Budgets and Pricing
A practical guide to the Budget tab: how prices flow in from your services, how to set costs, markups and margin, and when to use scenarios, traveler groups and options.
The Budget tab turns the services in a proposal into a selling price. It looks dense at first because it brings together every flight, stay, cruise, extra and imported document in one table. Most proposals only need a few of its controls, though. This guide starts with those, then covers the advanced tools when you need them.
How The Budget Works
Three ideas explain almost everything on this tab:
- Services feed the budget. You don't type services into the budget. Flights, stays, cruises and extras come from their own tabs, and imported supplier documents come in with their prices. The budget is where you price them.
- Every price is net + markup. Each line has a net cost (what you pay the supplier) and a markup (your profit). Markups can be set line by line, or calculated by Ghloria to hit a target margin for the whole proposal.
- One base budget, optional structures on top. The base budget is the proposal's price. Pricing scenarios, traveler groups and proposal options are optional layers that reuse the same services instead of copying them.
Price A Proposal In Five Steps
Add Services In Their Own Tabs
Fill in the Flights, Accommodation, Cruises and Extras tabs, or import supplier documents. Each service appears in the budget under its category.
Check The Net Costs
In the budget table, enter or confirm the net price of each line and its cost mode (see below). Untick any line that should not count towards the total.
Set Your Margin
In the budget summary, enter a Target margin. Ghloria spreads the markup across every line that doesn't have its own markup. Or set a markup on specific lines yourself.
Apply Discounts If Needed
Add fixed or percentage discounts. The summary shows the total before discount, the discounts and the Final price.
Review And Export
Check the Proposal summary, which is the figure used for export, then download the budget as a PDF or move on to exporting the proposal.
Reading The Budget Table
Views
Switch between four views at the top of the table. Views only change how the budget is presented, not the numbers.
| View | Best for |
|---|---|
| Summary | The final price at a glance, with totals per traveler group, option and scenario. |
| By Service | Pricing work: every service grouped by category (Imported Documents, Flights, Accommodations, Cruises, Extras). |
| By Day & Service | Checking the budget against the itinerary, day by day. |
| Options | Comparing proposal options side by side (only when options exist). |
In By Day & Service, services without a date appear as Unscheduled, and days with nothing booked show as Free day. Under Accommodation distribution, choose whether a stay's cost sits on its check-in day (Consolidated on check-in) or is spread over its nights (Distributed by nights). You can drag rows between days, and Reset to service date puts a row back on its service's date.
Parent And Child Rows
Services are nested: a flight group contains its segments and legs, a stay contains hotels and rooms, and a cruise contains its cabins. Expand a row to see its children.
- By default, a parent's price is the sum of its children.
- If you type a price on the parent, for example a package rate for a whole stay, that price takes over and the children are locked to it. Their assignment shows "Set by the manually priced parent".
- Clear the parent's price to go back to the children's prices.
Included Or Not
The checkbox on each line decides whether it is included in the calculated budget. Excluded lines stay visible in muted grey so you can still see their cost. Extras appear under Included or Not Included.
Cell Colours
| Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Green | A value you edited by hand, overriding the automatic calculation. |
| Navy | A value you can edit. |
| Grey | A value you can't edit here, for example a parent total calculated from its children or an excluded line. |
Costs: Choosing The Cost Mode
Each line has a cost mode that tells Ghloria how to turn the price you enter into the line total:
| Cost mode | Line total | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Total | The price as entered, whatever the number of travellers. | A private transfer for the whole group: €300. |
| Unit | Price × quantity (travellers or units). | A museum ticket at €25 per person × 6 = €150. |
| Total /night | Price × number of nights. | A villa at €800 per night × 5 nights = €4,000. |
| Unit /night | Price × quantity × number of nights. | A room at €150 per person per night × 2 × 4 nights = €1,200. |
The per-night modes are only available on stays, hotels, rooms and cruises that have dates. A parent whose price comes from its children shows a locked Total badge.
Why the cost mode matters for scenarios
In pricing scenarios, Unit lines scale with the number of travellers and Total lines stay fixed. Set the cost mode correctly and scenario prices are right automatically. See Pricing scenarios.
Markup And Margin
Markup On A Line
Each line's markup can be a Percentage or a Flat fee:
- Calculated (Auto): the line has no markup of its own and receives its share of the target margin.
- Manual: you set the markup on this line. It is kept as entered and is not changed by the target margin.
Use manual markups for lines with fixed commercial rules, such as a ticketing fee on flights. Leave everything else on automatic.
Target Margin
The budget summary shows:
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| Net price | The total cost of all included lines. |
| Margin value | Total price minus net price. |
| Target margin | The net margin you want on the proposal, from 0 to 99.9%. |
| Total price | The selling price before discounts. |
| Discounts | The sum of all discounts. |
| Final price | What the client pays. |
When you set a target margin, Ghloria keeps your manual markups, then spreads the remaining profit across the lines on automatic markup so the whole proposal hits the target.
Worked example. A flight costs €1,800 with a manual €200 fee. A hotel costs €1,200 on automatic markup. Total net is €3,000 and the target margin is 15%.
- Selling price needed: €3,000 ÷ (1 − 0.15) = €3,529
- Profit needed: €3,529 − €3,000 = €529
- Already covered by the flight fee: €200
- Left for the hotel: €329, a 27.4% markup on €1,200
The final price is €3,529: exactly a 15% margin.
Margin is not markup
Margin is profit ÷ selling price. Markup is profit ÷ cost. A 15% margin needs a 17.6% markup, and a 15% markup only gives a 13% margin.
Overriding The Totals
You can type a Net price in the summary to override the calculated cost. The budget then shows "The budget summary has been manually edited". Clear the Net Price field to go back to automatic calculation. A manually set grand total can be reset with Reset to standard budget total.
Discounts
Add discounts in the Discounts section. Each discount has a name, a type (Fixed or %) and a value, and you can switch each one on or off with Use.
- Fixed discounts take a set amount off.
- Percentage discounts apply one after another to the remaining subtotal. Two 10% discounts on €1,000 give €810, not €800.
- The summary shows the applied amount of each discount and the final price.
Foreign Currencies
When an imported supplier document is in another currency, it appears under Imported Conversions with its origin currency, destination currency and Rate.
- If the rate is still 1:1, Ghloria reminds you to enter the real exchange rate. A link to Google Finance helps you check it.
- After changing a rate, click Update to reprice the linked lines.
- Lines whose price you edited by hand keep that price. Conversion no longer applies to them.
Budget Structure: Scenarios, Groups And Options
Open Budget structure at the top of the tab to choose the budget mode and add options.
Budget mode is one of:
- Standard: one budget for everyone. This is the default and is right for most proposals.
- Pricing scenarios: the same trip priced for different numbers of travellers.
- Traveler groups: one trip split between groups who pay different amounts.
Proposal options are separate and can be combined with any mode.
| You want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| Quote a group trip for 10, 20 or 30 people before the group size is confirmed | Pricing scenarios |
| Show two families travelling together what each one pays | Traveler groups |
| Offer the client a choice between two hotels or two excursions | Proposal options |
| Quote a choice of hotels for 10, 20 or 30 people | Pricing scenarios + proposal options |
Scenarios and groups don't mix
A budget uses either pricing scenarios or traveler groups, not both. Switching from one to the other removes the current scenarios or groups and their assignments. Ghloria asks for confirmation first.
Pricing Scenarios
A scenario prices the same services for a different headcount. Add one in Budget structure → Pricing scenarios with a name and a number of travellers. Each headcount can only exist once, and it can't be the base proposal's headcount.
For each scenario:
- Unit lines are recalculated for the scenario's headcount.
- Total lines stay the same, so fixed costs such as a coach or a guide are spread over more or fewer people.
- You can type a different net price on a line for that scenario only. Its markup still applies.
- Which lines are included, and the row structure, come from the base budget. To add, remove or reorder rows, switch back to Base.
- Discounts apply to the base proposal, not to scenarios.
Example. A coach costs €1,200 (Total) and a dinner costs €40 per person (Unit). For 10 travellers that is €1,200 + €400 = €1,600, or €160 per person. For 20 travellers it is €1,200 + €800 = €2,000, or €100 per person.
The Pricing Scenario summary card shows each scenario next to the base proposal, with net, margin, total and per-person price.
Traveler Groups
Use groups when the same trip has different prices for different parties. Add groups in Budget structure → Traveler groups, each with a name and a number of adults and children.
- In the Assignment column, assign each line to All or to a specific group. A parent whose children have different assignments shows Varies.
- Lines assigned to All are shared between groups by headcount. Shared room and cabin costs are split evenly between the groups in them.
- The allocation check shows whether every traveller is in a group: Allocation balanced, Allocation incomplete (travellers not yet in a group) or Allocation exceeds trip size.
Removing a group sends its lines back to All participants.
Proposal Options
Options let the client choose between alternatives in one proposal. Add them in Budget structure → Proposal options, for example Superior hotels and Deluxe hotels.
- Lines not assigned to an option are Shared and count in every option.
- Lines assigned to an option count only in that option.
- Each option's total is the shared lines plus its own lines, with the proposal's discounts applied.
- The Options view compares the options side by side. With pricing scenarios too, you get a matrix of options × headcounts.
Removing an option sends its lines back to the shared budget.
Summary Cards And Export
The cards at the top of the tab summarise the budget: price per person, the scenario table, groups and options. Hide them with Hide summary cards. Hiding a single card only lasts for the current session and deletes nothing.
The Proposal summary shows the final pricing and is marked Used for export. The budget view you choose when exporting (Standard, Budget Scenarios or Traveler Groups) decides how this pricing appears in the PowerPoint, email or website. Use Download PDF for a printable budget.