It's fairly common to collect a small additional fee from everyone on a squad. There are different ways to do this, depending on your needs and some of your system settings.
Adjust everyone's balance
This is the best method if you want to see the extra charges reflected as part of the original registration they used. There is no system requirement for it, but some organizations prefer to see this in their reports.
You will filter for everyone on the squad(s) and then use the Adjust Balance action on each of their registrations.
Although you can process each person quickly, there is no bulk action for this. So it becomes a less desirable method if you have more than a few dozen people to adjust.
You may think of starting this process from the squad's roster, but you should start it from the Reports > Registrations page instead. It will save you some navigation.
- Go to Reports > Registrations.
- Add a Filter for the squad(s) you want to include, from the Organization Properties list of filters.
- Add a Filter for the registration name(s) you want to adjust, from the Registration Details list of filters.
- Go into the first entry, choose Adjust Balance, and increase their balance by the appropriate amount.
- Press the Next button and repeat the step above. Continue until you have processed the list.
- Go back to the main list with the filters set. Choose either Send Message or Send Reminder to let people know they have an additional amount to pay.
Optionally, if you have required people to keep cards on file and you have let them know the cards may be charged, you can submit a payment for them after you have adjusted their balance. Submit Payment and Adjust Balance are in the same list of actions on the registration details.
Create a dedicated registration form
This option requires the least amount of administrative work. In the Registrations menu, create a form (or clone an existing form). Then have people make the payment using the registration link.
Even though behind the scenes it is a registration, you do not have to present it as such to your customers. Registration forms can be extremely short with no more than the participant's name and an amount to pay.
We recommend you create a program outside your main program(s) for these registrations. Or you could create a draft division inside the applicable main program to accomplish the same thing. The point is to not have the participants on a miscellaneous registration end up mixed with the participants in the main programs, or appear as if they may be not rostered because of the extra registration.
For anyone with a saved payment method, you can process this special registration on their behalf. They will receive a confirmation message when you complete it.
Here is the high level flow for this approach after you have created the form.
- Go to Reports > Participants.
- Add a Filter for the squad(s) you want to include, from the Organization Properties list of filters.
- Send them a message with the registration link.
- Optionally, instead of the previous 2 steps, you could post the registration link on each squad's Squad Chat.
- To track who has not yet paid and message them if you would like, add an additional filter on the Participant Report. The additional filter will be used in conjunction with the squad(s) you set. Choose Registration Name from the Registration Attributes dropdown. Press Advanced. Enter the name of the registration form you created and to get people who have NOT completed it.
Other ways to collect payments
SquadFusion does provide other ways, not related to registrations, to collect payments. Notably Ad Hoc payments and Invoices.
They may not be as appropriate for this task as the methods above. The reason is precisely because they are not linked to registrations, or even participants.
So although you can collect the extra funds as easily, it will be harder to track.
However, assuming you already have Ad Hoc Payments set up, that may be the best option if you are on site somewhere and don't have the time to create a specific registration form or go into everyone's registrations to adjust their balance.
Or, you may want to ask a coach or team parent to have the people on the team pay the fee. (Or you may be that coach or team parent!) Typically, they will not have the administrative capabilities required to create registration forms and adjust participant payment balances.
You can simply direct people to the Ad Hoc page, whatever you have named it and wherever you have placed it in your Menu Tabs. They can quickly make a payment using their mobile device (if you are on site somewhere). They don't need to download the app or even be logged in.
Note: Because it is so quick to set up Ad Hoc Payments (in Processing Options > Payments) we recommend you do this even if you don't intend to use them at the current time. As long as it's not on your Menu Tabs, people won't be able to access it anyway.