We are new to Tessitura and are ready to embark on our first season package sales. We will offer payment plans for this. How do other organizations handle donations as part of the season ticket order? Do you include these on the payment plan and if so, how?
We include donations on billing plans, but there are a few things to be aware of when doing this. As far as I am aware the funds have to be directed to a fund (not on account). The donation is paid first, but if the first installment does not fully pay the donation, there is very little indication that more funds will be coming. For this reason we have a special fund to temporarily collect these donations. We monitor them closely and move the funds on account for processing in the correct fund once full payment is received. This often means editing the billing plan to allow it to complete smoothly when some of the payments are removed. Another reason to use a temporary fund is to avoid generating receipts, memberships and acknowledgements on partial payment of the donation. We do offer billing plans online (TNEW) but any donation made with the order will be charged right away on top of the first installment for the package. Our subscribers appreciate the combined billing plans, so we've decided it is worth the extra work to process.