Event hire and services automation

A quote becomes a booking when the client accepts and pays a deposit, and plenty of quotes sit somewhere in between. Someone chases acceptance, checks the deposit has landed, sends the confirmation and updates the booking every time the client changes the numbers or adds an item. The chasing and confirmations follow a timetable keyed to the event date, so they run as fixed software, with the deposit matched to the booking from your bank feed. AI reads client emails for changes and drafts the update to the booking, which the coordinator checks before it is saved. Gear held for an unpaid quote is released on rules you set, and the coordinator decides on any exception.

Every confirmed job needs a delivery, a set-up, a collection and sometimes a pack-down crew, often across several jobs on the same Friday. Someone builds the run sheet from the bookings, adds access notes and contact names, and rebuilds it when a job moves. Where your hire software or a routing tool already plans the runs, we feed it rather than replace it. The run sheet, pick lists and crew notices are generated from the bookings by fixed rules, and any booking missing an address, an access time or a site contact is flagged a set number of days before the event. The operations lead decides the order of the runs and who goes where.

Venues, councils and event organisers ask suppliers for documents before a bump-in: certificates of currency, site plans, structure specifications for marquees and staging, risk assessments and crew lists. The same documents are found and sent again for every event, and an expired certificate is easy to miss. We keep a register of your standard documents with their expiry dates, and the pack for each event is assembled from it and sent on a schedule. Nothing in that needs AI. Expiring documents are flagged to the person responsible well before they lapse. Anything event-specific, such as a site plan or a risk assessment for an unusual location, is prepared and signed off by your qualified people.

Larger jobs, such as a corporate conference or a festival, run as projects with their own documents: the gear list, the purchase orders, the site plans, the run sheet, variations agreed with the client and the sign-off at the end. Project administrators keep these in folders and spreadsheets, and they drift apart as the job changes. Fixed software keeps one job record with every document attached, versions tracked and each variation recorded with who approved it. AI drafts a short summary of the changes since the last client update, which the project manager edits before it goes. The record shows what was agreed, by whom and when.

When a truck comes back on Monday morning, the warehouse counts what returned, notes what is damaged or dirty, and someone compares it with what went out. Missing chairs, a stained tablecloth or a torn marquee wall all need to be recorded before the gear goes out again. Packaged hire software often handles the check-in itself, and we build around it where it does. What usually stays manual is the follow-through. Fixed rules compare returned quantities with the dispatch record, list the shortfalls and damage against the job, and send the item to cleaning or repair. AI reads the crew’s free-text notes and photo captions into the damage record, and the warehouse lead checks it before anything is charged.

Once the check-in is done, someone works out what to charge the client for missing or damaged items under your hire terms, writes to the client and either deducts it from a bond or invoices it. It is awkward work, so it often waits until the charge is hard to justify. The charge is calculated from your price list and hire terms with no AI involved, and the client gets the itemised list with the check-in record attached. The coordinator approves every damage charge before it goes, and any dispute goes back to them to resolve with the client.

The final invoice has to reflect the confirmed booking, any changes on the day, extra labour or delivery charges, the deposit already paid and any damage charges, and accounts pieces this together from emails and the run sheet. Invoices sit while they wait. Fixed software builds each invoice from the booking, the dispatch and return records and the agreed variations, deducts the deposit and checks the invoice for completeness before release. Your accounting software already sends basic reminders, and balance chasing follows a cadence keyed to the event date. Disputes and payment arrangements go to the accounts lead.

Sub-hire companies, freight carriers and consumables suppliers invoice in their own formats, often weeks after the event. An accounts officer matches each one to the purchase order and the job, finds that the supplier billed an extra day or an item that was cancelled, and emails the coordinator to ask. Capturing the invoice is well served by packaged tools. The matching after capture is rule work. Each invoice is checked against the purchase order and the job’s confirmed dates within your tolerances, approvals are routed to the coordinator, and the cost is posted against the job. AI reads only the invoices that capture tools cannot.

In the weeks before a busy season, the shared inbox holds new enquiries, quote acceptances, booking changes, supplier confirmations, venue requests and invoices, all mixed together. Someone reads each message and forwards it, and a message that sits unread can become a job with the wrong gear on the truck. AI classifies each email and matches it to the client, the booking or the purchase order. Fixed rules then route it to the hire coordinator, the project administrator, the warehouse or accounts, or straight into another automated process. Anything the classifier is unsure of goes to a review queue for a person to sort.

Venues, event planners and corporate clients who book several times a year expect their usual pricing, their purchase order number on every invoice and their preferred delivery arrangements. That knowledge often lives in one coordinator’s head. Account details, agreed rates and invoicing requirements are held against the client record and applied to each new quote and invoice by fixed rules. AI has nothing to do here. The account manager is told when a regular client has not booked for their usual season, and decides whether to get in touch.

The owner wants to know which jobs made money once sub-hire, labour and damage were counted, which stock earns its keep and which sits in the warehouse, and what is booked for the coming season. Someone builds that by hand from the hire software, the accounting system and a spreadsheet. The extraction, calculations and layout run as fixed software on a set day each month. AI drafts a few lines on what changed for the owner to edit. The figures come from your systems, not from AI.