How ASIS Built Faster, More Accurate GSX Specs Without Living in Spreadsheets (or Smartsheets)

ASIS International runs GSX, a large annual conference with a lot of moving parts, a lot of stakeholders, and very little room for budget surprises. When the team needed cleaner vendor specs, faster budget work, and less onsite chaos, they moved their logistics workflow into Pholeo.

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Hours saved on reconciliation

Across the three biggest vendor bills (AV, decor, and food and beverage)

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Months “spec ready” before GSX

Version one specs out early enough to shift the rest of the cycle to tweaks

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Onsite binders printed

First time in 15 years the team ran onsite with iPads instead

“It’s (Pholeo) faster.
It’s more accurate.

And I don’t have to
chase the details anymore.”

Lauren Koleszar, CMP
Meetings Manager
ASIS International

  • The Organization

    • Lauren Koleszar, CMP — Meetings Manager, ASIS International

    • Flagship event: GSX (Global Security Exchange)

    • Large-scale annual conference serving the global security community

    • Thousands of attendees, exhibitors, and multiple internal departments involved

    • Complex budget structure with four-part GL coding (expense type, department, activity, sub activity)

    • High food and beverage spend, multi-room activations, exhibit hall events, board meetings, and leadership functions

    • Budget season begins months before vendor specs go final

  • The Problem ASIS Faced

    Lauren and her team planned GSX the way many associations still do:

    • Smartsheet for specs
    • Manual tax calculations
    • Time-consuming to build vendor-ready function books
    • Multiple spreadsheets for budget rollups

    Every adjustment meant touching the same information in multiple places.

    If something changed in one sheet but not another, it created risk.

    Budget reconciliation was especially painful.

    Large AV, décor, and F&B invoices required 6–8 hours each to manually parse, recode, and reconcile against a four-part GL structure.

    That meant up to 24–36 hours spent heads down just reconciling three major bills.

    Onsite, Lauren carried a color-coded, tabbed binder.

  • The Solution Needed

    Lauren didn’t need another collaboration tool.

    She needed a logistics system built for planners.

    The solution had to:

    • Keep specs and budgets together in one environment
    • Build estimates using actual vendor pricing
    • Calculate service charges and tax automatically
    • Support complex, multi-layer GL coding
    • Make budget cuts quickly without searching through hundreds of rows
    • Export clean reports for reconciliation
    • Eliminate the onsite binder

    Most important, it had to save time without adding headcount.

How Pholeo fits into their workflow

Pholeo became the operational home for specs, budgets, and onsite reference.

They moved from rows to visual “cards” (we call them items

Lauren described the shift as moving from one line in a spreadsheet to a visual record that holds everything for a function, including menus, AV, and other details. That made it easier to build and review, and easier to find the right service when something changed.

They built budgets during budget season, not after it

Lauren does most specs when budgets are due. With Pholeo, she built estimates using actual vendor pricing and baked in service charges and tax. That reduced the extra spreadsheet work of rolling numbers into other finance trackers.

When a $100,000 budget gap appeared later in the cycle due to a separate finance system issue, the team used Pholeo to make targeted cuts fast. They adjusted high impact items like coffee breaks and bar spend without scrolling through hundreds of spreadsheet rows.

They used Pholeo onsite as the live source of truth

Onsite, Lauren and an onsite team member supported execution by walking the venue with an iPad instead of a printed binder. They pulled up floor plans, room sets, and function details with a click. Lauren called this a major shift, and it marked the first time in 15 years she arrived without a binder.

If you want to see the same workflow patterns, Pholeo documents them in its Event Logistics Software overview and Getting Started resources.

The results after switching

Lauren pointed to outcomes that landed in day to day reality:

  • Faster reconciliation: Large vendor bills that took 6 to 8 hours each to parse and code dropped sharply once Pholeo exports made sorting by budget codes practical. Across AV, decor, and food and beverage, she estimated 24 to 36 hours saved.

  • More accurate budgets: The team stayed “spot on” against early budget inputs, with fewer surprises later.

  • Earlier vendor readiness: The team aimed to send a version one spec packet by late May, roughly 3.5 months before the event, then focus on tweaks instead of rebuilds.

  • Binderless onsite operations: No printing, no tabbing, no color coding binders to survive room checks.

This also fits the broader direction in the industry. PCMA reported that more than nine out of ten meeting professionals in its survey used AI in some way, and leaders increasingly expect teams to shift effort from manual work to analysis and decision making.

For Lauren, that translated into a simpler truth. She stopped burning hours on fragile math and searching for the right line item. She kept control of the budget while giving her team a shared, clear operating view.

If you run association conferences, Pholeo also publishes practical guidance for association planning, paperless production, and budgeting workflows.

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