Exercises: Budget Management

Difficulty guide: ⭐ Foundational (5–10 min) · ⭐⭐ Intermediate (10–20 min) · ⭐⭐⭐ Challenging (20–40 min) · ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Advanced (40+ min)

Part A: Conceptual Understanding ⭐

A.1. Explain the difference between a budget and a payment calendar in one sentence each, and give a situation where the budget is fine and the calendar is a crisis.

A.2. Why does the final payment cluster form? Give the structural reason rather than describing the pattern.

A.3. Explain why the tracker should show balance rather than total spent.

A.4. Give three reasons a planner should not hold client money. Which is the most important and why?

A.5. What does the source-of-funds line on a change order accomplish that a cost figure alone does not?

A.6. Distinguish an overage from a shortfall. Why does confusing them waste time?

A.7. Define without looking back: burn rate, reforecast, pass-through payment, non-refundable position, the final cluster.

A.8. Why is "I ask everyone" the load-bearing phrase in the staged-payment script?

Part B: Applied Analysis ⭐⭐

B.1. Build a payment calendar. Given these terms, build the calendar, sort by month, total each month, and identify both clusters as percentages of the total. Wedding is 1 September; engagement began 1 July of the previous year.

B.2. Restructure it. Using the §7.2.1 table of who will stage, produce a revised calendar that moves as much as possible out of the final cluster. State which vendors you asked, which you did not, and why. Quantify the improvement.

B.3. Burn rate. Two weddings, both at month nine of fifteen, both with $2,100 cumulative variance against a $4,500 contingency.

• Wedding X: $230, $180, $260, $210, $290, $240, $210, $250, $230
• Wedding Y: $0, $0, $50, $80, $110, $190, $420, $560, $690

Compute each burn rate, project each to month fifteen, classify each on the §7.5 thresholds, and state the different action each requires.

B.4. Write four change orders. For: a $290 rental increase; a $1,450 tent upgrade; a $180 stationery reprint caused by your own error; and a $2,200 late addition of a videographer. Each needs a source-of-funds line. For the third, decide who pays and defend it.

B.5. Read the tells. For each, state what it probably means and what you do:

• (a) The client stops asking about cost after eight months of asking constantly.
• (b) The florist's proposal arrives at $4,200 against your $2,800 estimate.
• (c) The couple mentions a "small welcome thing."
• (d) The bride's father calls you directly for the first time, in month nine, about the bar.
• (e) The guest list goes from 140 to 158 without anyone raising it.

B.6. Solve a shortfall. Month eleven. $31,000 paid, $17,000 outstanding, $11,500 available. Outstanding: catering $8,900 (−14 days), rentals $3,400 (−7 days), band $1,900 (−30 days), florist $1,600 (−14 days), transport $1,200 (−7 days). Non-refundable to date: everything paid, plus 50% of catering.

Produce: the shortfall, the available savings, the call order, and the first sentence you say to each vendor.

B.7. Price a delay. A client asks to move three payment dates back by six weeks. Model the effect on the calendar. What is the aggregate effect, and at what point does accommodating individual requests become a decision that requires a conversation?

Part C: Real-World Application ⭐⭐–⭐⭐⭐

C.1. Build the tracker. ⭐⭐ Seven columns, with a totals row, a contingency-remaining line, and a projected-final-variance formula. Make it something you would actually update in fifteen minutes.

C.2. Ask three vendors about staging. ⭐⭐⭐ Contact three real vendors in different categories and ask, as a planner, whether they stage balances and under what conditions. Record the answers. Does the §7.2.1 pattern hold in your market?

C.3. The client-funds question. ⭐⭐⭐ Find out what applies where you work. Speak to an accountant, and search your state's guidance on holding client funds in a service business. Write 400 words on what you found, including where you could not get a clear answer. This is research, not legal advice — note that in your write-up.

C.4. Change-order template. ⭐ Five lines. Test it by writing three real ones for a hypothetical wedding in under ninety seconds each.

C.5. Reverse-engineer a cluster. ⭐⭐ Collect real payment terms from five vendors in your market. Build the resulting calendar for a hypothetical 12-month engagement and compute what percentage lands in the final six weeks. Compare to §7.2's 40–55%.

C.6. Rehearse the shortfall. ⭐⭐ Write and say aloud both branches of the §7.7 script. Then have someone play a client who is embarrassed and evasive, and practice getting the two numbers without pressing.

Part D: Synthesis and Critical Thinking ⭐⭐⭐

D.1. Cross-chapter integration. Chapters 4, 6, and 7 all use the forced ranking, for three different purposes. Write the single-page document you would hand a new assistant explaining what the ranking does at each stage and why the same artifact serves three functions.

D.2. Critique the no-client-funds rule. Construct the case that refusing to handle vendor payments is planner convenience dressed as prudence — that it pushes administrative burden onto clients who hired you precisely to avoid it, and that a competent professional with a proper trust account serves clients better. Then respond. Under what circumstances would you change your position?

D.3. The accommodation problem. The chapter's opening shows six reasonable accommodations assembling into one crisis. Design a rule that would have caught it — one you could actually follow, that does not require refusing a client's first request.

D.4. Transfer. Apply the payment-calendar concept to a domain where a client faces lumpy, contract-driven outflows: a home renovation, a legal matter, a medical course of treatment, a business acquisition. Which of them does this well? What could events learn?

D.5. The moralizing prohibition. §7.7 says never to moralize about a client's finances, "not even lightly." Construct the case that a planner who says nothing when a client is making obviously unsustainable choices has failed them. Where is the line between judgment and duty of care? Write the two sentences you would say at that line.

Part M: Mixed Practice (Interleaved) ⭐⭐–⭐⭐⭐

M.1. (Ch.6 + Ch.7) A caterer's invoice arrives at $14,800 against a contracted $12,154. What is the first thing you check, and what are the three most likely explanations?

M.2. (Ch.5) The overage conversation's option three is always the guest list. Explain why, with arithmetic, and say why clients never propose it themselves.

M.3. (Ch.3) A payer — the bride's mother — asks to see the payment calendar. She is not a decider. What do you send, to whom, and what do you say?

M.4. (Looks like one thing, is another) A client asks to move a payment date for the third time. Is this a cash-flow problem, a shortfall, or a habit? Give the question that distinguishes them.

M.5. (Ch.2 + Ch.7) A client's "small welcome thing" has become a real event with a venue and a caterer. It is outside your scope and you have been informally helping for two months. Write what you say now — and note what you should have said in month four.

Part E: Research and Extension ⭐⭐⭐⭐

E.1. Investigate what happens to client deposits when a wedding vendor goes out of business. Find at least one documented case or a consumer-protection guidance page. What protections exist, if any, and what does that imply about how you advise clients on large deposits? (Chapter 8 will use this.)

E.2. Compare payment structures across three event categories: weddings, corporate meetings, and nonprofit galas. Interview or research each. Why do corporate clients frequently pay in arrears on invoice while wedding clients pay almost everything in advance? What does the difference reveal?

E.3. Build a cash-flow model for a planner's own business — not a client's. Twelve months, with revenue arriving on your own payment schedule and expenses (assistants, insurance, software, marketing) arriving on theirs. Identify your own crunch months. (This is Chapter 36's material; doing it now will make that chapter concrete.)

Solutions

Selected solutions: appendices/answers-to-selected.md. Rubrics for open-ended items: instructor-guide/additional-assessments/all-assessments.md.