Here's what I think is a brilliant idea gleaned from the international track held at the Pharmaceutical Meeting Planners Forum earlier this week in Philadelphia:
For planners with meetings outside the U.S., the changing exchange rate can make budgeting a royal pain. There are lots of sites where you can get exchange rates for the day the contract is signed (which the session leaders highly recommended you do, so you have a baseline, at least). Their recommendation was one called xe.com. But who wants to keep tracking the exchange rate to update the budget as you move along your timeline?
The nice thing is that you don't have to—it can be done automatically. All you have to do is link your Word document to the xe.com (they said to talk to your tech department to find out how to do it; I found this tip sheet, which sounds like it should work though I haven't tried it yet), and it will automatically update your budget.
By the way, if anyone is interested in hearing impressions of someone other than me about the Pharma Forum, Meetings Radio did a podcast that I think captures the highlights pretty well (and a few low lights, too).