A lifecycle is your playbook for a booking: an ordered list of stages, the tasks each stage creates for your team, and a payment schedule.
Open Settings → Lifecycles to edit them.
Stages
The defaults mirror a standard catering and events flow:
New → Inquiry → Proposal → Tentative → Definite → Event Order → Guaranteed → Actualized → Thank You → Closed, plus Cancelled.
New, Closed and Cancelled are required and can't be removed. For each stage you can set:
- Probability — the chance an event at this stage books. Used for weighted pipeline reporting.
- Maps to status — the event status an event takes when it reaches the stage (for example Definite maps to
CONFIRMED). - Prompts — ask for a payment, final quantities, or attendance when an event enters the stage.
- Documents — which document types the stage relates to.
Moving an event to a stage updates its status; changing its status moves it to the matching stage.
Stage tasks
Each stage can create tasks automatically when an event reaches it. A task has a title, an offset in days, and an anchor:
| Anchor | Due date is |
|---|---|
| From now | N days after the event enters the stage |
| Before event | N days before the event date |
| After event | N days after the event date |
You can skip weekends for "from now" tasks and choose whether the task goes to the event's coordinator or a specific person. Tasks are only created once per event, so moving back and forth never duplicates them.
Payment schedule
The schedule describes when the client pays, as milestones:
| Amount | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Percent | A percentage of the event total (for example 25%). |
| Fixed | A set dollar amount. |
| Remaining | Whatever balance is left. Use this for the last payment so the total always adds up exactly. |
Each milestone is due at signing, N days before the event, or N days after it.
The schedule turns into real payment dues on the event when its contract is signed. Dues are recalculated if the event date or total changes, but payments already covered stay as they are. A payment that would already be overdue at signing becomes due immediately.
The standard starter models are:
| Model | Applies when booked… | Schedule |
|---|---|---|
| Long lead | more than 6 months ahead | 25% at signing, 50% six months before, balance 30 days before |
| Short lead | 6 months or less ahead | 50% at signing, balance 30 days before |
Choosing a lifecycle for an event
You can have several lifecycles. By default VenueDB picks one by lead time — the days between booking and the event date — and falls back to the default model. A manager can override the choice on an event.