ACCOUNTING FOR DISCOUNTS & COUPONS
First, let's walk through the difference between a Coupon Code and a Discount. The accounting of the two types of adjustments is different.
- A Coupon Code is a payment towards a balance (like a gift card)
- A Discount is a balance reduction
When reporting on financial metrics using the custom report, you'll have the key data points that are needed to determine a registrant's financial outlook. Here is a breakdown:
- TOTAL DUE = [Total Balance] - [Discounts Earned]
- TOTAL PAID = [Amount Paid Towards Balance]
- COUPON VALUE = [Amount of Coupons Applied to Reg]
- FINAL DISCOUNT = [Discounts Earned by Registrant]
- NET DUE = [Total Due] - [Total Paid] - [Coupon Value]
Note that the TOTAL DUE metric already accounts for the discounts earned. Since discounts are applied directly to the balance, they are subtracted from the initial balance that the registrant acquires.
From there, any payments and/or coupon payments made towards the balance due will result in the NET DUE calculation.
DISCOUNT TOOL
You may assign a percent or flat discount to the entire checkout price (or a portion based on select items) of all registrants or registrants of a specific profile. Read below for strategies and best practices.
CREATE A DISCOUNT
First, enter the Event Builder, then select the REGISTRATION tab at the top. Click the DISCOUNTS tool on the left.
To create a discount, follow these steps:
1) Flat or Percent - Decide whether you wish to create a flat or percent discount.
- 1.5) Calculator - Selecting % will reveal a calculator to help you estimate what percent to apply (works great when you have a base price for one class/item and a discounted price for 2 or more of the same priced item).
2) Minimum Purchase - Next decide if you'd like to create a minimum purchase price (of qualifying items) that will grant the registrant the discount.
- You can remove specific items from the qualifying total by visiting the OPTIONS section within a particular item's settings panel - change the Discountable dropdown menu to "NO."
3) Finalize Configurations - Finish up entering the final settings for the discount. See below for a look at the configuration panel, including
- Beginning and expiration dates for the discount
- Eligibility status (attendee registration or ticket registration pathway)
- Profile eligibility (you can limit the pool of eligible registrants to only those of a specific custom profile)
- Conditional Prompt connection (can condition the award of the discount based answer to a custom prompt)
CONDITIONAL DISCOUNTS
You can condition the award of a discount based on how a registrant answers a custom prompt of your choosing. Furthermore, an attendee that answers a custom prompt "correctly" and is awarded the discount will not know they were awarded a discount until checkout - this is meant to curb the dishonest effort of attendees attempting to earn a discount that they are not entitled to.
One key factor to consider when creating a custom prompt with a discount conditionally connected to it is that the prompt MUST be a multi-choice type (i.e. dropdown menu, radio button, checkbox).
1) First, make sure you create a discount:
- The discount MUST be for ATTENDEES ONLY (as opposed to TICKET ONLY)
- The discount MUST be set to A CUSTOM PROMPT for CONDITION UPON
2) Then, create a custom prompt:
- Go into the REGISTRATION section of the Event Builder
- Select Custom Prompt Library tool from the left menu
- Click the Create New Prompt button and configure the prompt as you like
- click HERE to read more about custom prompt creation
- Once you have your prompt created, click the orange Trigger Discount or Prompt button
- A modal will appear, allowing you to connect your discount to a specific answer choice
COUPON CODES TOOL
As discussed at the very beginning of this section, a discount is a balance reduction (meaning after the discount is applied, you owe less money). A coupon code is a pseudo payment (meaning it settles part of your existing balance after it is applied, without adjusting the total amount due).
There are two types of coupons you may create using our system:
- 1) Multi-Use Coupons: customizable code that can be used as many times as you allow
- 2) Single-Use Coupons: system-generated code that is unique to email address you assign
1) MULTI-USE COUPONS
Click into the Coupon Codes tool (within the Registration section of the Builder) and you will see the following configuration screen:
Let's walk through each setting:
- How Many Codes? will create however many unique codes you elect to create (see at the bottom of the screen "Squid123!" is 1 unique code). Each unique code would have its own limit based on number of registrants, an expiration date and value (i.e. 10%).
- Available For designates whether the attendee registration pathway or the ticket registration pathway will be allowed access to the coupon code.
- Coupon Type will flip between multi-use and single-use (which may only be used by a specified email address). We will go into more depth on Single-Use Coupons later in this article. For now, when creating a Multi-Use Coupon, you can keep this setting to "May Be Used By Anyone", which essentially allows anyone that possess the code to use it (assuming the limit and expiration date have not been breached).
- Limit Uses To allows you to set a specified number of registrants that are allowed to use the code. For example, if you set this to 10 registrants, only 10 registrants will be allowed to use the code. Once 10 have used it at checkout, the code becomes inactive.
- Expires lets you specify a certain date on which the coupon code automatically becomes inactive.
2) SINGLE-USE COUPONS
In the coupon code configuration settings, flip the setting called Coupon Type from Single Use & Assignable to Specific Recipient. You will see the configuration settings slightly change to look like the following:
Just like the Multi-Use Coupon mechanism, you can create multiple single-use codes at once, decide who to offer the coupon to (Attendees vs. Exhibitors vs. Ticket Purchasers) and set an expiration date.
Now take a look above - you'll see the first code has been assigned (to squid@eventsquid.com). Just below that, you'll see a code that has yet to be assigned (to matt@eventsquid.com). On each code, you'll see you can designate an email address and decide where to send the registrant (between the homepage of your event site, the "Listing Page", and the actual registration
Take a look below - once you click the green Assign button, the assignee receives the following notification:
At the top, you'll see the actual code. The recipient simply copies that code, follows the REGISTRATION LINK included, then pastes the code in the coupon validation box at the end of registration (see below):
After entering the code and clicking VALIDATE, the coupon will trigger and reflect in the calculated Total Due.