We are offering complimentary tickets to our annual gala event and I would like to show these in their contributions for accurate tracking. Is it possible or a good idea to enter a $0 gift with a special source code to track comp guests? Is there another way I should be entering this data?
I don't think it's possible to enter a $0 gift, though I could be mistaken.
Do you have your gala set up in Tessitura as an Elevated Event? Elevated Events can handle this situation pretty well. You log the paid attendees' attendance via the Contribution Editor when you process the money, and you track comped patrons' attendance (without entering contributions) via "Events" on their History tabs. That may be the cleanest way to do it. If you add a "complimentary" level in the event setup as Laine suggested your reporting should be easy.