From time to time we hear from organizations who are struggling with post-event financial accountability. 

How does this happen?  In some cases, the reservations team focuses on table groupings and menu selections; setting up tickets and payments in the software seems like "overhead."  Or on event night, the cashier does not record payments on invoices, but simply accepts payment. 

The school business manager picks up and deposits the cash and checks, and now the auction team is trying to figure out who paid, whose credit card to charge, etc.

Financial accountability is important for your event.  When you're about to charge guest credit cards (via Auctionpay or manually,) it is vital to have recorded cash and check payments correctly.  We suggest:

• Pre-event.  Create a ticket type for each price point that may be used by guests.  Record their reservations/ticket purchases AND record the payments made.
  
• Pre-event & Post-event.  Click Insert, Expense to track/edit expenses as you go.  This is not a formal bookkeeping system, but will jog your mind for the final rollup of your event proceeds.  These expenses are reflected on the Report, Financial Statement.
  
• Event night.  Auction! prints a standard or custom payment block on invoices.  It's quick and easy for your cashiers to initial it and record check numbers, cash received, or last few digits of a credit card. 
  
  Train your team to take just a moment to quickly scribble these key data elements, and fold the cash or check INSIDE the cashier's copy of the invoice.  You can take these back to data entry to record them in the software on event night, or the following day.
  
• Post-event.  When using Auctionpay terminals and the Sync Linkage, do not record credit card payments made on event night.  The Sync takes care of these for you automatically.

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