transactions on individual v. household

Hi Judy,

We went live Monday, and as an Education user I can say it's much easier to have transactions live on the household for Education purchases. For example, we manage a large summer camp through Tessitura, and many of our customers have multiples orders with multiple line items and multiple children. Having them centralized on the household record makes searching, modifications and customer service much quicker and smoother. For those particular kinds of transactions, we transact with the family as a unit, so it makes the most sense.

-Michael Wilcox, Science Museum of Minnesota

Hi Judy -

We're finding that having this 'transition' period where we are learning how a household interacts with all the parts of Tessitura without having to worry about where a transaction lives is extremely useful. I think that if we added another moving piece to the whole paradigm change we'd have some nervous breakdowns in our world. The only real discussion we've had about transactions on affiliates has been with very specific donation scenarios and since keeping the donation on the 'household' account mimics what we've been doing for the last 6 years we're just using this as a prep year for next year when transactions can be marked and flagged in context.

HTH,

Heather

Before I get started - We are not on V11 yet and don't have any hands on experience to point us down one path or the other yet. :)

We also have some situations that would lead us to want to put transactions on the individual account rather than the household account. One specific scenario (that comes up way more often that you'd believe) is that many of our patrons want to be treated as an individual and separate their transactions from their spouse's transactions. This is how we ended up with many duplicates in our old ticketing system. We would have 3 (or more) accounts for each household. One for Mr John Smith, one for Mrs Jane Smith and one for Mr and Mrs John and Jane Smith. Depending on the situation, any one of those accounts could be used for a ticket purchase.

From looking at the V11 sandbox it looks like you can see the ticketing history for the individuals in the household record and can see the household ticketing history in the individual records. So I *think* (though I could be wrong) it wouldn't be the end of the world to choose at the time of the transaction whether it should be on the household or the individual account based on the customer's preference.

Perhaps once we have upgraded our test environment to V11 and have had some time to play we will have a much clearer understanding of what the appropriate choice for us will be.

Thanks everyone for your responses – I appreciate it! We’ve decided to follow the common wisdom and keep most transactions on the household in v11. We too have some patrons who want to keep their transactions separate from a spouse/partner so for those I think we’ll flag the household account and leave specific instructions in a CSI.

Another situation we frequently encounter now is when N1 and N2 have different last names, tickets automatically get filed under N1 and if N2 made the transaction it can cause confusion (and sometimes irritation on the part of the patron). I’m wondering if the Swap A1 / A2 feature would work as a solution, but maybe that would create headaches that I can’t even think of now. Does anyone know what the ramifications of using the swap feature are?

Thanks again!

We have not played with the swap feature extensively, but I do wonder if it will solve  your specific problem.  If I order tickets today and keep them at will call.  You have made my account A1 so that they will live at will call in my name, but what happens when tomorrow my husband calls and orders tickets and you swap the names again?  My will call order has not printed yet so it will now file under my husband's name. 

We have created a will call header that can print specific notes left in the order notes.  It seems like this would be a better solution to leave order specific name instructions.

Judy,

Preface: we are migrating to v11 in a few weeks.

It sounds like you are specifically referring to ticket transactions.  In this case, we are opting to keep ticket purchases on the household record for now. 

As far as donations are concerned, we are going to transact on the household record during transition and as our default until clear guidelines can be put in place.  However, we are planning to start processing donations to the individual records as soon as possible.  We have some concerns with memberships and reporting that are holding us up. 

As we are so close to our official migration date and are running out of testing time, we have decided to put this on hold until after the migration (though we are actively brainstorming how to make this work).

Amber Newsome
Segerstrom Center for the Arts
(714) 556-2122 ext. 4259
ANewsome@SCFTA.org