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Paid event registrations
The family camp, the weekend retreat and the leadership conference all cost money, and someone has to keep track of who has paid. In Chimes the office puts a price on each kind of attendee, such as adults, children and under-fives, and families pay as they book on the church website or in the member app.
Payments go through the church's own Stripe account. They are event income, kept apart from giving, so a camp fee never appears on anyone's giving statement and the treasurer sees registration money in its own report.
In short
A price for each kind of attendee
Adult, child, under five or anything else, each with its own price and, if you like, its own number of places within the event's capacity.
Deposits and balances
Confirm a place on full payment or on a minimum deposit. The balance is paid later, online or at the office, and is never charged automatically.
Kept apart from giving
Event payments have their own report and never appear in donation lists, giving statements or the giving dashboard.
Church camp and retreat registration with payment
An event with no attendee types stays a free sign-up, exactly as before. Prices are added event by event.
Each booking keeps the prices it agreed to. Changing an event's prices later never rewrites what a family has already booked.
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01
Open registration
Choose the dates registration is open, the capacity in places, the named guests allowed and whether visitors can book on the website.
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02
Add attendee types
Set the currency and a price for each type, such as Adult, Child and Under five. A price of zero is free.
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03
Choose what confirms a place
Full payment, a minimum deposit for the whole booking, or pay later when the office approves it.
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04
Allow office bookings
Let staff register people who phone or call in and record the cash and checks they hand over.
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05
Follow the money
Watch confirmed places, balances still owed and receipts in the registrations list and the event finance report.
Visitors and members book places and pay
A visitor gives their name and email, chooses an attendee type for themselves and each guest, and reviews every place and the total before anything is charged. Their places are held for fifteen minutes while they pay, so nobody takes the last place in the meantime.
Members book their household the same way from the member app. Both get a private link to their booking, which always shows what was paid and what is still owed, and from which they can pay the balance whenever they are ready.
- check Cards through Stripe, with any approval the bank asks for
- check A discount code applied before payment
- check A zero-price place, such as an under-five, confirmed without a card
Phone bookings, cash and checks, and scholarships
Not everyone books online. The office registers people from the directory, or a visitor by their contact details, and records cash or a check when the money is in hand, with the date and the receipt or check number.
A scholarship lowers what a family owes without pretending money was received. A receipt entered by mistake is voided with a reason and entered again, and the original stays in the history.
- check Pay later, approved booking by booking, confirms a place before payment
- check Discount codes with a limit on how many times they can be used
- check Separate permissions for registrations and for event finances
Camp shirts, meals and other extras, with limited stock
Extras are what people buy alongside their place: a camp shirt in their size, a packed lunch, a book for the conference. Each group of choices applies to every attendee or once to the whole booking, can be optional or required, and has its own price and stock, kept apart from the event's places.
Families choose their extras at checkout and the total updates before they pay. The office can change them later with a reason, and handing goods back is recorded apart from returning money.
- check Stock counts what is held during checkout, so the last shirt is sold once
- check Bookings keep the extras and prices they agreed to
- check Every extras change and return shows in the finance ledger
A waitlist when the event is full, with offers the office controls
When the event, or the attendee type someone needs, is full, they can join the waitlist from the website or the member app. Nothing is reserved and nothing is charged while they wait.
When places come free, the office sees the requests oldest first and offers places to a whole party at once. The offer holds those places for fifteen minutes at the current price, and the family is emailed a link to book them. Offering out of turn, to fit a smaller party, needs a written reason.
- check Free and paid events alike
- check Nobody is moved off the waitlist automatically
- check An offer that expires releases its places again
Questions and acknowledgements on each booking
Ask what you need to know for each event: how a group is travelling, who can bring a car, the name to print on a badge. A question can be asked once per booking or for each attendee, and an acknowledgement asks people to confirm they have read the notes you paste in.
Answers are private to the staff who manage registrations. They stay out of the attendee CSV, receipts and emails, and a missing answer becomes a follow-up for the office rather than a reason to turn someone away.
- check People can come back and change their answers later
- check Changing a question never changes what was already answered
- check Not an electronic signature, and not for medical or child-pickup details, which have their own records
Every charge, receipt and refund, reconciled
The finance report totals what was charged, what discounts and scholarships took off, what was received by card, cash and check, what was refunded and what confirmed bookings still owe, for one event or all of them.
Its ledger lists every entry, and flags what needs attention: a payment Stripe could not confirm, or money held on a booking that was cancelled. Export the ledger as a CSV for the treasurer.
- check Cancelling places and returning money are separate decisions
- check Full and partial refunds, recorded against the original payment
- check Late or uncertain card results checked before anyone is asked to pay again
Related features
Volunteer rosters and event sign-ups
The roles each service needs, invitations answered by email or in the app, reminders, and event registration with capacity, guest limits and prices.
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Events and visitor registration
The weekly rhythm and upcoming gatherings straight from the calendar, with registration for events that take sign-ups, free or paid, open to visitors too.
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Events and serving
Members book their household and guests for church events, paying when there is a price, and answer the roster, see their service plans and arrange cover.
See the feature arrow_forwardSee Chimes with your own congregation in mind.
Tell me how your church keeps its records today and where you would like Chimes hosted. I will come back with a deployment plan and a straight answer on what it will take.