. Credit control, on by default for new workspaces, e-mails overdue reminders and a monthly statement to customers with a balance, and records whether each e-mail went out. For a key sponsor, follow the reminder with a call from the person who manages the relationship.
The longer a balance waits after the event, the harder it is to collect. Within a week of the event is a sensible target for clearing this list.
Sponsor reports
The workflow sends each sponsor a report. What goes in it is up to you, but a good sponsor report answers the question the sponsor's own manager will ask: what did we get for our money?
A practical structure:
- Benefits delivered. Go through the sponsorship package item by item and show each one delivered, with a photo where you can: the stage banner in place, the logo in the programme, the speaker on stage.
- Reach. Attendance and online figures from your own sources, stated honestly and with their source.
- Anything that went wrong. If a benefit was not delivered as promised, say so and say what you offer instead. Sponsors forgive problems they hear about from you; they rarely forgive ones they discover themselves.
- Next year. A short note on dates and early options, without turning the report into a sales pitch.
Send reports while the event is still fresh, ideally within a fortnight.
Visitor details: only with consent
Sponsors and exhibitors often ask for visitor or lead lists. The workflow's rule is clear: visitor details are passed on only for people who agreed to share them.
Two practical points follow. First, the Events pack is not a ticketing or registration system, and it keeps no attendee list, check-in or badge scanning. The details, and the record of who agreed to share them, come from whichever registration or ticketing system you used. Check that consent record before anything is sent. Second, when the record is unclear for a person, the safe course is to leave them out. If in doubt about a whole list, ask your adviser before sending it. For South African events, the Information Regulator's guidance notes include how to comply with POPIA when customer personal information is used for direct marketing by e-mail, SMS or phone, a useful reference before any list leaves the business.
Counts on the home page
The pack's home page shows counts worked out from records, tasks and the ledger, and none of them is typed in by hand. Counts of the kind available include records in a stage, overdue tasks, tasks due today and revenue this month.
After an event, those counts are a quick health check. Overdue wrap-up tasks show which reports or chases have stalled. Records still sitting in an earlier stage show sponsorships or booths that have not been closed off.
One owner for the wrap-up
Wrap-up work falls between teams. Sales thinks finance is chasing the exhibitor balances; finance thinks the account manager is. Production assumes marketing is gathering photos for the sponsor reports. Name one person who owns the post-event workflow for each event, with the authority to ask anyone on the team for what is missing. Their job is not to do every task, but to make sure none is left without an owner, and to say when the event is truly finished.
Closing the event
Before you call an event finished, run a closing list with the team:
- Every sponsor and exhibitor invoiced, and every balance paid or being actively chased.
- Every sponsor report sent.
- Visitor details shared only where consent was recorded.
- Every vendor bill received and matched; vendor contracts are covered in vendor contracts and free-cancellation dates.
- A short note of what to change next time, filed where the next event's team will find it.
Next time, start earlier
The wrap-up is far easier when onboarding was thorough. Benefits written as a checklist at the start, as described in onboarding a sponsor and tracking every benefit, turn the sponsor report into a matter of ticking items and attaching photos. Exhibitors onboarded completely, as in exhibitor booths: agreement, invoice and stand plans, leave fewer surprises to chase afterwards.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
