COLO gives event planners a single workspace for scoping events, coordinating vendors, tracking long timelines, and invoicing at milestones — without spreading the event across a spreadsheet timeline, a separate vendor email thread, a contracting tool, and a fourth app to chase deposits.
TL;DR
Event planners use COLO to scope events, coordinate vendors, track long timelines and invoice at milestones. Projects hold the whole event timeline instead of a spreadsheet that is six weeks out of date, client and vendor contracts live in one place with their own deposit schedules, and the calendar handles event days, vendor calls and load-in slots.
Who this is for
You are a solo event planner or a small event-planning team running brand launches, corporate conferences, private parties, and the occasional charity gala. A typical month is two events in delivery, three in planning, one in the contracting phase, and a long tail of vendor follow-ups, deposit invoices, and timeline updates that never quite stay in sync across all the people involved.
The friction tends to be the same shape:
- Timelines live in a spreadsheet nobody reads. A 60-line spreadsheet timeline is technically the source of truth; in practice it is six weeks out of date because the venue moved the load-in slot.
- Vendor contracts and venue contracts are different shapes, same problem. Each vendor (caterer, florist, AV, photographer, venue) has their own contract, their own deposit schedule, and their own way of asking when they will get paid.
- Client deposits are a hostage situation. The event is in eight weeks; the venue needs the deposit in two; the client has not signed the planning contract — and the conversation gets tense fast.
Three features event planners use every week
Projects that hold the whole event timeline
Run each event as a project with milestones — discovery, venue booking, vendor confirmation, run-of-show, load-in, event day, wrap. With COLO's project system, you can implement your project plan by assigning tasks, allocating resources, and coordinating activities. Track your project's performance against the plan. Your team sees the timeline; vendors see only their slice; the client sees the high-level progress in their portal.
Contracts for clients and vendors that live in one place
Build reusable templates for client planning agreements, vendor agreements, venue addenda, and supplier confirmations — and e-sign them inline. Contracts can greatly enhance the management of agreements, ensuring better compliance, organization, and efficiency. Every signed contract is timestamped and stored against the event, so the vendor deposit schedule and the client payment schedule live next to each other.
Calendar that handles event days, vendor calls, and load-in slots
Run event days, vendor calls, venue site visits, and load-in slots against the right event on one calendar. The calendar feature offers a host of benefits, enhancing scheduling, productivity, and coordination for both users and clients. By integrating a robust calendar, users can improve organizational efficiency and facilitate better time management and coordination. The team sees the firm-wide week; the client sees only their event milestones.
For more, see project management and contracts.
A typical event in COLO for an event planner
- Enquiry — a brand or couple fills your contact form with their event brief; the lead lands as a client record with the date, the budget bracket, and the event type captured.
- Onboarding — you send a branded proposal scoping the planning fee and the milestones; a planning agreement as a signed contract; and the deposit invoice. The client signs, pays, and the event opens as a project with a full timeline.
- Delivery — vendor confirmations, run-of-show, load-in details, and supplier deliveries log against the event; the client sees the high-level milestones in their portal; the team sees the full task list.
- Payment — the planning fee invoices at milestones (deposit on signing, mid-point, post-event balance); vendor deposit pass-throughs log as expenses against the event; the finance dashboard shows revenue and margin per event.
How event planners use COLO today
Monday morning, the team opens the workspace to a board of six active events — two in the final month, three in mid-planning, one being booked. Each event holds the timeline, the vendor list, the signed contracts, and the milestone invoice schedule against a single record. The brand launch in three weeks is on track; the conference in October has a venue addendum that needs the client signature by Friday; the wedding gala next month has a caterer whose deposit is overdue. Nothing of that picture was assembled by hand.
Through the week, vendor confirmations log against the event; the run-of-show timeline updates once and the client sees the new version in their portal; the caterer's deposit is paid from the pass-through expense line and reconciled against the event budget. When the venue moves the load-in slot by an hour on Wednesday, the calendar updates once — the team and the client both see the new time without an "FYI, slight change" email going to fifteen vendors.
By the end of the brand launch, the post-event balance invoice fires; the client pays from the portal; the event closes with the timeline, contracts, and vendor list archived against the record. Six months later, when the same client wants a smaller summer activation, last year's event becomes the template — the vendor list, the contract templates, the milestone schedule — and the new event opens fast.
What it costs vs your current stack
Most small event-planning teams carry a four-tool stack — a project tool, a separate contracting tool, a billing app, and a spreadsheet for the vendor list. The monthly bill comes to roughly $90–140 before the first event of the month is booked. COLO replaces the four with one workspace.
| Tool | Plan | Cost/month |
|---|---|---|
| Current 4-tool stack | Asana + HoneyBook + QuickBooks + Sheets | ~$120 |
| COLO Solo | Free | $0 |
| COLO Pro | Per user/mo | $18 |
| COLO Grow | Per user/mo | $24 |
You swap a $120/month stack for one tool that already does this work. Pro covers up to 5 planners; Grow adds the white-label client portal on the agency's custom domain.
FAQ
Q: Can I track vendor deposits and final payments alongside the client's payment schedule?
Yes. Vendor payments log as expenses against the event with their own due dates; the client's invoices schedule alongside them. The finance view shows the net cash flow for the event so you are not paying a vendor out of pocket while waiting for the client.
Q: How do I share the run-of-show with the client without showing them every internal task?
The client portal shows the high-level milestones and the run-of-show; your internal task list, vendor negotiations, and contingency notes stay on your side.
Q: Can I run a recurring annual event (a conference, a fundraising gala) as a template?
Yes. Save the event project as a template — the timeline, the vendor list, the contract templates — and duplicate it for next year's edition with adjusted dates.
Q: How does COLO compare with running a generic project tool plus an e-signature tool plus a billing tool?
For most small event-planning teams, the all-in-one keeps the timeline, the contracts, and the milestone billing tied to the same event record. See our post on best workflow systems for growing businesses.
Q: Can the client portal carry our agency's brand and domain?
Yes — the Grow plan includes a white-label client portal on your custom domain. See our pricing for plan details.
Q: Can we run vendor contracts and venue addenda with different signing-order requirements?
Yes. Each contract template carries its own signing-order rule — a venue addendum might need the venue and the client both signing; a vendor confirmation might need the vendor only. The audit log records every signer.
Q: How do we run the wedding-day run-of-show alongside the 18-month planning timeline?
The planning timeline holds the long milestones; the wedding day itself is a finer-grained task list under the same project, so the run-of-show is one tab away from the contract and the deposit schedule.
Q: Can we invoice the planning fee in one currency and pay vendors in another?
Yes. The client invoice issues in the client's currency; vendor payments log as expenses in their own currency; the finance dashboard converts to the agency's reporting currency on the day each payment cleared.
Q: Can we run a recurring annual event as a saved template?
Yes. Save the event project as a template — timeline, vendor list, contract templates, milestone schedule — and duplicate it for next year's edition with adjusted dates.
Q: How do we keep the client portal showing the high-level milestones but not the internal vendor margins?
The portal shows what you choose to share — the milestones, the run-of-show, the approved budget. Internal supplier margins, vendor negotiation notes, and contingency plans stay on the team side.
Pricing
Solo plan is free forever for one planner. See our pricing for Pro (up to 5 users) and Grow (up to 10 users, white-label, custom domain) plans.