Changing prices after the fact

Hi David,

The only way to change the price on seats that are already sold is to return them and then seat them again, which will have to be done manually.  When you do that it is pretty easy to move the difference in price into a special payment method.

I’m not sure I’m understanding the situation though.    From what you wrote, it sounds like you are not refunding money to customers or charging them more, so in that case there isn’t a reason from the Tessitura perspective to change the price on the seats that have already been sold.  The standard Tessitura reports will always correctly reflect the price paid for a seat when it was sold.  Changes you make to prices now will not adversely affect seats that have already been sold.

Kevin Sheehan

Documentation & Learning Resources Specialist

Tessitura Network

1 888 643 5778 ext 329 Office

ksheehan@tessituranetwork.com

Just as an FYI, if the subscribers have not been seated the price will change to the new price when they are seated and then they will require the adjustment payment method or a refund.  We had this happen this year when we correct a mistake in a price map after we had sold a few new subs!  It was definitely odd to see money due after seating when there had not been money due before we started seating!

Good luck!

Amanda Sheehan

Ticket System Administrator

Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park

P Please consider the environment before printing this email.

Just as an FYI, if the subscribers have not been seated the price will change to the new price when they are seated and then they will require the adjustment payment method or a refund.  We had this happen this year when we correct a mistake in a price map after we had sold a few new subs!  It was definitely odd to see money due after seating when there had not been money due before we started seating!

Good luck!

Amanda Sheehan

Ticket System Administrator

Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park

Hi David,

The only way to change the price on seats that are already sold is to return them and then seat them again, which will have to be done manually.  When you do that it is pretty easy to move the difference in price into a special payment method.

I’m not sure I’m understanding the situation though.    From what you wrote, it sounds like you are not refunding money to customers or charging them more, so in that case there isn’t a reason from the Tessitura perspective to change the price on the seats that have already been sold.  The standard Tessitura reports will always correctly reflect the price paid for a seat when it was sold.  Changes you make to prices now will not adversely affect seats that have already been sold.

Kevin Sheehan

Documentation & Learning Resources Specialist

Tessitura Network

1 888 643 5778 ext 329 Office

ksheehan@tessituranetwork.com

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Putting the extra money from those originally priced subscriptions into that payment method isn’t going to tell you how much money you are losing on the newly purchased reduced price subscriptions, though.  That money you put into the payment method is money you actually received.  The money you lose will be the difference between what the new subscriptions cost and what they would have cost before the price change.  So unless I’m misunderstanding what you are doing or missing a piece of the plan, I’m not seeing of reseating all your subscriptions so they are at the new reduced price is going to get you the data you need.

My suggestion would be to create a new price type for the reduced prices and use that price type going forward.  That way it will be easy to segregate your original price sales from your reduced price sales.  You could then run a report to show you sales by price type to find out how many tickets were sold at the reduced price and then use then pretty easily calculate the money lost by multiplying the number of reduced price seats by the original price to calculate the potential money you could have brought in and then subtract from that the amount of money you actually brought in.  If you have multiple price zones, the Performance Sales Analysis report will break down sales by price type and zone for you to help with your calculations.

You could also just change the price in the way Bob described in his response (expiring the old price maps and adding new ones), and on the Box Office Statement it will break out the different prices by zone without needing to create a new price type.  The only drawback to doing it this way is that this report only reports on one performance at a time.  But you will still have the number of tickets sold at the original price and the number of tickets sold at the new price making it pretty easy to do your money lost calculations.

I’m know there are other users out there who regularly change prices on the fly.  Perhaps one of you could chime in on how you handle the reporting on revenue you lost after the price change.  My theories are nice but your practical experience is even better.

To answer your question directly, though, you can’t save an order with a negative balance.  You would place the money from the returned/released seats into an on account payment method to hold it and then use that on account money when you come back to the order later to reseat.  That is the standard way to handle moving money around in this type of situation.  And if you are go with just changing the price on the price map level (as opposed to creating a whole new price type) you should do it as Bob explained whether or not you end up redoing the subscriptions you have already sold.

Kevin Sheehan

Documentation & Learning Resources Specialist

Tessitura Network

1 888 643 5778 ext 329 Office

ksheehan@tessituranetwork.com

Correct me if I am wrong, I think you have to do these in new orders. I say this because if you apply new price maps and expire the old price maps then reseat the subscriptions in the same order; I think it uses the order date as the guide of which price maps to use?

By the way, you can always use an on account payment method to hold the money with the customer. No refunding and no recharging the customer.

Kevin and Amanda, you hit the nail on the head, the subscriber will not see a difference in payment. The resident group wants to report on revenue lost, so after being reseated, the difference will wash to a separate payment method. They need to see what they are eating this season.

Ok, so we'll have to manually go in and reseat the subs, got it. Since we are trying to avoid refunding credit cards, then charging again, is there any disadvantage to releasing the subscriptions (leaving a negative balance), changing the zone map, changing the price maps, then reseating the subs in the same orders, and doing the wash as stated above?