Software tools help event planners get hard results

Organizing the annual conference or charity golf tournament might be a little tougher this year, due to shrinking budgets. But with a little help from event planning software you could get the job done more easily, effectively, accurately ... and avoid prohibitive costs.
3/20/2009 8:00:00 AM By: Michelle MacLeod

Reporting

The event planner can easily store and send event-related documents at a click of a button, rather than search and build reports, Pirkle said.

A parked report can be built for individuals with whom you want to share reporting results, but who may not have access to the entire system – such as the chief financial officer or board of trustees.

Valerie Yersh, vice-president of events and marketing at Netrunner Inc., an Ottawa-based computer forensic analysis company, said she found the reporting function useful for sending just the financial updates to the sales department, without having them access all of the other logistics information.

Netrunner used the software for an event they were planning in September 2008 and said the reporting features provided a "tremendous" time and labour savings.

Yersh said the biggest cost-saving feature was the ability to build your own event Web page within the software.

"The Web site development function allowed us to launch the event without having to pay a fortune for back-end Web development," she said. "We found creating a Web site would cost around $15,000."

As a small business, she said, investing in the annual licensing fee was more worthwhile. "It allowed us to save by not having to hire assistants to write e-mails and follow up with attendees."

Canadian event planning software company, EventPro Software – based in Saskatoon, Sask. – also names centralized, real-time reporting and planning as one of the most valuable features of its offering.

Documents are interconnected, which means when a change has to be made to one document, it is updated everywhere, helping companies stay on budget, said C.J. Leib, account consultant.

While the software will in no way replace an event planer, Lieb said, it does do away with the need to hire assistants. It also streamlines the planning process.

"A new client signed on with us and – after the first year – we were able to double the number of events they were doing."

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