We have items that we sell in Tessitura only through the back office, usually over the phone or by selling to existing constituents who have credit cards on file. We had a customer call who had never purchased from us, to purchase a back-office-only item, but the customer didn't feel comfortable giving us credit card number over the phone. Is there a way for a customer to create a new Tessitura account via TNEW and add credit card info to their account, without making a purchase? Or is there some other trickery anyone can suggest to accomplish this?
I wonder if you could set up a dummy event that has a billing schedule with $0 down (you'll need some dollar amount in it for the 2nd installment but you could probably make it something like "$1 - will not be charged"). Then you would share the direct URL to patrons as they request it and instruct them to check out with the reassurance that they won't really be charged that second $1 installment. You'd probably also want some dynamic email content that explains what they just "bought" in their email receipt. It might be cumbersome to set up the first time but once it's built once you'll be able to use it long-term.