Many small to medium organizations or venue operators or not-for-profit organisations who are currently using a pen and paper method of recording ticket sales to their events might be unsure what advantages they would gain if they were to utilise box office ticketing software to handle all their ticketing. So let's look at a number of the principal advantages.
Easier ticket sales and recording.
Once a program and event is set up, the ticket sales process involves just a few clicks of the mouse to select the seat, select or enter the patron's name, record the payment and print the ticket. Many software programs can also print an address label and receipt for the customer if required.
Opportunity for Internet sales
Most box office software these days offers the ability to sell tickets online and print tickets at home which can not only increase sales opportunities, but save time and labour in handling phone or mail-order bookings, processing credit card payments and mailing out the tickets. Bar coded PDF tickets also offer better defense against fraud and copying.
Enhanced and more in depth reports
Most box office ticketing software will permit a wide range of reports to be either seen on screen or printed immediately for later scrutiny, αεροπορικα εισητηρια including financial, transaction, attendance and customer records. Information is live and up-to-the-minute. If interactive seating charts are used, details on any ticket sold can be looked up immediately or searches performed by customer name and other fields.
Enhanced customer database
A detailed customer database can be used to expand marketing opportunities and develop a better relationship with customers. Most ticketing software has the ability to send out e-mails or print pre-formatted letters to customers directly from the database. The ticketing software may also offer the ability to classify customers in certain ways for marketing purposes
Time and labour saving
Entering data into a software system is much quicker and more accurate than pen and paper recording systems and the inherent linkage ensures that ticket sales are correctly associated with payments and with printed tickets. Avoids duplicate entering of customer data.
Permits multiple operators
A good box office ticketing system will allow any number of users to access and use the system either from the administration side or as ticket sellers. And if it is a Web-based system, any designated user with username and login would have the ability to access and operate the system no matter where in the world they are located.
Faster and easier transaction lookups
With interactive seating charts, an administrator is able to easily look up to whom each seat has been sold, the amount paid, the date the transaction took place and maybe also the ticket seller's name.
On demand Ticket printing
Ticketing software will normally give the option of either printing tickets immediately a ticket has been sold or at a later time. It will also allow for will call tickets, voucher ticket sales, group tickets, season tickets and other types of tickets.
Visual display of ticket availability from interactive seating charts
A seating chart gives the administrator or ticket seller the ability to quickly see which seats have been sold, which seats have been reserved and which seats are still available so they can quickly offer the best seats to a potential patron.
Season tickets
Box office software may enable season or subscription tickets to be quickly sold by assigning seats in all specified season events or performances concurrently. The best ticketing software will also offer the capability of rolling over subscriptions from one season the next with just a click or two of a mouse, retaining the same seat numbers for subscribers.
Sales linked to verified payments
Because a ticket sale will only be recorded as completed if the payment has been also confirmed, a software system will help to avoid possible errors in crosschecking payments received versus tickets issued. As most ticketing software is directly connected to a payment processor via payment gateway, tickets will only be recorded as "sold" when the credit card payment has been validated.
So even for non profit or community organizations who may only have a few events per year, box office ticketing software not only provides labor saving benefits, but offers many other advantages besides.
