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Configure Event Registration And Payments

  • Updated

Event Registration and Payment are paid features, available with all paid plans

 

Contents

 

Introduction

Enabling registration is a great way to limit the number of people you want to host and better organize your events. By registering, members express their intention to attend. Once you have enabled registration, only the amount of people you set will be able to sign up for your event. In addition, you can apply registration restrictions, request information, and more.. Registration must also be enabled if you want to charge for an event. Once you enable registration, you will have several ticketing options available for paid events.

Enable Event Registration

Enabling event registration is optional for free events and required for paid ones. You can do so while creating an event, or after having saved that event. Please read Manage Events to learn more.

Note that once an event is saved with registration turned on, you can no longer disable registration and must recreate the event record. 

To enable registration, please follow these steps:

  • Create a new event. 

  • Select the Registration tab.

  • Toggle on Registration. 

 

Choose The Registration Type

There are two types of registration you can choose from while organizing church events: 

  • Detailed: Collect individual details for each person attending. This is suitable for events where you need to know who is coming and gather specific information such as names, or contact info.\

  • Simple: This is a quick option for when you don’t need personal details. Attendees just select how many people are coming, with no extra info required. You only get data about the member making the registration, not on other people they register.

 

Set A Mandatory Registration Form

Choose whether to Require a Registration Form: You can select any form that has been previously created using the Forms module. This form may be very useful when you want to obtain information before people can register for an event. If you choose to add a form here, it will be automatically displayed during registration. The form will be mandatory and the process can only be completed after submitting it. 

 

Prevent Cancellations

Enable Don’t allow cancellation, and set how many hours before the event you would like to stop allowing people to cancel their registration.

 

Enable Guest Registration

Enable Guest Registration if you want to allow non-members / visitors to register for the event. Guests are not members of your church. They will be asked to submit their Name, Mobile Phone, and Email to register for the event.

 

Manage Ticketing For Free Events

Under the Ticket Count section, you can set up the following:

  • Choose how many tickets to allow registration for. This determines the number of individuals or families who will attend the event. 

  • Check the Unlimited box if you do not want to set a limit. Note that even with unlimited tickets, your event still requires registration if enabled. 

  • Enable Family Tickets if you want each family to use one ticket for the entire family. This way there is no need for a ticket per family member, just one ticket per the entire family.

 

Set Up A Paid Event

If you want attendants to pay for participation, you can do so while setting up your event. Payments can be collected either online, via PayPal, Stripe; Paystack, or in person, using cash. 

Please follow the steps below to enable payments for your events: 

  • To collect online payments via ChMeetings, you must first configure your payment provider (PayPal, Stripe, or Paystack).
  • Turn on This Is A Paid Event..

Paid events allow you to configure several settings to customize ticketing, payment options, or payment collection, as follows:

 

Configure Paid Tickets

You can set the Available Ticket Count either per event or per ticket type: 

  • When setting the ticket count per event, then you can also choose to use Family Tickets if you want each family to use one ticket for the entire family. This way there is no need for a ticket per family member, just one ticket per the entire family. There will be no limit to the number of people who can register if you toggle on Unlimited. 

    • You can add custom ticket types, using the Add Ticket Type option, which allows you to enter different pricing options and give your tickets a name. (Tickets can only be named when there is more than one ticket type.) You can see a list of ticket payments in the Event Registration Log Report.

  • When setting the ticket count per ticket type, you can also create custom ticket types, enter pricing for each, name the ticket, and set the ticket count for each type. Use the Add Ticket Type option to create as many types as you require.

 

Payment Options

Let’s now go through the available payment options you can configure for paid events:

 

Create Contribution Records For Event Payments

If you allocate event payments to a Fund, then ChMeetings will automatically create a Contribution record for each payment. If you are using ChMeetings accounting, then it’s easy to add these payments to your bookkeeping as well. Here’s how. 

To allocate event payments to a specific Contribution Fund, just select it while configuring event registration and payments, 

  • Online payments will be allocated to the current online giving batch for the day.

  • Cash or manual payments like checks or transfers are added to the most recently open contribution batch. See Manage Event Payments for more details.
     

Cash Only

This option lets you charge for the event on-site, in cash only. Enabling this option disables all other payment options. 

 

Alternative PayPal Accounts

By default, event payments go through your configured payment method - either PayPal, Stripe, or Paystack. However, you can configure custom PayPal accounts to collect payments for specific events. Enter the associated PayPal account email address to enable this feature.

 

Partial Payments

You can allow members to make partial payments for their event participation - which can also be in several installments. Toggle on Partial Payment and add a minimum amount to pay upon registration, as needed. Members can pay the remaining amounts later, either in cash or online, via their event registration page within their member account. Every time a member pays online, they will need to pay the minimum amount you set, unless it is their last installment. 

 

Pay Later

This option lets you allow members to pay later, online or on-site (e.g. in cash). Enabling this option allows members to register online but choose to pay later and bypass the online payment during the registration process. When they attend the event, their payment can be collected through other means of your choice as well.

Members can make an online payment later (either for Partial or Later Payments), by logging into their account, then following the steps below:

  • Go to My Registrations.

  • Find the corresponding event registration. 

  • On the registration page, click Pay Now, and follow the on-screen payment instructions. These will depend on the payment gateway you have integrated with. 


 

Other Payment Methods

You can accept other payment methods such as check or bank transfer. These payments can be added manually under the event’s People & Tickets section.

 

Enable Refunds (Stripe Only)

If you use Stripe as a payment processor within ChMeetings, you can Enable refunds to process refunds for paid tickets. This feature is available for Admins, who can customize the amount to refund. Members can also cancel their ticket or registration and automatically receive a full refund. To allow members to cancel paid event registrations and get a refund, this feature must be enabled under your event’s Registration tab for refunds to be available for both Admins and Members.

If you use PayPal to manage payments, then you can still issue refunds, but through PayPal, not directly from within ChMeetings. See PayPal’s guide for details.

 

Collect Donations During Events

If you enable event registration, you can also allow attendees to donate to your church. 

To do so, simply follow the steps below:

  • Turn on Donation.

  • Use the Donation Title field to give your donation section a name

  • Suggest an amount.

  • Choose the Fund to which the donations will be assigned.

 

When members register, the donation section will look like this:


 

 

Offer Discounts To Paid Events

If you enable paid tickets, you can also enable discounts for everyone (members and guests). Turn on the Discounts toggle, then you can add different types of discounts, as follows:

  1. If there is no existing discount, click Add Discount.



    If there are discounts already, click Add Another.


     
  2. Enter the Discount Name.


     
  3. Choose the Type of discount that you want to enable. You can only enable one type per discount record. 

Group Discounts

The Group Discount lets you apply a discount to all attendees if the group is equal to or more than the number of people you choose here. To get the group discount, all group members must register together and be part of the same family. Members can register together with guests but not with other members outside of their families. Turn on Enable Expiry Date if you want the discount to expire on a specific date and time.

 

Early Bird

The Early Bird discount lets you set a date and time when the discount ends. Members must register before this date and time to get the discount. 


 

Promo Codes

The Promo Code discount applies if members enter a Promo Code during their registration. Enter the Code, then turn on Enable Expiry Date if you want the code to expire on a specific date and time.

  1. Set the Discount Value, either as a percent of the total ticket price; or as a fixed rate, in which case the discount is a specific amount. The value applies identically to all discount types.

Save your discount when ready. 

 

Discount Management Options

To edit a discount, click the Edit (✐) icon on the right of the discount. You can modify all aspects of a discount, such as changing the type, the amount, the expiration date, etc.

 

To disable a discount without deleting it, turn off the toggle next to it.

 

To delete a discount, edit it, then click Delete.

 

You can add multiple discounts of different types using the Add Another option. 


 

Configure A Registration Schedule

By enabling the Registration Schedule, you can choose to open and close the registration for the event at a specific date and time. You can enable one or both options. 

 

Send Registration Notifications To A Servant/Volunteer

The Notifications section lets you configure emails or mobile push notifications to be sent to specific people. These are triggered whenever someone registers for your event or cancels their registration. You can add multiple users and choose to send both emails and push notifications. 

 

Once you go through all of the above sections, your registration settings are complete. 
Click Save to save the event record with all your registration-related configuration. 

 

Registration Restrictions

Registration restrictions help improve event organization by preventing overbooking and controlling how many events people can attend. You can set these up during initial event setup or afterwards. 

 

Enable registration restrictions

To enable registration restrictions, turn on Limit registration per person in this calendar. and enter the number of days for which you want to restrict registration to events within the same calendar. 

When you do so, people who register for one event within a specific calendar will not be allowed to register themselves or be registered by someone else to another event within the same calendar, for the specified number of days after a submitted event registration. 

If you configure this setting for one event, it will apply to all events within the calendar you select, given that you have enabled registration for them. If the feature was enabled for a previous event and the number of days set has not passed, then the field will be prepopulated. You can adjust if needed.

 

Disable Registration Restrictions

For a one-time event, click the options menu (...)at the top right of the main event screen and use Disable Registration Restrictions. The same option can be found at the bottom of the event registration page. 

For a recurring event, you can use Disable Registration Restrictions from the main event screen, by clicking on the options button next to a desired occurrence.

When you choose any of these options, you will be asked to confirm your choice. Please do so by clicking again on Disable Registration Restrictions. Please click on Cancel if you change your mind.

 

Re-enable Registration Restrictions

The Disable Registration Restrictions options will now become Enable Registration Restrictions, everywhere throughout the event you disabled this for. If. you would like to re-enable registration restrictions, please use this option to do so. You will be asked to confirm your choice. 
 

 

Disable and Re-Enable Registration

Disable

You can disable registration for an event if you no longer want people to register for it.

For a one-time event, use the Disable Registration option from the main event screen, by clicking the options menu at the top right. 

 

For a recurring event, you can use Disable Registration from the main event screen, by clicking on the options button next to a desired occurrence. The option is also available at the bottom of the event registration page.


 

Regardless of the option you choose, you will be asked to confirm your choice. Please do so by clicking again on Disable Registration. Click Cancel if you do not want to proceed.  

 

Re-enable

The Disable Registration options will now become Enable Registration, everywhere throughout the event you disabled it for. If. you would like to re-enable registration, please use this option to do so. You will be asked to confirm your choice. 

Just like in the cases above, you can find this feature on the main event screen, in the options menu at the top right for a one-time event, and in the occurrence options for a recurring event.


 

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