Comparing hotel contracts and calculating the "real" cost of an event can be one of the most tedious parts of a planner’s job. Hidden taxes, service charges, and varying F&B minimums often make it feel like you’re comparing apples to oranges.
By using the Budget from Hotel Proposals option within the Budget Playground, you can turn complex bids into a clear, side-by-side comparison in minutes. This feature removes the guesswork by extracting critical financial data for you, allowing you to build a budget grounded in real-world numbers rather than estimates.

Instantly Compare & Convert: Building Your Budget from Hotel Bids

The Value: Stop squinting at the fine print. Upload up to three proposals and let Aletheia do the heavy lifting. You’ll get a standardized breakdown of costs—including taxes and service charges—allowing you to generate a full event budget based on actual venue data and move from "searching" to "planned" in record time.

Prerequisite: Have Your Proposals Ready

To use this feature, please ensure:
Hotel Proposals: You have the digital copies of the proposals you wish to compare.
Limit: You can upload up to 3 proposals at a time to create a side-by-side comparison and budget.

How to Build Your Budget from Proposals

Follow these steps to extract your Venue and F&B costs and build your plan:
1. Access the Budget Playground
From your event's global menu, click on Budget, then select the Budget Playground option.
2. Upload Your Documents
Select the option to create a budget from Hotel Proposals. You can pull files directly from your integrated 3rd-party apps or upload them from your local machine.
3. Review the Automated Cost Breakdown
Once uploaded, Aletheia scans the documents and organizes the data into a clean, easy-to-read table. For every proposal, you will see a clear breakdown of:

• Room Rate: Base rate vs. rate including taxes.
• Meeting Space Rental: Base rental vs. rental including taxes.
• F&B Minimum: The base minimum vs. total including taxes and service charges.

4. Compare "Acceptable, Better, and Best"
Aletheia automatically ranks your options. You will find a dedicated section explaining why the proposals were classified this way. All major points—from tax impacts to F&B value—are clearly stated.

Deep-Dive Analysis (New!)

Beyond just the numbers, you can now use pre-defined AI prompts to analyze the fine print across all uploaded proposals. This allows you to compare the "risk" and "flexibility" of each contract instantly. Try prompts such as:
"Show me the cancellation clauses across these proposals."
"Compare the attrition clauses—which one offers the most flexibility?"
"Summarize the over-and-above fees (WiFi, power, etc.) for each venue."
“Identify any complimentary concessions offered in each bid.”

Generate and Fine-Tune Your Full Budget

Once you have reviewed the data, click to generate a full event budget. Aletheia uses the Venue and F&B figures as the "anchor" for your financial plan.
Once the detailed budget is generated, you have Total Charge over the numbers:
Managing Categories: Add or delete categories and sub-categories as desired.
Live Adjustments: As you add or subtract dollar amounts within a category, the total updates automatically.
Smart Regeneration: If your attendee count or dates change, you can regenerate the budget. You will be prompted to "Retain Edits," which allows you to keep your manual category changes and percentage allocations while the system updates the new total costs.

Saving and Exporting

Once you are satisfied with your refined budget:
Save: Click Save to store your current version in the Budget Playground.
Download: Export your comparison and full budget in several formats:
PowerPoint (.ppt) & Google Slides for presentations.
PDF & Word (.docx) for formal records.