While our system currently does not offer a ticket reserve feature, this article walks you through how you could enter a table for guests who will pay later.
Sometimes you have sponsors or tables who have told you that they are attending your event, but plan to pay at a later date or when they arrive at the event.
This article outlines how you can enter these attendees into the Trellis system before accepting payment.
Before diving in:
This article is for reserving grouped tickets, like tables.
For more on reserving tickets for individuals (single tickets), please read this article.
Step 1: Determine the Payment Method
Before proceeding, determine how the donor will eventually pay for their purchase. The steps to reserve tickets depend on whether they will pay online via Trellis or offline, separately from Trellis
If the Donor Will Pay Offline (Not on Trellis):
- Simply process the payment via the Sales Entry System (SES) using an offline payment method (cash, cheque, card – offline, or other). View this article for more on adding table purchases via the SES.
If the Donor Will Pay Online:
- Follow the steps below to reserve the ticket and manage payment processing.
Please Note:
In either case, you will need to manually track when these attendees have paid for their tickets.
Step 2: Reserve a Grouped Event Ticket
1. Create a new hidden grouped ticket:
- From your fundraiser builder sidebar, go to Event Tickets > Edit Event Tickets > Add Event Ticket.
- Create a new event ticket called "Reserved - [Ticket Info]" at a price of $0.
- Make the ticket category: Group Ticket
- This will allow you to easily keep track of the attendees that have reserved their place but not yet paid.
2. Process the table "purchase" via the SES
- Go to esm.trellis.org/ to access the Event and Sales Manager and click Sales Entry System
- Enter in the purchaser's information, and any ticket holder information you may have.
- Since the ticket is $0, the payment method step will be skipped.
- On the Order Summary step, uncheck Send confirmation email to purchaser so they do not receive a purchase receipt.
- Click Complete Purchase.
- The transaction will now be recorded in Trellis for $0, and the attendees will be created in the check-in tool under their table.
Please Note:
You cannot change an attendee's ticket type after the ticket has been purchased.
Step 3: Accept a Credit Card Payment for the Table on Trellis
Follow these steps if you plan to receive payment for the table using Trellis.
1. Create a Hidden Item for Sale:
- From your fundraiser builder sidebar, select Items for Sale > Edit Items > Add Items.
- Create a hidden item called "Reserved - [Ticket Info] Paid" at the price of the ticket.
- Set a tax receipt value if applicable.
3. Process the Payment via the Check-In Tool:
- From the Event and Sales Manager (esm.trellis.org), click Check-In Tool and find the purchaser.
- Click the credit card icon on the purchaser's attendee record and save their credit card to their account.
- Now click the cart icon on the attendee to manage their cart
- Add the hidden item Reserved - [Ticket Info] Paid to their cart.
- Process the payment for the cart to charge the card for everything in the cart.
This allows you to collect the payment without having to refund the original ticket purchase, and ensures that there are no duplicate attendees created!
Step 4: Reporting Considerations
Tracking Ticket Purchases:
- In your reporting, keep in mind that your Items for Sale category will include the funds received for ticket purchases.
- From the All Transactions Export, you can cross reference which attendees purchased the Reserved event ticket vs which attendees paid for the Reserved item for sale.
- Please note that Trellis does not automatically keep track of paid balances at this time.
If you have any questions about these steps or need further assistance, feel free to reach out to support@trellis.org.