These days, even the smallest organisation who may only hold a few events with a number of performances extending over a week or longer, can take advantage of a ticketing software system to sell tickets online rather than recording bookings via a tedious pen and paper method. And of course any sophisticated box office software system can enhance accuracy, record customer names for easy access in a database, and provide up to the minute details of sales and transactions at a glance.
Setting up such systems is relatively simple. Even though it is possible to acquire a complete box office software system outright, for most organizations, and in particular those holding only a few events, it would be difficult to justify the high purchase cost of such software.
The best option for smaller organisations is normally to choose a system that is fully hosted by the provider of the ticketing system, so all that is usually necessary is to install some files on the PC which will allow access to the main program, including all the administration and ticket sales operations. Most organisations would almost certainly find a web-based system to be more useful than a system where the main software is installed on the organisation's computer.
With a web-based system, any person who has access to a PC and an Internet connection can be given login rights to the ticket system administration and ticket sales. For neighborhood and non-profit organisations in particular, this can be a particular benefit, in view of the fact that such organisations are by and large run by only a handful of a hard working volunteers. Having the capability for any nominated user to access the system, can stretch this task amongst many more people and even offer the ticket seller the ability to administer the system even when they are overseas or on holidays. And it also means that any person with login rights can rapidly see the state of ticket sales and revenue at any time.
Most box office ticket software will give the option of selling tickets off a website as well. Of course you may wish to start with offering tickets through your box office only, and progress later to having a fully online presence.
Offering tickets for sale online does however entail one additional complication, which is that you need to establish a method of taking payments from purchasers. Some ticketing systems will handle the transaction side on your behalf and will subsequently remit the ticket income when the event has taken place or on a month to month basis, minus credit card fees and less any fees or additional fees that the ticketing provider levies. Other ticketing systems prefer you to set up your own payment gateway and merchant account, so that all ticket revenue is credited immediately to your account after a sale is completed online. However if you do not possess a merchant account and payment gateway, or don't wish to set up such options, it's generally possible to use organisations such as PayPal to accept payments.
Ticketing programs will print tickets with the name of the event, date, row, seat number, section number etc immediately a ticket is sold or at some later specific time. Many programs will allow you to print tickets on a normal laser or inkjet printer, where ideally you would procure pre-perforated paper, so that 4 or 5 tickets are printed on a single sheet of paper. Generally, tickets are either completely or partially customisable in terms of added text, logos, pictures etc.
Needless to say there is always a learning curve with any new ticketing software program, however the bulk of smaller community and non-profit organizations are likely to find that this is an insignificant cost to pay for a box office software system that may greatly slash the time and effort in recording and issuing tickets to events.
Malcolm Kay writes on behalf of Handytix which supplies [
http://www.handytix.com/compare-ticketing-systems.htm]box office software systems to help small to medium organizations [
http://www.handytix.com.au/online-ticketing-systems.htm]sell tickets online.
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http://EzineArticles.com/?Ticketing-Options-For-Non-Profit-Organizations&id=4...] Ticketing Options For Non-Profit Organizations
