event-debrief

---
name: event-debrief
description: Turns one night into a single dated page showing what it actually earned after VAT, staff and food, what it cost in licence allowance and owner hours, what went wrong and who noticed, and a recommendation on whether to run it again with the number that decides it. Use the morning after any event, and before agreeing to repeat one because it felt busy.
---

# What the night actually earned, and whether to run it again

You give this the till and booking figures for the night, the rota and hours worked, the invoices for anything bought for it, and what happened. You get back one dated page: the money in and out with VAT taken off the income before anything is called profit, the hours nobody counted, the licence allowance the night spent, what broke and who reported it, and a recommendation to repeat, change or stop with the single number the recommendation rests on. It will not tell you the night was a success because the room was full.

## What it does

1. **Close the night's numbers first, from the till and the booking system, before anybody's memory gets involved.** Read and record: total takings by category (tickets, wet, food, other), the number of tickets sold against the number admitted, no shows, walk ins, the number of covers, refunds issued, chargebacks notified, comps and staff drinks, and voids. Take each figure from the system that holds it in the same breath as writing it down, and never retype a number into a summary you then reason from. A debrief built from a recollection of a busy bar is a debrief that cannot be checked next month, and the most common error is a genuine one: transcribing a figure and then treating the transcription as the record.

2. **Take the VAT out of the income before you call anything profit, because the customer's money was never all yours.** GOV.UK gives the standard rate as 20%, applying to most goods and services. Restaurant meals, hot takeaway food and alcoholic drinks are standard rated, so for a VAT registered venue a GBP 4,800 night at the bar is GBP 4,000 of income and GBP 800 owed. Where the business is not VAT registered, write that on the page with the date it was last checked against turnover, because a good run of events is exactly how a business crosses the registration threshold without noticing. Every comparison in the debrief is made on the same basis, net or gross, and the page says which.

3. **Cost the labour at what it really cost, including the hours before and after the doors.** Use the actual rota, not the plan. The National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates from April 2026 on GOV.UK are GBP 12.71 an hour for those aged 21 and over, GBP 10.85 for 18 to 20, and GBP 8 for under 18 and for apprentices. Add employer national insurance and pension where they apply, and add the set up, the get out, the clean down and the hours the owner spent that nobody put on a rota. Those unrostered hours are the line that turns a night that looked profitable into one that was not, and leaving them out is not neutral: it is the reason the same tiring night gets repeated.

4. **Keep the tips out of the profit entirely, and check the night's tips were handled the way the law now requires.** The statutory Code of Practice on fair and transparent distribution of tips, which took effect on 1 October 2024, requires that "all tips are distributed to staff, at the latest, by the end of the month following the month in which the tips are paid by customers", that employers hold "a written tipping policy when qualifying tips are paid at or are otherwise attributable to a place of business on more than an occasional and exceptional basis", and that records "must be maintained for a period of three years beginning with the date on which the tip was paid". It requires "a clear and objective set of factors to determine the allocation and distribution of tips" and covers agency workers. A tip line inside the takings figure is a debrief that overstates the night and a policy problem at the same time.

5. **Cost the things bought for this night and nothing else, and separate them from what the venue would have spent anyway.** Direct costs are the act's fee, the hire of anything, the printing, the decorations, the extra security, the temporary event notice fee of GBP 21 where one was used, and the food and drink bought specifically for the event. The waste goes here too: what was ordered, what was sold, what was thrown away, at cost. Do not allocate rent, insurance or the head chef's salary, because the venue was open anyway and allocating fixed costs to one night produces a number that answers no question an owner actually has.

6. **Record what the night spent that was not money, because some of it is finite.** The licence allowance is the clearest example. GOV.UK states that a single premises "can have up to 15 TENs applied for in one year, as long as the total length of the events is not more than 21 days", and that an individual can get "up to 5 TENs a year" or "up to 50 TENs a year" with a personal licence. A night that used one of fifteen has spent something. So has a night that used the goodwill of neighbours, the patience of the regulars who could not get their usual table, and the Sunday the kitchen team lost. Write each down, because these are the costs that decide whether a profitable event is still a good idea in November.

7. **Write down what went wrong while people still remember it, with the name of the person who saw it.** One line each, no blame: the queue at the door and how long it ran, whether the capacity count was reached and what happened, anything that blocked an exit, any near miss, the point in the evening service fell behind, what the kitchen ran out of and at what time, what the bar ran out of, any complaint made on the night and whether it was resolved, and anything a customer said twice. Attach a name to each observation. An unattributed problem cannot be asked about next week, and the difference between a debrief and a moan is that the debrief can be followed up.

8. **Ask for reviews honestly or not at all, and record what you asked and of whom.** Schedule 20 paragraph 13 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, in force since 6 April 2025, bans submitting or commissioning "a fake consumer review" and a review that conceals "the fact it has been incentivised", and imposes a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent both. The CMA's guidance describes the banned category as including "reviews that conceal the fact that they have been incentivised". So a free drink for a review is only lawful if the review says the drink was given, asking only the happy tables is publishing reviews "in a misleading way", and a review from anyone who was not there is out entirely. Record what was asked, of whom, and what if anything was offered.

9. **End with one recommendation and the single number it rests on, then put the next decision in the diary.** Three options only: run it again as it was, run it again with named changes, or stop. State the number the recommendation turns on, being net profit per owner hour, and show the calculation. Name the two or three changes that would move that number most, each with an owner and a date. Then set the date by which the decision to rebook must be made, working back from the notice period the act or the licence needs. A debrief with no date attached is a debrief that gets read the week after the rebooking was due.

## Then it checks

1. Every money figure names the system it was read from and the date and time it was read, and no figure in the summary was retyped from another document in this pack rather than read from source.
2. Income is stated net of VAT where the business is VAT registered, the page says which basis is used, and the VAT status is dated.
3. The labour line uses hours actually worked including set up, get out, clean down and unrostered owner hours, and the rate used for each person is at or above the applicable April 2026 minimum.
4. Tips are excluded from both income and profit, and the page records whether the written tipping policy exists and whether the night's tips were distributed within the period the Code requires.
5. Direct costs contain nothing the venue would have spent had the event not happened, and the temporary event notice fee and allowance use are recorded where a notice was used.
6. The recommendation is one of run again, run again with changes, or stop, and it names net profit per owner hour with the calculation shown and the date the rebooking decision is due.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is. An observation about a member of staff goes to that person before it goes anywhere else.
- Never state that an event was a success, or that it performed well, without the number. A full room at a loss is a full room at a loss, and the phrase that does most damage in hospitality is "it was busy".
- Never quote an industry average, a benchmark margin, a typical spend per head or a standard event profit for a single independent venue. No such published figure exists for one venue in one town, and an owner who measures a good night against a borrowed number will stop running the good nights.
- Never compare this night to another on a different basis. Net against gross, or with unrostered hours against without, produces a comparison that is worse than no comparison because it looks rigorous.
- Refuse to write, solicit or draft any review, any request that offers something of value for a review without disclosing it, or any instruction to approach only satisfied customers. Those are banned practices under Schedule 20, not tactics.
- Never treat a chargeback as a refund or a refund as a cost of sale. Record each separately with its date, because they come from different decisions and only one of them is yours.
- Never use this page to decide a person's pay, hours or job. It is an event record, it was written the morning after by people who were tired, and it is not evidence for an employment decision.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own till, rota, invoices and booking system, and for their accountant to check before any figure in it is used for VAT, payroll or tax. It records what was read and what was missing; it is not a set of accounts and it is not tax advice.

## Built from
- GOV.UK, "VAT rates", https://www.gov.uk/vat-rates, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: the 20% standard rate applying to most goods and services, used in step 2.
- GOV.UK, "National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates", https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: the April 2026 rates of GBP 12.71, GBP 10.85 and GBP 8 used in step 3 and in check 3.
- Department for Business and Trade, "Code of practice on fair and transparent distribution of tips", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/distributing-tips-fairly-statutory-code-of-practice/code-of-practice-on-fair-and-transparent-distribution-of-tips-html-version, published 29 July 2024, read 16 September 2026: the distribution deadline, the written policy duty, the three year record duty and the fair and transparent factors in step 4, and the 1 October 2024 commencement date.
- GOV.UK, "Temporary Events Notice", https://www.gov.uk/temporary-events-notice, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: the GBP 21 fee in step 5 and the 15 notices and 21 days per premises and 5 or 50 per person allowances in step 6.
- Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Schedule 20, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/13/schedule/20, read 16 September 2026: paragraph 13 on fake reviews, concealed incentivised reviews, publishing reviews in a misleading way and the duty to take reasonable steps, in step 8, with the commencement date of 6 April 2025 shown on the page.
- Competition and Markets Authority, "Fake reviews" (CMA208), landing page https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fake-reviews-cma208 and short guide at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fake-reviews-cma208/short-guide-for-businesses-publishing-consumer-reviews-and-complying-with-consumer-protection-law, published 4 April 2025, read 16 September 2026: the description of concealed incentivised reviews and the reasonable and proportionate steps expected, in step 8.

# event-debrief

## You are given
The record of one event at a UK hospitality business. The takings, read from the till and the booking system with the system name, the report name and the date and time each figure was read: takings by category, tickets sold, people admitted, no shows, walk ins, covers, refunds, chargebacks, comps, staff drinks and voids. The venue's VAT status and the date it was last checked. The rota as worked, one row per person, with age band, hourly rate, rostered and actual hours including set up, get out and clean down, plus any unrostered owner hours, and whether employer national insurance and pension apply. The invoices for anything bought specifically for this event. The tips taken on the night, the tipping policy document if one exists, and the date the tips were or will be distributed. The temporary event notice reference and fee if one was used, with the count of notices used at this premises in the current year. The observations from the night, each already attributed to a named person. Any review request made, to whom, and what if anything was offered. And the judgements already made by Claude: which costs are direct and which are not, and the recommendation with the number it rests on.

## Produce
Write into a `./event-debrief-output/` folder:

1. `income.csv` with these columns in this order: `line_ref`, `category`, `gross_amount`, `vat_rate`, `vat_amount`, `net_amount`, `source_system`, `source_report`, `read_datetime`, `read_by`. `line_ref` is R001 upward. `category` is exactly one of `tickets`, `wet`, `food`, `other`, `refunds`, `chargebacks`, `comps`, `staff drinks`, `voids`, `tips`. `vat_rate` is `20`, `5`, `0` or `not registered`. The `tips` row is excluded from every total.
2. `attendance.csv` with columns: `metric`, `figure`, `source_system`, `source_report`, `read_datetime`. One row for each of: tickets sold, people admitted, no shows, walk ins, covers, capacity permitted, highest count recorded on the door.
3. `labour.csv` with columns: `person_ref`, `role`, `age_band`, `hourly_rate`, `rate_at_or_above_minimum`, `rostered_hours`, `actual_hours`, `set_up_hours`, `get_out_hours`, `unrostered`, `gross_pay`, `employer_ni`, `employer_pension`, `total_cost`. `age_band` is exactly one of `21 and over`, `18 to 20`, `under 18`, `apprentice`. `rate_at_or_above_minimum` is `yes` or `no`, tested against GBP 12.71, GBP 10.85, GBP 8 and GBP 8 respectively. `unrostered` is `yes` or `no`. Owner hours are rows like any other.
4. `direct-costs.csv` with columns: `cost_ref`, `description`, `supplier`, `invoice_date`, `net_amount`, `vat_amount`, `bought_for_this_event_only`, `would_have_been_spent_anyway`, `waste_at_cost`, `document_seen`. The last three named columns and `bought_for_this_event_only` take `yes` or `no` where they are not amounts. Any row with `would_have_been_spent_anyway` as `yes` is excluded from the total.
5. `non-money-costs.csv` with columns: `cost_type`, `amount_used`, `annual_allowance`, `remaining`, `notes`. One row for each of: temporary event notices at this premises, temporary event notices held by the named individual, total TEN days used against 21, owner hours, kitchen team days lost, regular customers displaced. Where an allowance does not apply, `annual_allowance` and `remaining` are left empty.
6. `night-log.csv` with columns: `observation_ref`, `time`, `area`, `observation_verbatim`, `observed_by`, `category`, `resolved_on_the_night`, `action_owner`, `action_due_date`. `category` is exactly one of `door and queue`, `capacity`, `escape route or safety`, `near miss`, `service`, `kitchen stock`, `bar stock`, `complaint`, `repeated customer comment`, `other`.
7. `review-requests.csv` with columns: `request_ref`, `who_was_asked`, `how_selected`, `channel`, `anything_offered`, `offer_description`, `disclosure_required`, `disclosure_wording_verbatim`. `how_selected` is exactly one of `every attendee`, `every ticket holder`, `selected by staff`, `selected on satisfaction`, `not recorded`. `anything_offered` and `disclosure_required` are each `yes` or `no`.
8. `result.csv` with columns: `metric`, `value`, `basis`, `calculation_shown`. One row for each of: gross income, VAT, net income, total labour cost, total direct cost, net profit, total owner hours, net profit per owner hour, recommendation, rebooking decision due date. `basis` is `net of VAT` or `gross, not VAT registered` and is identical on every row. `recommendation` carries exactly one of `run again as it was`, `run again with changes`, `stop`.
9. `gaps.md` - a numbered list of: any figure with no source system or read timestamp; any person paid below the applicable April 2026 minimum; any unrostered hours not recorded; any tips row appearing in a total; any missing tipping policy or distribution date; any direct cost with no document seen or that would have been spent anyway; any observation with no named observer; any review request selected on satisfaction or offering something without disclosure; and any missing element of the recommendation.

## Rules
- Codex measures, records and checks. It never invents, never rewords the owner's observations, and never makes the judgement that was supplied to it. Observations are recorded exactly as written.
- Every money figure carries its source system and the timestamp it was read. Never copy a figure from one output file into another; read it from the supplied source each time.
- Never include tips in income, in profit, or in any total. The tips row exists to record the amount and its handling, nothing else.
- Never allocate rent, insurance, salaried management, utilities or any other fixed cost to the event. Only costs the business would not have incurred had the event not happened belong in `direct-costs.csv`.
- Never write an industry average, a benchmark margin, a typical spend per head or a standard event profit. No such published figure exists for a single independent venue and none is to appear in any file.
- Never compare this event to another unless both carry the same `basis` value. Where a prior debrief used a different basis, record the difference and do not compute a comparison.
- Never record as acceptable any review request that offers something of value without disclosure, or that selects who to ask on the basis of how happy they seemed. Such rows are recorded as supplied and listed in `gaps.md`.
- Never record a chargeback as a refund or a refund as a cost of sale. Each has its own category row.
- Never compute the recommendation. It is supplied; where it is missing, `result.csv` carries an empty recommendation row and the fact is listed in `gaps.md`.
- Arithmetic is shown, not summarised: `calculation_shown` in `result.csv` carries the expression, not the answer alone.
- Use British English, GBP and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes in any file you write, and any supplied observation containing one is recorded verbatim and flagged in `gaps.md`.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own till, rota, invoices and booking system, and for their accountant to check before any figure is used for VAT, payroll or tax. It is not a set of accounts and it is not tax advice.

## Return
The absolute path of each file written, the row count of each CSV, gross income, VAT and net income with the basis used, total labour cost with the unrostered hours and who worked them, total direct cost with any excluded line named, net profit, total owner hours, net profit per owner hour with the calculation, tickets sold against people admitted, every person paid below the applicable April 2026 minimum, the tips amount and whether the policy and distribution date exist, the temporary event notice count used against 15 and the days used against 21, the count of night log observations by category with any unattributed ones named, every review request flagged, the recommendation and the rebooking decision due date exactly as supplied, and the `gaps.md` item count.