Knowledgebase

TRANSCRIPT

Intro 
Chapters are all about the benefits that they offer to members. In the case of new members, students, or perhaps board members, you might want to offer an extra discount or two. Or perhaps you don't offer refunds. We'll be looking at creating coupons and vouchers today. These are two ways of discounting meeting registrations.

These similar features have a few key differences.

Coupons require a redemption code and can potentially used by anyone who knows the code. They also have a set dollar amount associated with them for the discount.

Vouchers don't require a code and can only be used by members who are current on their dues. They don't have a set dollar amount; instead, they offer a member one or more free registrations.

To keep things from getting out of hand and giving away more discounts than you intend, every meeting has an option to allow or not allow coupon and voucher redemptions. We'll find that in Meetings > Meeting Manager. Click on a meeting and scroll to the Registration Details section. Click Edit here to see and modify the setting to allow voucher and coupon redemptions. It's easy to overlook this option, and it's a very common reason why a member or non-member won't be able to apply a discount to their registration. 

Now that we've confirmed this setting, we'll create some coupons.

Coupons

• Go to Meetings > Coupons and Vouchers > Coupons.
• Click on the Add a Coupon button here. We'll give this coupon a name. This is only for admins who are reviewing the coupons later. Usually you'll indicate the reason for the discount here, like "E. Avery Meeting Credit" or "2019 Board Credit.
• Then we'll enter the amount of the discount. If you're charging tax on your meeting registrations, the tax exempt option may be of interest to you, but most organizations don't use that.
• The redemption code is case-sensitive. We recommend using all capital letters. It's also good to make them a bit random; if my code is BOARD2019, anyone can figure out what it'll be next year.
• Now for the quantity. We can say that anyone who knows the code can use it, no matter how many of those people there are; or we can say that the code is only good for the first X uses. We can also set a per-user redemption limit. My board members should be able to use this whenever they register, but for something like a recruitment bonus, the code should probably only be used once by each recipient.
• If we need extra comments for future admins reviewing these coupons, we'll add them here.
• We can also choose the valid dates for the coupon, or say that the coupon is only good for a particular meeting. Remember, the meeting MUST be set to allow coupon and voucher redemptions.
• On the next screen, we decide who's allowed to use this coupon, whether that's anyone, members, non-members, a particular member subgroup, new members, or a selected individual. That drop-down for the subgroups is looking at the group options, so bear in mind that if you have a group that isn't set to be used for coupons and vouchers, it won't show here! My example is a meeting credit, so I want to pick my specific member here.

• On the next review screen, we'll look over everything and click on the Create button to generate these coupons.
• Now we'll have to issue these codes to the people who want to redeem them. That doesn't happen automatically; instead, it's up to you to decide how you want to distribute them.

Now let's try vouchers. The process is similar.

Vouchers

Vouchers allow a member to apply a credit to a meeting registration, making the ticket free.

• On the Coupons and Vouchers screen, we'll click into the vouchers tab, then Add a Voucher.
• Just like the coupons, we'll give this set of vouchers a name, a number of free meetings, and add comments if we need them. We can do that meeting credit with a voucher, too, as long as this meeting has the same registration cost as the original. So this will be "E. Avery Meeting Credit," just like the example coupon. Optionally, we can make this voucher apply to only a specific meeting. This is more important for vouchers than coupons, because event prices can sometimes vary wildly.
• On the next screen, we'll select who will receive these vouchers, and the options here are the same as for coupons.
• On the next screen, review the details and click Create if everything looks good.

When someone is registering, after they add a ticket to their cart, they'll be prompted to enter a coupon code or redeem a voucher. If your coupon or voucher prompt isn't showing up, it might be that the registrant hasn't added a ticket to their cart yet, or maybe this meeting doesn't allow coupon and voucher redemption.

And now you know how to issue coupons and vouchers. These can be a great way of rewarding your volunteers, or promoting your events for new members and interested prospects. For more tips on promoting your chapter, please check out the StarChapter blog.