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BCPTA
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January 9, 2017 at 6:23 pm
Hello, I have follow up questions to this thread:
https://eventespresso.com/topic/cancelation-fee/
Can we accomplish the same thing without the purchase of the attendee mover add-on? This happens so infrequently for us, that it may not be worth the cost, especially as a non-profit run entirely by volunteers.
Our goal was to get our accounting records on the website to be accurate. So a way to do that without buying an add-on would be great.
Could we:
Step 1: Create a draft event for cancellations
Step 2: If a registrant cancels, register them for the ‘cancellation’ event.
Step 3: Then unregister them for the original event (without doing a refund…if this works).
Step 4: The ‘cancellation’ event could be the original price, minus the fee.
Step 5: Mark them as having paid (doing so manually).
Step 6: Then refund them the amount shown on the ‘cancellation registration’?
Or is the attendee mover add-on the only way to have the price adjustment balance between the two events?
Regarding Step 2 above: do we need to ‘activate’ the ‘cancellation’ event to be able to register people for it? Or can we keep it in draft mode and have all the functionality still work, including transactions?
Regarding Step 3 above: Supposing the above plan would work, when we cancel their registration for the original event, does this show a ‘negative’ in the accounting records on the site? Or would this require actually clicking to refund them, and having that refund transaction go through Paypal?
Or…
Is the only way to avoid the add-on purchase by cancelling and refunding the original event registration, then re-doing a transaction fee under the ‘cancellation’ event?
And this would require they manually pay us for the cancellation? I see how this would be more difficult to enforce….
Or is there another way?
If the only way to do this is with the attendee mover add-on, I guess that will be our only option.
Can we add a cancellation fee feature request to your development progress on this plugin? Seems like something many could use.
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Josh
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January 20, 2017 at 7:12 am
Hi there,
You can set a partial refund in the transaction, and avoid all of the other steps.
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BCPTA
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January 21, 2017 at 4:36 pm
Hi Josh,
If we do that, we go back to the very original dilemma in the post I linked to above.
Our organization does have this rule, but if we just apply a refund through EE4, it can show a partial refund, or it will, in other words, show that a part refund is still owed to the cancelled registrant.
We were hoping to find a solution that would make the accounting look ‘clean’ if you know what we mean.
That is the reason for the additional questions here, in response to the former solution you gave us.
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Josh
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January 25, 2017 at 8:23 am
You cancel the original registration from the Registrations overview. Then you create a new registration through the WordPress dashboard, which is explained here:
https://eventespresso.com/wiki/manually-add-registrant-wordpress-dashboard/
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BCPTA
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January 25, 2017 at 2:51 pm
Josh, we know how to manually add a registrant. However, if that is the instruction here, can you then answer the follow up questions in this thread? That is the reason we posted this support request in the first place.
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Josh
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January 25, 2017 at 3:58 pm
Can we accomplish the same thing without the purchase of the attendee mover add-on? This happens so infrequently for us, that it may not be worth the cost, especially as a non-profit run entirely by volunteers.
Our goal was to get our accounting records on the website to be accurate. So a way to do that without buying an add-on would be great.
What you will accomplish will not be exactly the same thing, but it will be similar. I’ll try to answer your other questions.
Could we: Step 1: Create a draft event for cancellations
Yes.
Step 2: If a registrant cancels, register them for the ‘cancellation’ event. Regarding Step 2: do we need to ‘activate’ the ‘cancellation’ event to be able to register people for it? Or can we keep it in draft mode and have all the functionality still work, including transactions?
You could keep it as a draft event.
Step 3: Then unregister them for the original event (without doing a refund…if this works). Regarding Step 3: Supposing the above plan would work, when we cancel their registration for the original event, does this show a ‘negative’ in the accounting records on the site? Or would this require actually clicking to refund them, and having that refund transaction go through Paypal?
You’ll refund the full amount when you go to edit the original transaction.
This only records the refund for account purposes though, so you’ll need to go to PayPal to refund them, the refunds are not processed via Event Espresso, they’re only recorded in Event Espresso.
Step 4: The ‘cancellation’ event could be the original price, minus the fee.
Step 5: Mark them as having paid (doing so manually).
Step 6: Then refund them the amount shown on the ‘cancellation registration’?
I think step 4 should be the fee only. If it’s the original price, minus the fee, the total revenue figure will be incorrect.
Or is the attendee mover add-on the only way to have the price adjustment balance between the two events?
It is the simpler way for sure.
Or… Is the only way to avoid the add-on purchase by cancelling and refunding the original event registration, then re-doing a transaction fee under the ‘cancellation’ event?
If I understand this question correctly, this sounds like the way forward. So you’d refund the original transaction 100%, which zeros out the original event registration payment. Then you apply your cancellation fee to the other non-event. Then your revenue totals should work out cleanly.
And this would require they manually pay us for the cancellation? I see how this would be more difficult to enforce….
As long as your payment processor allows for partially refunding, you won’t need to require they manually pay you. However, if you end up refunding them 100%, you could send them a PayPal invoice for the cancellation fee. As you seem to be aware, they may not end up paying the cancellation fee.
Or is there another way?
I’m not aware of another way other than the ways I’ve already mentioned.
Can we add a cancellation fee feature request to your development progress on this plugin? Seems like something many could use.
It seems so, but do you think people would buy a cancellation fee add-on? We wouldn’t add this as a core feature because many users of EE don’t have a need for adding cancellation fees. Along with that, the cancellation fee would probably be something we’d add-on to the attendee mover add-on since there’s related functionality there. e.g. Someone wants to reschedule, but a fee needs to be changed to process that rescheduling.
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BCPTA
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January 25, 2017 at 10:37 pm
Thank you so much Josh. I get it now. You were very patient, so thank you also for that.
I’m not sure about other people, but the cancellation fee seems like a reasonable thing to have, one way or another. I would love to see this put in as a feature request.
A lot of events like ours require months of advance planning. When that is the case, cancellation fees are necessary. This may also be because our fees can be high too (since we offer continuing education credits). So someone wouldn’t likely just forfeit their registration fee of a few hundred dollars if they wanted to cancel. They would ask for a refund. But that would still require administrative and organizational costs on our end. Which is where the cancellation fee comes in.
Plus, cancellation fees discourage cancellations. Or so we guess…
This is just to give you the perspective of running a non-profit like ours. I am not sure if it would apply to smaller events, with less administrative needs, and shorter planning cycles. And I’m not sure if you have people running events as extensive as ours need to be. So I can’t say whether or not I think other people would buy it. I just think it’s certainly not unexpected – cancellation fees are common in different industries.
Plus, I think it’s somewhat standard when you have an appointment, like with dentists, that there is a cancellation fee if you don’t show. Or if you book a hotel, or cruise – those have cancellation fees. So maybe that’s something, I’m not sure. I realize those are not events per se. Just mentioning in case it bears relevance.
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Josh
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January 26, 2017 at 8:52 am
Thanks for the additional feedback.
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