What's the best way to take bookings for an event?

There are three different ways you can handle taking bookings for events in Hubb. Which one you use depends on what you need to achieve.
 

Article Form

Create a simple article form on the site to allow people to book a place. You can then take payment 'on the door' if required. User's don't have to register on the site to use this and an account is not created as a result of filling the form in.

Form submission data can be emailed to you as it is submitted and is also stored inside a simple flat-file database in the system, where it can be marked as e.g. 'completed' and other statuses. This data can also be exported to PDF or a CSV file for import into Excel for sorting/manipulation.

See the article form guide for details of how to set this up.
 

Store/Shop

Use the shop facility and create products which are tickets. e.g. Adults, Children etc. Simply send the tickets by post to the purchaser. This is ideal in a scenario where you're not concerned who's coming, just how many and you want to take payment online. You can also set the ticket products to have stock levels which count down and so manage the number of tickets sold via the online route. However, be careful you don't lose track of numbers as you may have tickets being sold elsewhere.

To sell via the store, you would need to have a Hubb Payment Processing Account.

Users registering in the store can be allowed to automatically create a site account or a store-only account.
 

Payment Groups

For to most complete solution for taking bookings for events online use our Payment Group feature. This is the best option when you:

1. Want to know who's coming (the name of delegates). Reports of delegates and booking options selected can be exported from the system prior to the event, and even imported into a desktop application to be accessed offline to book delegates in at the event.
2. Want to record more complex information about each delegate: what organisation they're from, what their role is, any dietary requirements etc.
3. Have a complex payment scenario where the options selected, affect the end price.
   * The delegate is coming for Friday / Saturday / Sunday or the whole weekend.
   * They're selecting the basic rather than luxury accommodation.
   * They're a student and so eligible for a discount.

To sell via payment groups, you would need to have a Hubb payment processor account. You can find details of how to set up your payment processor account on our online giving page.

Note: Payment Groups can also be used for donations - allowing one-off or repeat, direct-debit style donations to be set up for multiple donation funds. When Payment Groups are used for donations, Gift Aid can be tracked and reported on.

Extensive reports relating to donor/donations/booker/delegate and financial information can be accessed or created as required.

If you are wanting to produce tickets for an event then there are instruction here.