How to Create a Shared Expense Spreadsheet for Your RSNA Group
When a radiology team from Australia heads to Chicago for the RSNA 2020 Annual Meeting, the logistics can get complicated fast. Flights from Sydney or Melbourne, shared hotel rooms, group registration fees, and meal allowances all need tracking across multiple people and credit cards. A shared expense spreadsheet keeps everyone on the same page and stops the awkward "who paid for that?" conversations at the airport.
The meeting itself runs from 29 November to 4 December 2020 at McCormick Place, and most Australian delegations arrive a day or two early to recover from the long-haul flight. With delegates spread across AEDT and AEST, having one live document that the whole group can update in real time is essential. It also makes life easier when the finance team back home wants a clean reconciliation before the end of the financial year.
Why a Shared Spreadsheet Matters for Your Delegation
Radiology departments sending five, ten, or even twenty people overseas need a single source of truth. Without it, receipts pile up in inboxes, reimbursements get delayed, and your admin staff end up chasing people for months. A well-built spreadsheet cuts that admin time dramatically and gives your finance team the audit trail they need for compliance with hospital policies.
It also helps with budgeting. When your travel coordinator can see in real time how much has been spent on accommodation versus incidentals, they can flag overruns before the trip even begins. Australian public hospitals in particular have strict travel approval workflows, so having clean data upfront speeds up sign-off and keeps your delegates from paying out of pocket for too long.
Choosing the Right Platform
Not all spreadsheets are equal, especially when your group includes people who aren't tech-savvy. Here's a quick comparison of the three most common options:
| Feature | Google Sheets | Microsoft Excel | Airtable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free with Google account | Often included in Microsoft 365 | Free tier; paid plans from $20 USD/month |
| Real-time collaboration | Excellent | Good with OneDrive | Excellent |
| Offline access | Limited | Excellent | Limited |
| Mobile app | Strong | Strong | Strong |
| Best for | Mixed-ability groups | Heavy formula users | Visual planners |
For most Australian radiology groups, Google Sheets hits the sweet spot. It's free, everyone has a Google account, and the mobile app works well on the flight over. Excel is fine if your department is already paying for Microsoft 365, but the learning curve is steeper for casual users who only open the file once a quarter.
Setting Up Columns and Categories
Start with the essentials: date, expense category, vendor, amount in AUD, amount in USD, who paid, and a notes column for the receipt number. Keep the category list simple at first — flights, accommodation, registration, meals, transport, and sundries covers about 90% of what an RSNA trip involves.
Add a "reconciled" column at the end with a simple Y/N dropdown. This lets your finance lead see at a glance which expenses still need paperwork. If your department claims GST back as a recoverable input credit, add a column for that too — it adds up over a week-long international trip and is worth chasing.
Handling AUD and Foreign Currencies
Most Australian delegates will pay for things with a travel card or a no-foreign-transaction-fee credit card, but receipts come back in USD. Build in a column that automatically converts using a daily exchange rate. The Reserve Bank of Australia publishes daily rates, and you can paste them into a separate tab to keep the maths honest.
Be careful with the AUD/USD conversion when reimbursing colleagues. Some people will want to be paid back based on the day they paid, others based on the day the group reconciles. Pick one method, document it in the spreadsheet header, and stick to it. Avoid mixing the two — that's where disputes start, especially when the Australian dollar shifts mid-trip.
Managing Access and Permissions
Don't give everyone edit access to the whole document. Set up a structure where the travel coordinator owns the master sheet, and delegates can only add rows through a Google Form or a designated input tab. This prevents accidental deletions and keeps formulas intact.
For Australian teams, this matters even more because of the Privacy Act and hospital data policies. Even though RSNA expenses aren't sensitive health information, keeping a clean permission structure shows your finance team you're serious about governance. Limit edit access to two or three people, and give everyone else view-only or comment-only access.
Tracking Group Hotel Bookings
If you've booked a room block through the official RSNA accommodation service, list every room, the names of the people sharing it, and the per-night cost. Hotel folios in Chicago often have confusing line items — room rate, taxes, resort fees — so itemise them clearly in the spreadsheet.
Australian teams often share rooms to keep costs down, which means splitting the bill gets messy. Create a separate tab for room shares that calculates each person's share automatically. A simple formula dividing the total by the number of nights and occupants handles most cases. For uneven stays (someone checking out early to catch a flight home), add a manual override column. Before you finalise anything, double-check the conference dates and venue details on the about-rsna page so you're not paying for nights no one is using.
Reconciling Before You Get Home
Block out an hour on the flight home to reconcile the sheet while receipts are still fresh. Match every line item to a scanned receipt, mark them as reconciled, and total the columns. If anything is missing, chase it before you land in Sydney and the chaos of post-trip admin kicks in.
Once you're back, send the final version to your finance team within a week. The longer you wait, the harder it is to recover missing receipts, and your hospital's accounts payable team will thank you for being prompt. Most Australian finance departments have a 30-day reimbursement window, so getting it in early keeps everyone happy and your delegates off the back of the queue.
Ready to lock in your group's RSNA 2020 plans? Start by setting up your shared spreadsheet today, then book your accommodation through the official group registration service to secure your room block and competitive group rates.