Chasing money is no fun. Advance deposits and advance payments lock in commitments and sort things out before you wind up in a last minute scramble for people and/or $.

Fast Cash. One group we know has a policy about paying on time -- last person to get in their advance deposit is on the hook to buy a round of drinks the first night of the event. We publish who has paid so everyone knows who is last. And we do collect.

Transparency is good. We email a spreadsheet the day after the event with every charge divided across all the players. A guy can verify that if he was not there for a particular lunch, he did not pay for it. The finance committee for our group updates the spreadsheet every night and stashes all the receipts in an envelope. Anyone can see receipts at any time. By keeping a running total we know if we are slipping off track, and we can get bills out quickly once the event is complete (because those credit card bills show up fast).

Resort Central Billing Tip. If you arrange central billing for your group through the resort make sure all your guys know the rules—charge something to your room and it will come back to be charged to you.

Make a Budget. As we prep for our annual event we build a simple budget (example below). As we book hotel, vans, dinner reservations we are checking against the budget to make sure we are on track. It is critical for our guys have no money surprises when they get home.

For our 7 day, 6 night, 8 round event we budgeted $2878 per person (excluding airfare, almost all our guys cash in frequent flyer miles). We were within $25 of the per person budget—16 years experience has taught us how to manage the finances.

$1926                    6 nights, 5 rounds at Resort (negotiated price)

$0                           resort rate negotiated to include 3 lunches, tax, service charges

$258                       6 dinners (average $43 pp)

$36                         2 lunches (average $18 pp)

$71                         hospitality suite munchies and booze

$20                         hole in one pool (carries over year to year if not won)

$40                         closest to pin pool

$200                       tournament prize pool

$42                         share of vans and gas