The Cost of “Savings”

Points, miles, cash back, and rewards.  These words dominate the credit card marketing world. If you’re like most of us, they also dominate how you choose to spend your money.

Every time a consumer makes a purchase, they make a deliberate choice to pull out a specific method of payment from their wallet – whether it be cash, check, or credit card.  If they use a credit card, they’re going to choose the card that rewards them the most, or has the most room left to spend.  This is the same decision making that bidders will use at your auction.

That’s why qCheck Payment Processing will always accept any major credit card (including Diner’s Club).  We understand the importance of enabling events to accept any card a guest wants to use.

The motivation for writing this entry came after hearing that a few clients choose not to accept American Express because it carries a 0.40% higher transaction fee. We urge these clients to reconsider their decision to force their AMEX carrying patrons to use an alternate credit card.

Stifling the bidding power of your AMEX guests for less than one-half of one-percent of a savings isn’t a savings at all.  In fact, it’s costing you much more than you might think.

For more info on qCheck:
http://www.maestrosoft.com/qCheck

Mobile Donations

This month, MaestroSoft took its next big leap into becoming a year round fundraising resource by announcing MaestroMobile, a service that allows supporters to donate money from any web-enabled phone.

Now your supporters can use any web-enabled phone to donate money and pay for items and services, with pricing that makes it affordable for ANY organization. If you already have our qCheck Payment Processing, you can use your existing account year-round with no extra hassle!

We’re hosting weekly demos, and we have a handy PDF to send to you so you can check out all the details.

Email us at sales@maestrosoft.com, and ask to see the MaestroMobile handout!

Using the Revenue Split

When viewing the Enter Item / Detail Tab of Item Entry [5,2], you may notice the Revenue Split field.  This field will let you enter in the percent of the final bid that goes back to the donor.

This is especially useful for both getting your procurement started as well as finding a way to support local artists.  While the function can be used to split the final bid for a number of reasons, the most popular one is to find local photographers, painters, and sculptures who want to bring their work to your event.

You can offer these artists a percent of the final sale, and then tell your bidders that their winning bids support both your organization and the local arts.

After the event, run the Donor Revenue Split report [7,1] to generate statements for your donors that display how much you owe them and what the item sold for.  AMPro doesn’t automatically issue any payments or credits to the donor, but it will at least generate this report that you can use when issuing check or other payments to the donor.

Tips for Packaging

Packaging items or “creating baskets” is done by clicking on Create a Package in the Multiple Item Viewer [5,3].

• Before clicking on Create a Package, note that the list of items that will display for packaging are in the same order as those in the Multiple Item list before clicking on it.  If you sort your items first by category, then the list of items to package will be in the same order.
• When packaging, always leave the check box marked for AMPro to automatically combine the item descriptions into one long description.  That way when you edit the description later, you’ll know everything that was in the original descriptions.

About In-Kind (IK) Items

By now, you might have noticed the “IK” auction type in AuctionMaestro Pro in the Setup Auction Types screen[5,1] and wondered what it was for.

The In-Kind Donation auction type is utilized any time a donated item isn’t going to be sold at the auction – such as table wine, decor, or services.  This auction type allows you to record the donated item, but keep it out of the bid sheets, catalog, etc.

Input the item like normal, assigning it a fair market value and its respective donor.  AMPro will include them in thank you letters, and in your item records, but won’t let them interfere with your real auction items.

NEW AMPro Help File

Starting with AuctionMaestro Pro version 4.69, a new version of the integrated help file is included with every copy.  Access it by clicking on Help(F1) at the top of the screen, and selecting “Open Help”.
The new help file has a “Quick Answers” section, a new re-mastered digital manual, and help pages that link to others throughout the file.  Also, built into AMPro are Help buttons on the screens where people need the most assistance.

Using “TG” Items to Track Potential Items

Start entering items in AMPro that you don’t have yet.  During auction planning, people often comment about being able to get certain items:

“My uncle has a cabin up at the lake that I’m sure he would donate for a weekend.  We could auction that off during the live auction.”

Even though you don’t have it yet, enter in the item as usual, and name the solicitor as the person who offered to get it.  The only difference is you place the item in the “TG” (to get) auction type. This way, you can look at all of your “to get” items later on, and know who to follow up with.

Once you procure the item for certain, you can change the item’s auction type to a silent or live item, assign the donor, and it’s ready to go!