There has to be a better way…
Prior to when I started working here the company got started down a path where they were creating new payment methods for each fiscal year. This is mostly for the On-Account payment methods that they insist they need for when they do exchanges. Here is the scenario (tell me if this sounds familiar to any of you):
A Saturday Evening Series subscriber calls and says they cannot make it this Saturday, so they want to exchange for next Thursday. No problem as far as the subscription policy. However, the cost of the tickets on Thursday night is a little less than the Saturday night tickets. This leaves us with a balance due the customer in the transaction. However, police does not allow for giving the customer a refund for the difference, so this money is put “On-Account” using a payment method that is “On Account Play 2” (or 3 or 4 etc, depending on what show in the season this is).
Why do we use an on-account payment method? Here’s the rest of the story:
Two days later, the same customer calls and says they actually cannot make it to the Thursday show either, so they want to come to the next Saturday evening. Now, since the cost of these tickets is greater than the cost of the Thursday night tickets, we use the on-account money to cover the difference.
Does anyone else do anything like this? Our business office maintains that they must “keep the money with the show that it came from.” When the show run is over, how do we move all the money that is left in the on-account payment method for each show back to the ticket sales (or fees) for that show?
Finally, is it really necessary to create a new set of on-account payment methods for each fiscal year?
Thank you
We exchange both subscription and single tix and do not offer refunds when a tix is exchanged into a lowered priced tix.
We create an exchange fee for each subscription (we have three different series with three different GLs) and tie it back to the same ledger as the subscription. Within the Fee screen, I use the fee “Balance Due (before other fees)” as the Calculation Method and make the fee editable. By making the fee editable this allows staff to exchange a second or third time (within this same order) and apply all or part of the monies. We process all exchanges in a separate mode of sale and make the fee available in only that particular MOS.
We exchange single tix in a similar fashion by building a fee for each show.
Julie Ornelas
Ticket Services Director
South Coast Repertory
(714) 708-5572
julieo@scr.org
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From: Tessitura Finance Forum [mailto:forums-finance@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Tom Megale Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 5:53 PM To: Julie Ornelas Subject: [Tessitura Finance Forum] On Account Payment Methods and Fiscal Years
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