Tutorial Videos:

• Creating online raffle tickets
• Supporting Fund A Need Reverse Auctions with Silent Auction Pro

Auction administrators can create custom auction types to support almost any variety of auction activity conceivable. The strategy and process for supporting each custom auction type is fundamentally the same. To track a cash purchase (raffle/game/drink tickets, wine pull)or pledge through Silent Auction Pro™, it must be represented as an auction item. The exception is cash received from sponsors that is categorized as Cash Donation.

Some common reasons to create a custom auction types are:

Cash Pledges – Cash pledges, such as Bid-a-Cause, Paddle Raise, and Fund-a-Need, allow attendees to "bid" pledges of cash for a particular need. During the live auction portion of an event the auctioneer starts out asking for high pledges of say $1000, for example. Attendees raise their bidder numbers to make the pledge. As pledge spots are filled, the auctioneer moves to progressively lower pledge amounts. The bid results are written on a tracking sheet and then entered into the software. See Printing Tracking Sheets.

Raffle Tickets – Many auctions include games or activities that require a separate purchase such as a raffles, drink/food tickets, "golden opportunity tickets" etc. These ticket purchases are essentially cash donations that can be treated as auction items. Like charging items to your room at a hotel/resort, each bidder's ticket purchase(s) (for whatever the value) is to recorded against a "placeholder" auction item number for the purpose of invoicing, generating receipts, and reporting results.

When creating the raffle donation, do not set the item category to Cash Donation or it cannot be converted to an auction item. As with cash pledges, use a tracking sheet to record the sales and then enter the total purchase amounts as bid results into the software. Click here for more information on how to set up a Cash Pledge or Raffle Ticket auction type.

Top n Bidders Win – Top n Bidders Win allows the top designated number of bidders (n) to win the auction item (where n can be any number of bidders from 2-30). For example, if a local chef has donated a specialty dinner with wine pairing for the 6 highest bidders, use the Top n Bidders functionality. Bidders can continue to outbid each other until time expires, and then the software will add the winning item to the top 6 bidders' invoices. Click here for more information on how to set up a Top n Win auction type.

Direct Sales – To track direct sales of wine, food, art, or other physical items where the asking price is a fixed amount, create a custom auction type or use the Fixed Price auction type. As with cash pledges or raffles, treating direct sales items as auction items provides the benefit of these items appearing on attendee's invoices and your auction reports. See Creating Fixed Price/Multiple Winner Auction Items.

After creating a custom auction type for your Cash Pledge (Fund A Need) or Raffle Tickets and enabling the Tracking Sheet option, follow the steps below to create a placeholder donation, convert it to a placeholder auction item, and record the pledge or purchase on a tracking sheet. Entering these custom auction types as bid results in the software places the transaction amount on the attendees' invoices and provides a permanent record for your group.

1. Create the donations:
   1. Create a placeholder contact/donor for your organization. The contact name does not matter, but set the company name as the name of your group. For example: a school PTO could be entered as First Name: PTO - Last Name: Thompson Elementary - Company: Thompson Elementary PTO
   2. Enter a placeholder donation for what you want to track. For instance, if it is a "Fund-a-Need," make that the title of the donation.
   3. Enter a simple description.
   4. Add a new Category that is the same as the Donation Title.
   5. Leave the Donated By Reference set to Company.
   6. Enter a Dollar Value appropriate for the item. The dollar value really doesn't matter because this will not be displayed anywhere. The only impact it has is in the final reporting of your percent return for your event. Choosing a value as close to what you expect to get for each item will make the percent return more accurate. If it is a ticket purchase (for a raffle, drinks or game) or cash pledge type of item, set the value to $0 as you will be recording the bidder number and the dollar amount spent on the tracking sheet. This also ensures the bidder's receipt reflects an appropriate value for tax deduction purposes. Do not create different fund-a-need levels.
   7. Set the Item Status to Received by Auction Admin.
   8. Set the Number Donated to the number of items you expect to sell plus some padding. The Number Donated is NOT necessarily how many tickets you will sell, but instead, how many bidders will make a purchase or cash pledge.
   Make sure all the information is correct before clicking the Add Donations button as you will be creating perhaps hundreds of donations with a single click.
   9. Click the Add Donation button.
2. Create the Auction Items using Auto-create:
   1. Click the Auction Admin menu item and go to the Create Auction and Manage Auction Items section.
   2. Click the Auto-create Auction Items link.
   3. Select the Category of the item you created in the Filter by Category drop-down list. Click the Apply Filter button. This will reduce the donations list to just those items you want to convert.
   4. Scroll to the bottom of the list and click the Select All link.
   5. Enter a starting block of auction numbers, such as 500.
   6. Add a new Auction Type that is the same as the Category of items you selected.
   7. Select Same as the Donation for the Category of item.
   8. Leave all other settings as the default and click the Create Auction Items button.
3. Create a Tracking Sheet:
   1. Silent Auction Pro™ generates tracking sheets automatically, providing the Auction Type assigned to your items has the Tracking Sheet option enabled. See the Auction Day Printed Material section of the Auction Admin page. See Printing Tracking Sheets.
   2. Use this sheet to record the bidder number and amount pledged.
   3. After completing this phase of your event, give the sheet to the auction assistants to enter the results into Silent Auction Pro™ using the standard Bid Entry process plus the auto-increment option. These items and the amounts charged or pledged will then show up on the attendee's invoice.

Assign a monitor to track these items during the live auction using your tracking sheet and make sure that the auction assistants know how to enter the "bids" when they receive the completed tracking sheet(s).

After creating a the Top n Bidders Win (where n equals the number of bidders who will win an item) custom auction type, follow the steps below to correctly enter the donation (only ONE, no matter the value of N), and convert the donation to a custom auction item where the top bidders will win. During mobile bidding, the software will automatically clone the single donation/auction item an appropriate number of times (N-1) and assign an auction item number with a top winning bid to the top N bidders' invoices.

1. Create the donation:
   1. From the Donation page, click the Enter Donation link, and search for the donor contact. If it does not already exist, create it.
   2. Enter the donation title of your Top n Bidders Win item. In our example above, it would be: Chef's Dinner and Wine Pairing for Top 6 Bidders.
   3. Enter the donation description as you wish it to display on the auction item detail page.
   4. Select the appropriate Category for this item. In our example, we would use Dining.
   5. Enter the Dollar Value appropriate for the item. The dollar value will display as part of the auction item. If you do not want the value to display, you must edit the auction type to be priceless, which will mask the value of the donation.
   6. Set the Item Status.
   7. Set the Number Donated to ONE (1). The software will automatically clone the donation/auction item when bidding time expires to create enough donations/auction items equal to the N value you designated in the auction type.
   Be sure to create only ONE donation, regardless of the N value you set in the auction item type.
   8. Click the Add Donation button.
2. Create the Auction Items using Auto-create: Top n Bidders Win auction items may also be created using the Bundling feature.
   1. Click the Auction Admin menu item and go to the Create Auction and Manage Auction Items section.
   2. Click the Auto-create Auction Items link.
   3. Select the Category of the item you created in the Filter by Category drop-down list. Click the Apply Filter button. This will reduce the donations list to just those items you want to convert.
   4. Scroll to the bottom of the list and click the Select All link.
   5. Enter a starting block of auction numbers, such as 500.
   6. Add a new Auction Type that is the same as the Category of items you selected.
   7. Select Same as the Donation for the Category of item.
   8. Leave all other settings as the default and click the Create Auction Items button.