Minimum spend

Plenty of venues will not take a booking below a certain figure. A Saturday in the main ballroom has to be worth ten thousand dollars, a weekday lunch in the private dining room three. Caterers and planners work the same way, with a floor under any job worth turning up for.

A minimum spend in 1pm is that floor. You set it once on the space, and from then on 1pm watches every quote and every set of charges for that space and tells you when one falls short, with the amount and a button to add the difference.

It is a warning, not a rule. Nothing is added to a client's bill without you clicking it.

Setting one

Go to Spaces, open the space, and fill in Minimum spend. Leave it blank and the space carries no minimum, which is how every space starts.

Set it on each space separately. A ballroom and a terrace at the same venue are two spaces in 1pm, and they will usually carry very different figures.

What counts towards it

Every line counts to begin with. Once a space has a minimum, each line on a quote or a set of charges gets a counts toward minimum spend box, and you clear it on the lines the minimum is not about.

This matters more than it sounds. Most venue minimums are on food and beverage only, with the room hire sitting outside them: a five thousand dollar minimum on a room that costs two thousand to hire means five thousand of food and drink, not three. Clear the box on the room hire line and the figure 1pm shows you is the one your contract means.

The figure is measured on the line amounts, before any service charge, gratuity or tax. A service charge you add on top of the food does not help the client reach a food minimum.

Reading the warning

Once a space has a minimum, the totals on its quotes and charges carry an extra line:

Towards minimum spend $3,800 of $5,000

While the booking is short, a warning sits under the total saying by how much, and naming the space:

$1,200 under the minimum spend. The Ballroom carries a $5,000 minimum and this document counts $3,800 towards it.

The figure moves as you work. Add a line, change a guest count, clear one of the boxes above, and it updates straight away.

Adding the difference

The warning carries a button: Add a $1,200 minimum spend adjustment. Click it and 1pm adds a line for exactly the amount you are short, and the warning goes.

That line is an ordinary line from then on. Rename it to match your terms, which often describe the shortfall as a room hire adjustment. Change the price, move it into a group, or delete it if the conversation goes another way. It flows onto the invoice, and through to Xero, like anything else you charge.

Two small things 1pm does with that line that are worth knowing. It counts towards the minimum, which is why adding it clears the warning. And it is left out of your service charge, because charging service on a top-up would push the booking past the figure it was added to reach.

What the client sees

Nothing, on an ordinary quote. The minimum is yours, and a client whose booking is comfortably over it never needs to know there was a floor.

The exception is a quote you have made adjustable, where the client can change guest numbers or add and remove items themselves. There, if their choices drop the quote under the minimum, a note appears on their copy:

This booking has a minimum spend of $5,000. Your selection currently comes to $3,800.

They can still accept. Someone working through a quote late at night should not hit a wall with no way forward, and the conversation that follows is one you would rather have than lose the booking to silence. Your own copy of the booking carries the warning afterwards, with the button on it, so you can settle the difference before you invoice anything.

Where it does and does not appear

The warning shows on a quote and on an event's charges. Those two are the whole booking, so a figure measured against a floor means something.

It does not show on an invoice. A deposit or balance invoice is one slice of a booking, and telling you a two thousand dollar deposit was eight thousand under the minimum would be wrong every time.

Changing or removing a minimum

Edit the space and change the figure, or clear it to remove the minimum. It applies from that moment: quotes and charges for that space warn against the new figure the next time you open them.

Any adjustment lines you already added stay where they are. They are real lines on real documents, and 1pm does not reach back and change what you have already quoted or billed.