5 | Minute Read
Planning and managing events is already a hard slog, but add payment management into the mix for ticketed events, and you’ve got a stressful hair-pulling situation on your hands.
Luckily, it’s 2019, and software exists to automate much of the paid event management process.
If your business isn’t already using event management automation software, then it’s about time you seriously considered it. If your business regularly holds events, automating the management process will not only save you pain and time, but plenty of resources and money, as well.
When you run ticketed events requiring payment collection, automated event management software can also simplify the incredibly complex task of collecting online payments, and collating data relating to individual registrants, their invoices and receipts. Online payments need to be collected securely, and safely – so using an event management software which offers its own secure payment gateway can drastically reduce the stress and required resources needed to carry out paid events.
When software exists to automate and simplify the paid event management process, is there any real reason to go without?
Let’s look at 4 reasons why running paid events using automated event management software makes it all that much easier:
1. Easy, automated ticket management
Having multiple ticket types for paid events can make ticket management a complicated and stressful affair. Early bird tickets offer a discount to early registrants, but by their nature, have to expire. Members and VIP should have access to special discounts, too, but how do we make them visible only to a select few?
An automated event management platform – such as ours at Swift Digital – offer ticketing tools to help manage different ticket prices, set expiry dates, create special ‘hidden’ discounts, and more. Managing tickets becomes as easy as committing to set up and deploy; knowing full well the platform will automatically take care of getting the right ticket to the right registrant.
2. Inbuilt Payment Gateway
How do you collect payments for your paid events? Without automated event management software, it’s likely you have been invoicing and chasing up payments manually, which wastes both time and resources better spent on overall event management instead.
Swift Digital’s event management software gives you access to easy payment gateway set up. What is a payment gateway? It’s an online merchant service, authorising and facilitating direct debit payments from credit cards. Having this set up for your paid event takes all the manual work (and inevitable confusion) from collecting and managing payments. Having an inbuilt payment gateway as part of your online registration process not only makes collecting payment as easy as pie, but it also makes the user-end experience all that more smooth, and trustworthy. Your registrants will feel safe to committing to payment, as payment is part of the registration form.
On the backend, you’ll be able to use your event management platform to see payments as they’re made, invoices and payment details will automatically be assigned to each registrant, making payment, invoice, and receipt management a stress-free occasion.
3. Paid vs Unpaid registrant management
By having all payment information, invoicing and receipts automatically attached to registrants, you also have ease of paid and unpaid registrant management. Perhaps you want to allow for ‘pay later’ scenarios for your registrants – by being able to filter your registrant lists down according to payment status, and by having access to tools to request and mark down payments, you can easily accommodate for a range of late payment scenarios. Automated event management software gives both yourself and your registrant safer, more flexible options for payment and invoicing.
4. Invoice and receipt management
Again, because invoices and receipts are automatically generated for all registrants, you can easily view, search, filter, and manage registrants’ payment info, invoices and receipts.
Has a registrant requested to pay offline, and needs you to send through their invoice? On your automated event management software, all you have to do is search for the registrant via email address, and you’ll have access to a suite of tools enabling you to resend their invoice.
Has a registrant organised to pay for their ticket over the phone? You can easily add them to your event’s registrant list ad hoc, and input their payment details before clicking the ‘send ticket’ button.
Need to provide your registrants with receipts? You can set receipts up to send automatically once a registrant is marked as paid, or send them individually by bringing up individual registrants and using the management tools available.
No matter the scenario, by using an automated platform (like ours at Swift Digital), you can easily manage invoicing and receipts with just a couple clicks of your mouse.
Running paid events with automated event management software is easy!
Holding a paid event can be a complicated affair, but by using dedicated automated event management software, you can automate most of the management process. By collecting payments online, sending tickets, invoices, and receipts on auto-pilot, and easily managing registrants and their payments with a whole suite of tools, you can manage your paid events as easily as the unpaid ones.
Want to find out more about how automated event management software can save you time and headaches? Talk to the experts at Swift Digital on 1300 878 289.
