How to: Handle Banquet Events

A Banquet Event is a large, often long-lead-time reservation used to sell and run events such as weddings, conferences, and corporate meetings: reserving event rooms and resources, tracking food and beverage, notifying the departments who prepare the event, taking deposits over an extended period, keeping costs current, and finally invoicing the client. This topic describes the general, end-to-end process of handling a banquet event in Bookings for LS Central, and lists the setup pages you need to configure before you can use the feature.

Banquet Events at a glance

A banquet event follows the same reservation flow as any other Bookings reservation, but it also uses the following functionality to cover the specific requirements of large, advance-booked events:

The pre-sales and quote phase, using the standard Business Central CRM module together with a reservation.
Banquet Event Orders (BEO), grouped and version-tracked by Banquet Category, to describe the agenda and notify the departments responsible for preparing the event.
Activity Tasks, to plan and trigger preparation and follow-up work.
Deposit schedules, to collect payments in installments ahead of the event date.
Cost management, to keep resource and item cost prices current and flag significant cost increases.
Standard invoicing and POS settlement, with deposits automatically deducted from the balance due.

For a general description of the BEO setup and process, see Events and Conference Reservations.

To manage the pre-sales and quote phase

A banquet event is usually a high-value sale that is negotiated over a long period before it is confirmed. To manage that pre-sales work, Bookings for LS Central uses the standard Business Central Relationship Management (CRM) functionality together with the reservation.

The Relationship Management module is Business Central's tool for managing sales and customer relationships.

It keeps a central register of contacts, records every interaction with them (phone calls, emails, and meetings), and — most importantly for the pre-sales phase — tracks each prospective sale as an opportunity.
An opportunity is a potential piece of business that you are actively pursuing with a contact, for example a wedding or conference a customer is considering.
Each opportunity moves through the stages of a configurable sales cycle (such as Qualifying, Proposal, and Negotiation), each stage carrying an estimated value and probability, so that the sales pipeline can be followed and forecast until the deal is won or lost.

Because the details being negotiated for a banquet event — the rooms and resources, the dates, the food and beverage, and the price — all live on the reservation, you link the opportunity to the reservation so the two are kept together as one thread from prospect to confirmed event.

Linking them means the reservation shows how far the deal has progressed, the Quote is produced directly from the real reservation details instead of being keyed by hand, and interactions stay tied to both records.

To set this up:

On the Reservation Type used for the event, enable Show CRM Options and Customer Account so that CRM and Quote/Invoice functionality is available on the Actions - Reservation Card card. See Customer Account.
Create the reservation, filling in the Salesperson, Description, and Main Internal Contact, which the opportunity requires. Then use the drill-down on the Opportunity field to open the linked opportunity — if the field is empty, a new opportunity is created automatically from the reservation's description, contact, and salesperson, and linked back to the reservation. The reservation also shows the opportunity's current Sales Cycle Stage, and the Opportunity, Create Interact, and Make Phone Call actions (CRM group) let you open the opportunity card and log interactions without leaving the reservation.
Add the activity lines (rooms and resources) and any additional charges (food and beverage, and so on) that make up the event, as described in To issue Banquet Event Orders by category.
Use the Quote action (Invoicing group on the Actions - Reservation Card card) to create a standard Business Central quote based on the reservation's activity lines and additional charges. If the reservation type uses Banquet Category, the quote is formatted using the event categories.
Every time you select Quote again, the quote is updated with the latest reservation details, so you can keep refining it with the customer during the pre-sales phase.

Note: The quote is never automatically deleted or posted, so you must delete or post it manually once it is no longer needed.

To issue Banquet Event Orders by category

The Banquet Event Order (BEO) is the industry-standard document a venue uses to communicate everything needed to prepare and deliver an event:

The agenda and timeline
the rooms and resources reserved
the food and beverage and other charges
any special instructions
and who is responsible for each part.
It is the single reference that the sales team, the kitchen, the events crew, and the customer all work from, so that everyone shares the same picture of what has been agreed.

In Bookings for LS Central, the BEO is generated from the reservation and organized into Banquet Category sections — for example Room Rental, Audio & Video Setup, and Food and Beverage — so that each department can find the part of the order that concerns it.

Why the BEO is versioned. An event is often agreed months in advance and then refined many times before it takes place — guest numbers change, menus are swapped, rooms are added or dropped. Each time the reservation changes and the BEO is re-issued, Bookings stores a new, numbered, read-only snapshot instead of overwriting the previous one, and records how many lines were added, changed, or removed in that version, together with its total amount, total cost, and number of persons.

Keeping every version gives you a complete audit trail of what was agreed and when:

You can compare any two versions to see exactly what moved, always reprint the precise BEO a department was working from, and trace responsibility if a late change or a dispute arises.
A line is treated as changed when its quantity, price, amount, description, product, banquet category, date or time, or assigned resource differs from the previous version.

Why and how responsible persons are notified:

Because different teams own different parts of an event, Bookings can notify the persons responsible for each Banquet Category by email when the BEO is re-issued, so that a change reaches the right people without flooding everyone.
The first version of a BEO notifies all responsible persons; after that, only the categories that actually changed in the new version trigger a notification — so the Food & Beverage team is emailed when the menu or the number of covers changes, while the crew responsible for the event rooms is left undisturbed, and vice versa.
You control this per category: use the Responsibility action to assign the contacts or employees responsible for each Banquet Category, set Notify of Changes for each person who should receive emails (a person must have an email address on their contact or resource record to be notified), and use the category's Notification Days to control how close to the event date notifications should begin.

To set up and issue BEOs:

On the Reservation Type used for banquet events, set Use Banquet Category. See Banquet Events FastTab.
Create one Banquet Category per BEO "chapter" you want to group activities and charges by, for example Room Rental, Audio & Video Setup, and Food and Beverage. Assign a default Banquet Category on the related Activity Products so activity and charge lines are grouped automatically, and use the Responsibility action on the Banquet Category to assign the employees or contacts responsible for each category, so they are notified by email when the category changes.
As you add activity lines, Additional Charges, and comments to the reservation, use the BEO View action (Banquet Orders group on the Actions - Reservation Card card) to preview the agenda, grouped and sorted by Banquet Category, before you confirm the reservation with the customer.
Confirm the reservation to issue the first BEO version and, if configured, notify the responsible persons. Set the Event Handling status setting to Update BEO Version or Update BEO Version and Notify so that any later change to the reservation automatically issues a new BEO version. See Advanced FastTab.
Use the BEO Versions action to review previously issued BEOs, see how many lines were added, changed, or removed between versions, and manually issue a new version if you need to reissue the BEO without a status change.
Print the current BEO using the BEO Report action, or use Print from the BEO view to print a draft before the BEO has been issued. You can assign a custom BEO report layout on the Reservation Type.

To prepare the event with tasks

Preparation work for a banquet event, such as room setup, equipment delivery, or a confirmation call to the customer, is tracked with Activity Tasks, which can be triggered automatically or added manually.

On the Activity Types page, use the Home action menu's Tasks action to define the tasks that should be proposed by default for products belonging to that type, for example a room-setup task on a room rental activity type.
Set the Task Frequency for each task, for example X Days Before the event for preparation tasks, and optionally a Status Filter so the task is only proposed when a specific reservation status applies.
Tasks defined this way are proposed automatically on the activity, but you can add or modify tasks manually on an individual reservation whenever the event's requirements differ from the default setup.

See Activity Tasks for the full list of task schedule fields and settings.

To manage deposits for the event

Because banquet events are often booked months or even years in advance, Bookings supports a deposit schedule so you can require and track multiple deposit payments leading up to the event date.

On the Reservation Type, specify whether deposits are allowed, and whether they apply at reservation level or per activity line. See Deposits.
Assign a deposit policy on the reservation type (or override it on an individual reservation) that defines the amounts and dates deposits are due. See the Deposit Policy field on the Deposit Policy card.
Use the Deposit Schedule Handling status setting to automatically Issue deposit schedule or Delete (recall) issued schedule entries when a specific reservation status is set. See Advanced FastTab.
Outstanding deposits show as Deposits Due entries in the reservation FactBox and on the Activity Manager Role Center Cue section, so staff can follow up before the event date.
At the POS, collect deposit payments using the PREPAYRES or PREPAYCURRES commands, or, for security deposits taken at pickup, refund them with RETRNRESDEPOSIT or RETRNCURDEPOSIT. See Deposits for the full list of related POS commands.

Any deposits already collected are automatically deducted from the balance when the reservation, or the individual activities, are invoiced or paid.

To manage cost changes over time

Because banquet events can be booked long before they take place, the cost of the resources and retail items involved can change significantly in the meantime. Bookings can keep the reservation's cost prices up to date and flag when a cost increase is larger than expected.

Use the Cost action (Actions - Reservation Card card) to view the inventory cost of additional retail items and the resource cost for all activities on the reservation, excluding activities with internal status Canceled. If a resource is not yet assigned, the average cost of the resource group is used as an estimate.
On the Reservation Type, set Cost Updates to Yes to have Bookings recalculate the cost prices on all confirmed reservations of that type. Use Cost Updates (X Days ahead) to limit the recalculation to reservations starting within a given number of days (leave it blank to include all future reservations). See Banquet Events FastTab.
Set the Cost Update Warning % field on the Reservation Type to the acceptable cost increase. If a unit cost price rises by more than this percentage during a recalculation, a warning is issued.
Run the cost recalculation on demand with the Update Cost Prices action on the Cost Change Warning List page, or schedule it to run unattended by adding codeunit 10015877, "LSC Activity Cost Handling" to a job queue.
When costs are recalculated, the latest BEO version is also refreshed with the new cost prices and shows the cost price change (percentage) compared to the previous version.
Any cost increase that exceeds the Cost Update Warning % is written to the Cost Change Warning List page — showing the previous unit cost, new unit cost, and cost change % per line — and raises the Cost Alerts cue on the Activity Manager Role Center, so the event can be reviewed before it is invoiced.

Note: Cost is captured on the sales quote or invoice line's Unit Cost (LCY) field as soon as a resource has been assigned to the activity product; if no resource is assigned yet, the cost is not set.

See Events and Conference Reservations for more on how cost is shown throughout the BEO process.

To handle tasks during and after the event

Tasks continue to apply while the event is running and after it ends, for example room breakdown or equipment return. These use the same Activity Tasks setup described in To prepare the event with tasks: use a Task Frequency of Blank for tasks during the event, or X Days After/X Minutes After End for post-event follow-up, combined with a Status Filter if the task should only apply at a specific reservation status.

To invoice and settle payment

Once the event has taken place, or at any point where full or partial payment is due, you can settle the reservation either at the POS or through standard Business Central invoicing.

To invoice through Business Central, use the Invoice action (Invoicing group on the Actions - Reservation Card card). This converts the reservation to a standard invoice based on the activity lines and additional charges; only lines that are not already marked FULLY PAID are included. If the reservation type uses Banquet Category, the invoice is also formatted using the event categories. See Invoicing for the setting that controls whether this option is available.
The invoice is updated every time you select Invoice, based on the latest reservation details. Posting the invoice requires the reservation to have been confirmed, and posting updates the reservation's payment status per line while keeping the link between the reservation and the posted invoice.
To settle at the POS instead, use the reservation's Tender Type setup, which lets the customer charge POS purchases to the reservation and be balanced through an interim G/L account until the reservation is invoiced or paid.
Any deposits already collected (see To manage deposits for the event) are automatically deducted from the amount due, whether you invoice through Business Central or settle at the POS.

See Invoice and Payment Settlement for more topics about payment and invoicing in Bookings.

Related setup and processes for Banquet Events

Before you can work with banquet events, review and configure the following setup pages.

Setting	Description
Events and Conference Reservations	General description of what needs to be set up for the BEO process, and a troubleshooting list for common BEO setup issues.
Banquet Events FastTab	Set Use Banquet Category, BEO Format, and the other Banquet Events FastTab fields; set the Cost Updates, Cost Updates (X Days ahead), and Cost Update Warning % fields to control automatic cost recalculation and warnings; and enable Show CRM Options and Customer Account for the pre-sales and quote phase.
Banquet Category	Define the BEO "chapters" used to group activities and charges, control the BEO view sorting order, and assign the persons responsible for each category.
Activity Products	Assign a default Banquet Category on the room rental and other event-related products, and configure any security deposit required at the time of sale.
Advanced FastTab	Use the Event Handling field to control BEO versioning and notifications, and the Deposit Schedule Handling field to issue or recall deposit schedule entries, for each status.
Activity Tasks	Define the task templates proposed for preparation, on-site, and follow-up work related to the event's activity types and products.
Deposits	Set up deposit schedules and the POS commands used to collect and refund deposits over the lead time of the event.
Actions - Reservation Card	Reference for the BEO View, BEO Versions, BEO Report, Cost, Quote, Invoice, and CRM Opportunity actions on the Reservation Card.
Invoice and Payment Settlement	Related topics on invoicing and settling reservation payments.