An event quotation can be compared with another only when the request fixes what is being priced: how many days, how many people, how many of them need a room and for how many nights, what they eat, how they travel, what equipment and interpretation the sessions need, and what is paid to participants at whose rates. Write the request in those units, ask every organiser to price the same quantities, and keep payments to participants apart from the organiser's own charges. The rest of this guide sets out what to specify, and the worksheet and template below do the counting.
It is written for the request and the comparison. Running the event itself, from the invitation to the closeout file, is covered in the workshop and training logistics guide.
Describe the event in the units it will be priced in
Most mismatched quotations come from counting one thing two ways. Give each line its own unit and its own count:
| Line | Unit | How to count it |
|---|---|---|
| Venue | UnitRoom-day | How to count itMain room and each breakout room, for each day of sessions |
| Meals and refreshments | UnitParticipant-day, by meal | How to count itPeople attending × days attended; say which meals and tea breaks |
| Accommodation | UnitRoom-night | How to count itRooms needed × nights, including arrival and departure |
| Participant transport | UnitVehicle trip, or vehicle-day | How to count itBy route and pick-up point, when the organiser provides the transport |
| Sound, projection and IT | UnitSet-day | How to count itEach room equipped, for each day |
| Interpretation | UnitInterpreter-day | How to count itBy language pair and mode, for each day |
| Materials and stationery | UnitParticipant pack | How to count itOne per participant, with what is in it |
| Banners and signs | UnitPiece | How to count itBy size and wording |
| Daily allowance or per diem | UnitEligible participant-day | How to count itOnly those your rules make eligible × days they qualify |
| Travel reimbursement | UnitEligible traveller | How to count itThose travelling from outside the venue's city, under your rules |
| Organiser's management fee | UnitEvent, or a stated basis | How to count itOne line, never hidden inside other rates |
Participant-days and room-nights are not interchangeable. Thirty participants for two days are sixty participant-days of meals, but if only twelve of them travel from the districts, and arrive the night before and leave the morning after, they need rooms for three nights: thirty-six room-nights in single rooms, or eighteen if they share two to a room. Neither is sixty.
The venue: suitability before brochure capacity
Ask for the room at the layout your sessions use. A hall quoted at theatre capacity holds far fewer people at round tables or in a U-shape, and group work needs breakout space. Then ask the organiser to confirm, for the dates you have given:
Seating and space
Capacity at your layout, breakout rooms, and somewhere to run registration that is not the doorway, especially where allowances are paid on arrival.
Power and backup
Reliable power for sound, projection and interpretation equipment, and what happens when the mains fails.
Heating or cooling
For the season of the event. A room that is comfortable in October may not be in January.
Access for the people attending
Approach roads, parking for participant transport, and arrangements that let women participants attend and return home safely, which may decide the venue, the timing and the transport.
Safety checks
Exits, fire equipment and a risk check of the venue and the routes to it, with who decides to postpone or move the event if conditions change.
Prayer times and space
Breaks in the agenda that match prayer times, and space to pray.
Accommodation and travel
State who needs a room, for which nights, and on what basis: single or shared rooms, and any arrangement your rules require for women participants. Say whether participants arrive the day before; a one-day event for people travelling from distant districts usually needs an arrival night, or the agenda starts late.
For transport, say whether the organiser provides vehicles (priced by trip or vehicle-day, by route and pick-up point) or whether participants travel themselves and are reimbursed (priced as payments to participants, below). The two are often mixed on one event; list each group separately so the quotation does not count anyone twice.
Meals and dietary needs
List the meals and tea breaks for each day, the number attending each one, and any dietary requirement you know of. Say whether meals are served on site. Moving participants to a restaurant mid-session costs time and attendance.
Printing, materials and visibility
For each printed item, give the size, the number of pages and copies, the language or languages, and whether it is colour. For banners and signs, give the size and the wording, and say whether your donor's visibility rules govern the use of logos; send the approved artwork rather than asking the organiser to recreate it.
Sound, IT, interpretation and recording
Name the equipment each room needs (microphones, projector and screen, laptops, internet) and for which days. For interpretation, give the language pairs (Dari, Pashto, English), the mode (consecutive or simultaneous, with booths and headsets for the latter) and the sessions that need it, confirmed against the participant list rather than assumed from the location.
If sessions are to be photographed or recorded, say so in the request together with your rules: whose consent is needed, who may be photographed, and who keeps the files. Photographs of participants are personal data.
Allowances and per diems: who decides, who pays
The rates, the eligibility rules and the documents a participant must show are your organisation's decision, and they should be in writing before anyone travels. The organiser's role is to pay against the approved list at those rates, verify identity at the point of payment, collect an individual acknowledgement and reconcile each day.
Keep three things apart in the request and in the quotation:
- The payments themselves, at your approved rates, for the eligible participants and days. They are the same whichever organiser pays them out.
- The organiser's charge for paying them, if it charges one: one line, priced openly.
- The organiser's other charges for the venue, meals, rooms and equipment.
Do not put participants' names or identity numbers in the request. Share the approved list only after award, through the channel your data-protection rules specify, and say who may change it. Where the organiser also handles cash, the cash administration page describes the controls around a field payment.
Changes, cancellations and late additions
Participant lists change. Write the rules in advance: the date after which the list is locked, who may approve a substitution, the notice needed to add or cancel rooms or meals, and how a cancelled or postponed event is charged. Ask each organiser to state its cancellation charges by notice period, and to price late additions at the unit rates in its quotation. If an event may be moved because access to the venue changes, say who decides and how the costs already committed are treated.
The closeout file
Name the records you need and when: daily attendance sheets against the approved list, payment acknowledgements and the daily reconciliation, supplier invoices tied to budget lines, photographs taken under your rules, and a closeout report comparing planned and actual attendance and cost. The workshop guide has a closeout checklist and a worked reconciliation of attendance and payments.
Compare the quotations line by line
Lay each quotation against the same lines and quantities: unit, quantity, rate, currency and subtotal, then what it excludes and its total. Add back anything one organiser left out that another included, such as taxes, interpretation equipment or the venue's power backup, and compare the organiser's charges separately from payments to participants.
Worksheet · works in your browser, nothing is sent
Event budget and quotation check
It opens with an invented two-day workshop and no rates. Describe your event, then enter rates from your budget or from a quotation. A blank rate is shown as missing, not counted as zero (enter 0 for something provided free), and the totals read “Incomplete” until every line is priced or marked as not needed. Payments to participants are kept apart from the organiser's charges.
3. Totals
- The organiser's charges
- Incomplete
- Payments to participants
- Incomplete
- Total
- Incomplete
The totals are incomplete. A line without a rate is left out of them, not counted as zero.
12 lines need a rate: Venue, main room; Breakout rooms; Meals and refreshments; Accommodation; Participant transport arranged by the organiser; Sound, projection and IT; Participant materials and stationery; Banners and signs; Handling of participant payments, if charged; Organiser's management fee; Daily allowance at the approved rate; Travel reimbursement at the approved rate.
Compare quotations on the organiser's charges, on the same quantities. Allowances and reimbursements follow the rates your organisation approves; a charge for paying them out belongs on its own line, never inside the payments.
The worksheet runs in your browser and sends nothing. It works quantities out from the event you describe, counts rooms by how many people share each one, takes your rates from your budget or a quotation, shows a blank rate as missing rather than as zero (a rate of 0 is read as free), marks the totals incomplete until every line is priced, and downloads the result as a spreadsheet.
The template
Send the request in this form, with the comparison table at the end completed by each organiser in the same way.
Request for quotation: event management in Afghanistan
Completed by the requesting organisation; the price schedule by each organiser, in the same units.
The request
Requesting organisation
ContactName, role, email and telephone
RFQ reference and date
Quotations dueDate, time and how to submit
Currency of the quotation
The event
Kind of eventWorkshop, training, conference, consultation
City or province, and venue if chosen
DatesFirm, or a window
Event days and session hours
Participants each dayExpected, and the maximum
Agenda layoutPlenary layout, breakout rooms, group work
Venue requirements
- Capacity at our layout, with breakout space
- Registration space away from the entrance
- Reliable power, with backup
- Heating or cooling for the season
- Access, transport and timing that suit the people attending
- Exits, fire equipment and a risk check of venue and routes
- Prayer breaks and space
Accommodation and travel
Participants needing a roomNumber, and nights each
Room basisSingle or shared; any requirement for women participants
Transport provided by the organiserRoutes, pick-up points, trips
Travel reimbursed to participantsWho is eligible, under our rules
Meals, materials and equipment
Meals and tea breaks each dayAnd dietary requirements
PrintingItem, size, pages, copies, language, colour
Banners and signsSize, wording, donor visibility rules
Sound, projection and IT, by room and day
InterpretationLanguage pairs, mode, sessions
Photography or recordingWhether, and under which consent rules
Payments to participants
Daily allowance or per diemOur approved rate and eligibility
Travel reimbursementOur approved rate and eligibility
Documents a participant must show
Who approves the list and changes to it
- Identity checked against the approved list before payment
- Individual acknowledgement for every payment
- Payments reconciled each day
- No names or identity numbers sent before award
Changes and cancellations
Participant list locked on
Substitutions approved by
Notice to add or cancel rooms and meals
Cancellation charges by notice periodThe organiser states
Closeout file
- Daily attendance sheets against the approved list
- Payment acknowledgements and daily reconciliations
- Supplier invoices tied to budget lines
- Photographs taken under our rules
- Closeout report: planned against actual attendance and cost
DueDays after the event
Price schedule (each organiser completes)
| Line | Unit | Quantity | Rate | Currency | Subtotal | Excluded or assumed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Venue, main room | ||||||
| Breakout rooms | ||||||
| Meals and refreshments | ||||||
| Accommodation | ||||||
| Participant transport | ||||||
| Sound, projection and IT | ||||||
| Interpretation | ||||||
| Participant materials | ||||||
| Banners and signs | ||||||
| Handling of participant payments, if charged | ||||||
| Organiser's management fee | ||||||
| Taxes, on their own line | ||||||
| Total of the organiser's charges |
Payments passed to participants (each organiser confirms)
| Payment | Eligible | Days or trips | Approved rate | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily allowance or per diem | ||||
| Travel reimbursement |
Organiser's declaration
Organiser
Authorised signatory
Signature and date
Quotation valid until
Where Zhikal fits
Zhikal organises workshops, trainings, conferences and stakeholder meetings through its event management service, and pays participant allowances under the same contract through cash administration, so the attendance record and the payment record come from one team and are reconciled against each other every day. For one client, OSDRA, it delivered 27 workshop days across Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, Zabul and Nimroz in 2022, covering the venue, meals, participant transport allowances, IT equipment, sound and media systems, with a payment record for every disbursement. The figure counts days of workshops, not separate events.
To have an event priced, send the completed request, or the agenda, dates, places and participant numbers you have, to the team in Kabul.