[BCRaven]

We have a yearly Scholarship Ball that raises about $500,000 a year. I would love to improve our check-in and check-out software and processes. During the event, we have a live auction and something called "Fund A Raven" where we have giving levels and ask everyone to "bid" at their level ($10K, $5K, $2,500, $1,000, $500, $250, $100). We use a semi-home grown software to enter in the auction items and check-out. It's very basic with much enhancement needed.

My questions to you that do major formal events: What kind of software do you use the day of the event for check-in and check-out? Do you use an event company instead? (If you are in the Kansas City area, can we get their name?) And of course, how do you integrate it with RE or bring data back and forth before and after the event?

Many many thanks!
Sara Kramer
Benedictine College
skramer@benedictine.edu

[andrea.bbbs]

We use an inexpensive ($300 - $400) program called Auction! There is some duplication of effort - by choice I data enter all donations, ticket purchases, auction purchases into RE, but Auction! data is easily dropped into Excel spreadsheets. It is simple, user-friendly, and they have awesome tech support.

We use Auction! for check-in, and it works great on event night. The company even has tech support available in the evening so event-night emergencies are easily solved - not that we have ever had any.

You can use Auction! to print out bid cards, bid sheets, program pages, reports, table lists, winning bid lists, and invoices.

No, I don't work for the company!

[BCRaven]

Thanks for the information. Do you have a website for the software?

Sara

[andrea.bbbs]

Auction Systems Home

[BCRaven]

Andrea,

We are seriously considering Auction! for our event. Do you manually enter the information in both RE and Auction? How about the Auction Pay piece? Do you use it?

Thanks!
Sara