Period Costs - What all do you include?

[Anonymous]

I am curious to see if anyone adds in hard & soft costs into their programs. For example, for a tradeshow, we put in the cost of the tradeshow as a period cost. However, now Finance/Leadership want us to include other costs associated with the show to show a true ROI analysis -- ie) travel & expenses, shipping costs of booth materials, etc. This may apply to non-event programs as well, but just to give you an example. How do you handle it at your organization? Anyone have leadership request this be added in? (Note: We have revenue explorer) Thank you!

[Anonymous]

I add travel, shipping, hotel, everything. So basically everyone's expense reports plus show costs. 

[Anonymous]

For me personally it was a nightmare trying to get travel/hotel costs from the sales team, but we do religiously track any other marketing-controlled expenses relating to a conference. So these are usually sponsorship fees, shipping of booth materials, giveaways, wifi access, power cord drop, pre-conference mailings, etc. I guess for a TRUE ROI you would want to loop in the costs of sending BD folks out to the conference. We just don't. 

[Anonymous]

BTW Joy, for what its worth, I drag/drop any invoices into an inbox folder dedicated to the specific conference and simply tally it all up at month-end of the given conference. Easier than trying to add everything in as you go. Just my 2cents on keeping sanity. 

[Anonymous]

The key is consistency. You talked about those "soft costs", but those are very real and should be included. True "soft costs" for me are time and effort put in by employees... i.e. how much time did we divert from doing more content or PPC or whatever to prepare for this event? What is a marketing coordinator/manager worth? etc. etc.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your two cents, everyone! I appreciate it!

Naor---Yes, I think finance will be collecting the other costs and I can take them from Financial Force and then enter them into MKTO from there. I'll likely do a once/mo schedule so I don't go crazy, ha!

Jason--Thanks! Yes, I agree.


Is there a faster way to get the period costs into the program other than the drag/drop feature? I don't think so, but just making sure I'm not missing a cool trick or anything! Thanks!

[Anonymous]

To the best of my knowledge, the drag/drop is the only way. 

What I have learned is that you MUST include any period cost (including $0) for programs that you wish to include in analyzer models. 

Not sure if that has changed but this is from like 2 years ago. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Naor! Yes, I am aware of the $0 (or in some cases $1) to be included in the analyzer. 🙂 I don't think that has changed.

OK, good to know, thank you for your help!!