Venue Setup for ADA

• The graphic map must identify the ADA seating area
• The best seats algorithm may need changed and you should include at least 3 additional companion seats (in the same row or close proximity)
• The seat names and/or purpose for the ADA seats should be clearly marked when presented to the patron. This can be done two different ways depending on the version of TM you are using.
• Any best seat search capability should provide direct access to one or more of the ADA seating areas so that they can be accessed quickly.
• You may need to remove some of the default venue holds on the accessible seats.

Identify ADA seating area

It is fairly easy in Theatre Manager to identify the accessible areas using colour, text, and/or an icon. We recommend changing the background area of the accessible seating to be blue (as per the image to the right) to clearly identify where they are in the venue.

You may also want to put a legend on the map for 'Price A', 'Price B' and 'ADA seats' so that it is equality and abundantly clear where each area is.

Best Seating Setup

The setup for best seating has a some strategies for you to consider.

1. We recommend ADA seating be highest number in the Best Seat # column where possible. This means, the best seat algorithm will chose those seats last - every time. It lessens the effect of them being selected by any patron unwittingly.
2. Name the Best Avail Area column with a clearly identifying nomenclature such as ADA or WC. If you have multiple accessible areas, then name them ADA1, ADA2, ADA3. This way they are considered separate by Theatre Manager.

   Notice in or example, there are only 3 ADA seats in this area (seats 982, 983, 984) but the ADA act requires that companion seats be available as well - up to 3 companion seats per ADA seat subject to availability. If you make them in the same row, add the caption ADA to the Best Avail Area for sufficient seats to meet your ADA requirements.

   These seats should always have a higher Best Seat # than the actual ADA seats. This way, in cases of sellout, you can sell those seats to able-bodied person (they do not have to be saved for companion seats)

Identify ADA seats to Patron

An ADA requirement includes identification of the ADA seat and what it may mean to the patron (see sample to the right). For a patron requiring accessible seats, it should be clear what they selected. Conversely, you can also direct those who selected the seats in error to find some others.

You cannot prevent anyone buying ADA designated seats -- because the ADA act stipulates that anybody, ablebodied or not, can buy them on behalf of another. Fraud detection must be done after the fact (according to the act).

The approach used to identify the seats to the patron changes slightly depending on the version of Theatre Manager. Version 9.06 has some built in features and offer additional benefit - so we recommend using V9.06 or later.

Using version 9.05 or earlier

1. In the Section column, you may wish some distinguishing characters at the beginning of the section that ticket faces and web sales can identify. For example, these were named ADA/...... (followed by Orchestra). A mnemonic could be used for various types of seats like:
   • W/ = Wheelchair
   • T/ = Suitable for Transfer
   • X/ = Walker Accessible
   • C/ = Companion
2. Then adjust your web code (or tickets) if you wish to look for an MS_SEAT_CODE and add any warnings or additional notes as you wish. For example, if you change rowTicketEvent.html, you could add a pick statement within your web code to more clearly designate the intent of the seat.

   eg: pick(int(pos(left(MS_SEAT_CODE,2),'W/T/X/C/')/2),'Wheelchair','Suitable for Transfer','Walker Accessible','Companion')

Using Version 9.07 or later

Note: The ADA requirements have been given some additional capability in version 9.07 with a separate column in the seating setup to indicate seating type comment. Instead of coding the section and the web pages as per step 3 above, you can do the following instead:

1. Each and every seat in a reserved seating venue can now have a 300 character Seat Note associated with it. It can be used to explain any ADA requirements or directions. This field can also be used to indicate an special seating notes like sightline restrictions if they are of benefit to your patrons, or a tag to show a picture that will display what the view is from the seat.
2. There is a column called Use which is flag to indicate if the seat note is an internal note (0) or if it can be displayed on the web site to patrons (1). Normally ADA seating notes would have a 1 in this column. Notes appear on the tooltips for a seat. You can also place comments and html tags within the seats notes if you wish.
3. Update web pages. To implement any of the ADA requirements, you will have to put some words on your web pages indicating policy changes. Alternatively, upgrading the web pages to the version 9.06 standards may give you all the functionality you need without any web page coding.

Searching for Tickets

The 'Best Seat Settings' tab in the venue setup indicates how people can find tickets. If you name the seats in your accessible section 'ADA' or 'WC' or some equivalent terminology, then you can put in search areas into your web sales to help find those accessible seats.

If you have multiple accessible sections, you could call them ADA1, ADA2, etc. and provide an individual search for each one.

Ticket Prices for ADA

However you may need to change your seat map so that the pricing of any seats in the ADA area match the proportion of seats in the entire house. For example, if your venue has:

• 100 seats at price 'A' (50% of the house - most expensive ticket)
• 60 seats at price 'B' (30% of the venue - mid range ticket)
• 40 seats at price 'C' (20% of the venue- least expensive ticket)

Note that our reading of the act does not state that all accessible tickets purchased by one person need be at the same price. That could mean that the accessible seats could be set up explicitly so that their prices match an exact proportion of the ticket prices in the rest of the venue.

There is also a fairness reading of how to set prices according to the act. If all your accessible seats are amongst your 'A' tickets, then you must follow the proportional pricing approach and make some price 'B' and 'C' seats available.

If all your accessible seating is amongst the 'C' area due to how the venue was constructed, then you will need to make the accessible seating at a 'C' price because you cannot arbitrarily charge more just to maintain proportionality. The principle cited in the act is that the price must be the same as if an able-bodied person was to purchase a ticket in that area.

Theatre Manager Implementation Approach

Once you have decided how many accessible tickets you want at each pricing area as appropriate for your venue, you enter that into the venue setup under the 'Seat Names' tab. Look for the column named 'Price Codes' and enter the Price codes against the ADA accessible seats - see the sample below.

Specifically, you will see in this venue that only 3 seats are marked ADA (982,983,984) and they have been given price codes A (seat 982), B (seat 983) and C (seat 984) as per proportionality and seating area for this venue.

Ticket Holds for ADA

• all non-accessible seats have been sold
• all non-accessible seats in a specific area have been sold, so accessible seats in that area may also be released
• all non-accessible seats in a designated price category have been sold, so remaining accessible seat can no be released to the public

If you do hold seats that are released periodically, you will also need to hold accessible seats in proportion to the public seats that are held back. (eg, if you hold 10% of a house for later, you need to hold 10% of the accessible seats). The interpretation of the act is very specific that the venue can exclude from the held count those seats count held for promoters, actors, and others held under contract.

Implementing in Theatre Manager

Implementing this in Theatre Manager is quite straightforward.

• If you do hold seats for the public, then you must also hold the proportion of accessible seats. Run the ticket inventory report called Ticket Hold Counts-Quick to help determine total counts. This report may exported to excel or copy/pasted to excel and proportional calculations run.
• If you periodically release seats, check your house and release the ADA seats at the same time, in proportion.
• If you do not hold any seats (other than those promoter, actor, contracted seats, etc seats mentioned above), then you don't have to hold any accessible seating because (by definition) you will have designed the best seat algorithm to bias ADA seats as the last to be suggested and you will have guided able-bodied patrons not to pick those seats unless they need them.
• However, having no accessible seats does seem a bit harsh, so we'd recommend keeping at a small reserve of accessible seats on hold till you release all seats to the public before the performance - as we don't think that all people who use accessible seating will be as active on the internet at the proponents of the law might anticipate.

Policy Additions for ADA

Appendix: Excerpt from the ADA Act

Section (f) is about ticketing, applies directly and is reproduced below.

• (1)
  • (i) For the purposes of this section, 'accessible seating' is defined as wheelchair spaces and companion seats that comply with sections 221 and 802 of the 2010 Standards along with any other seats required to be offered for sale to the individual with a disability pursuant to paragraph (4) of this section.
  • (ii) Ticket sales. A public accommodation that sells tickets for a single event or series of events shall modify its policies, practices, or procedures to ensure that individuals with disabilities have an equal opportunity to purchase tickets for accessible seating
    • (A) During the same hours;
    • (B) During the same stages of ticket sales, including, but not limited to, pre-sales, promotions, lotteries, wait-lists, and general sales;
    • (C) Through the same methods of distribution;
    • (D) In the same types and numbers of ticketing sales outlets, including telephone service, in-person ticket sales at the facility, or third-party ticketing services, as other patrons; and
    • (E) Under the same terms and conditions as other tickets sold for the same event or series of events.
• (2) Identification of available accessible seating. A public accommodation that sells or distributes tickets for a single event or series of events shall, upon inquiry
  • (i) Inform individuals with disabilities, their companions, and third parties purchasing tickets for accessible seating on behalf of individuals with disabilities of the locations of all unsold or otherwise available accessible seating for any ticketed event or events at the facility;
  • (ii) Identify and describe the features of available accessible seating in enough detail to reasonably permit an individual with a disability to assess independently whether a given accessible seating location meets his or her accessibility needs; and
  • (iii) Provide materials, such as seating maps, plans, brochures, pricing charts, or other information, that identify accessible seating and information relevant thereto with the same text or visual representations as other seats, if such materials are provided to the general public.
• (3) Ticket prices.
  • The price of tickets for accessible seating for a single event or series of events shall not be set higher than the price for other tickets in the same seating section for the same event or series of events. Tickets for accessible seating must be made available at all price levels for every event or series of events. If tickets for accessible seating at a particular price level cannot be provided because barrier removal in an existing facility is not readily achievable, then the percentage of tickets for accessible seating that should have been available at that price level but for the barriers (determined by the ratio of the total number of tickets at that price level to the total number of tickets in the assembly area) shall be offered for purchase, at that price level, in a nearby or similar accessible location.
• (4) Purchasing multiple tickets.
  • (i) General. For each ticket for a wheelchair space purchased by an individual with a disability or a third-party purchasing such a ticket at his or her request, a public accommodation shall make available for purchase three additional tickets for seats in the same row that are contiguous with the wheelchair space, provided that at the time of purchase there are three such seats available. A public accommodation is not required to provide more than three contiguous seats for each wheelchair space. Such seats may include wheelchair spaces.
  • (ii) Insufficient additional contiguous seats available. If patrons are allowed to purchase at least four tickets, and there are fewer than three such additional contiguous seat tickets available for purchase, a public accommodation shall offer the next highest number of such seat tickets available for purchase and shall make up the difference by offering tickets for sale for seats that are as close as possible to the accessible seats.
  • (iii) Sales limited to fewer than four tickets. If a public accommodation limits sales of tickets to fewer than four seats per patron, then the public accommodation is only obligated to offer as many seats to patrons with disabilities, including the ticket for the wheelchair space, as it would offer to patrons without disabilities.
  • (iv) Maximum number of tickets patrons may purchase exceeds four. If patrons are allowed to purchase more than four tickets, a public accommodation shall allow patrons with disabilities to purchase up to the same number of tickets, including the ticket for the wheelchair space.
  • (v) Group sales. If a group includes one or more individuals who need to use accessible seating because of a mobility disability or because their disability requires the use of the accessible features that are provided in accessible seating, the group shall be placed in a seating area with accessible seating so that, if possible, the group can sit together. If it is necessary to divide the group, it should be divided so that the individuals in the group who use wheelchairs are not isolated from their group.
• (5) Hold and release of tickets for accessible seating.
  • (i) Tickets for accessible seating may be released for sale in certain limited circumstances. A public accommodation may release unsold tickets for accessible seating for sale to individuals without disabilities for their own use for a single event or series of events only under the following circumstances
    • (A) When all non-accessible tickets (excluding luxury boxes, club boxes, or suites) have been sold;
    • (B) When all non-accessible tickets in a designated seating area have been sold and the tickets for accessible seating are being released in the same designated area; or
    • (C) When all non-accessible tickets in a designated price category have been sold and the tickets for accessible seating are being released within the same designated price category.
  • (ii) No requirement to release accessible tickets. Nothing in this paragraph requires a facility to release tickets for accessible seating to individuals without disabilities for their own use.
  • (iii) Release of series-of-events tickets on a series-of-events basis.
    • (A) Series-of-events tickets sell-out when no ownership rights are attached. When series-of-events tickets are sold out and a public accommodation releases and sells accessible seating to individuals without disabilities for a series of events, the public accommodation shall establish a process that prevents the automatic reassignment of the accessible seating to such ticket holders for future seasons, future years, or future series, so that individuals with disabilities who require the features of accessible seating and who become newly eligible to purchase tickets when these series-of-events tickets are available for purchase have an opportunity to do so.
    • (B) Series-of-events tickets when ownership rights are attached. When series-of-events tickets with an ownership right in accessible seating areas are forfeited or otherwise returned to a public accommodation, the public accommodation shall make reasonable modifications in its policies, practices, or procedures to afford individuals with mobility disabilities or individuals with disabilities that require the features of accessible seating an opportunity to purchase such tickets in accessible seating areas.
• (6) Ticket transfer.
  • Individuals with disabilities who hold tickets for accessible seating shall be permitted to transfer tickets to third parties under the same terms and conditions and to the same extent as other spectators holding the same type of tickets, whether they are for a single event or series of events.
• (7) Secondary ticket market.
  • (i) A public accommodation shall modify its policies, practices, or procedures to ensure that an individual with a disability may use a ticket acquired in the secondary ticket market under the same terms and conditions as other individuals who hold a ticket acquired in the secondary ticket market for the same event or series of events.
  • (ii) If an individual with a disability acquires a ticket or series of tickets to an inaccessible seat through the secondary market, a public accommodation shall make reasonable modifications to its policies, practices, or procedures to allow the individual to exchange his ticket for one to an accessible seat in a comparable location if accessible seating is vacant at the time the individual presents the ticket to the public accommodation.
• (8) Prevention of fraud in purchase of tickets for accessible seating. A public accommodation may not require proof of disability, including, for example, a doctor's note, before selling tickets for accessible seating.
  • (i) Single-event tickets. For the sale of single-event tickets, it is permissible to inquire whether the individual purchasing the tickets for accessible seating has a mobility disability or a disability that requires the use of the accessible features that are provided in accessible seating, or is purchasing the tickets for an individual who has a mobility disability or a disability that requires the use of the accessible features that are provided in the accessible seating.
  • (ii) Series-of-events tickets. For series-of-events tickets, it is permissible to ask the individual purchasing the tickets for accessible seating to attest in writing that the accessible seating is for a person who has a mobility disability or a disability that requires the use of the accessible features that are provided in the accessible seating.
  • (iii) Investigation of fraud. A public accommodation may investigate the potential misuse of accessible seating where there is good cause to believe that such seating has been purchased fraudulently.

Changing Tax Rates

In all cases of tax changes, consult your accountant for official rules

Miscellaneous questions we've been asked:

• Should you shut down the web listeners before midnight? You could, however, you may find there are many patrons attempting to purchase tickets at the last minute to avoid the new tax rate change. We recommend you keep the web listeners running as long as possible to allow for ticket sales as the pre-existing rate to make your patrons happy. However, the web listener should not run past midnight the morning the tax rate changes.
• Do I need to make all the changes to the pricing/tax rates after midnight or can they wait until the next day? Making the changes to the pricing/tax rates can be made the next day, as long as the web listeners and box office do not do any activity until the changes have been put into place and 'tested'.
• What happens when tickets sold at the tax old rate are exchanged? The rules and government interpretation indicate the 'old' tickets are refunded at the old tax rate and the 'new' tickets are subject to the tax rate in effect at the time of the exchange. Theatre Manager does this automatically for you.

Steps that can be done in advance of the tax change

A. Rename the existing Tax Code to include the percentage value

1. Go to Setup >> System Tables >> Tax Tables.
2. Double click on the old tax code being used.

   Change the name of the tax code to something that included the percentage of the rate.

   For Example:

   Province	Current Name	New Name
   British Columbia	Tax or GST	GST 5%
   Ontario	Tax or GST	GST 5%

3. Click the Save button to save the changes.

B. Create a new Tax Code for the new Tax Rate

1. Go to Setup >> System Tables >> Tax Tables.
2. Click the New button to create a new tax code.

   Set the name of the tax code to something to reflect the new rate.

   For Example:

   Province	Tax Rate
   British Columbia	HST 12%
   Ontario	HST 13%

3. Starting with the City tab, set the appropriate tax rate and G/L Accounts.

   The G/L Accounts will likely be the same G/L Accounts that were used for the prior tax table.

4. Repeat for the PST and GST tabs.
5. Click the Save button to save the changes.

Repeat steps A & B (above) for any other Tax Codes that contain the old tax rate. In a situation where the GL Account number is different click here to learn how to create a new account number.

Steps to take when the tax change occurs

The following steps must be completed after midnight on the date the tax rates are to change and prior to sales beginning.

If you are running Theatre Manager's Web Sales module, make sure to shutdown all listeners by midnight. The Web Sales listeners can be restarted after the following changes have been made.

A. Update Events

1. Go to Setup >> Events.
2. Search for an event that is currently on sale and double click to open it.
3. Click the Accounting Tab.
4. Change the "Ticket Tax Code" from the old tax rate to the new tax table.

   Changing the tax rate on the accounting tab changes it for all performances. If you wish to only change the tax code on a few of the performances, then do not change it on this tab. Double click on only those performances that are to be sold under the new tax rate and change those on the detail window that you see.

5. Click the Save button in the toolbar.
6. Repeat these steps for all other current and future events.

   If tax is currently backed out of the ticket sales price the value of the ticket will need to be altered under the Pricing tab for each Event. This is done by double clicking on the Price Code, entering the base price of the ticket (including tax) and clicking on the Calculate Price Excluding Taxes button.

B. Update Ticket Sales Promotions

If the tax rate switch is instantaneous (i.e. it all happens on one day), then simple change the tax rate on the promotions.

However, if the tax rate is to be phased in, where an old tax rate applies to some events or performances and a new tax rate applies to other events and/or performances, you will need to create a second set of sales promotions to mirror the first and enable/disable them as appropriate.

1. Go to Setup >> System Tables >> Sales Promotions.
2. Search for an active Sales Promotion and double click to open it.
3. Click on the Calculation tab.

   Change the Tax Rate(s) from the old tax rate to the new tax rate. There are four (4) tax rates per sales promotion that may or may not be effected.

4. Click the Save button to save the changes.
5. Repeat these steps for all other active Sales Promotions.

C. Update Memberships/Passes/Gift Certificates

In most cases, a gift certificate should not have any tax charged against it at time of sale as it is what called a 'financial instrument'. No taxes are payable buying a gift certificate and the tax is calculated at the time of exchanging the gift certificate for a ticket

Some items like a play pass or merchandise may have tax applied and could need to be changed. You will need to decide which passes/memberships or gift certificates are subject to the tax change.

1. Go to Setup >> System Tables >> Member Types.
2. Search for an active membership and double click to open it.
3. Click on the Accounting tab.

   Change the "Tax Rate" from the old tax rate to the new tax rate.

4. Click the Save button to save the changes.
5. Repeat these steps for all other active memberships, passes or gift certificates.

D. Update Transaction Fees

1. Go to Setup >> System Tables >> Fee Tables.
2. Double click on the first Fee.
3. Click on the Calculation tab.

   Change the Tax Rate from the old tax rate to the new tax rate.

4. Close the window to save the changes.
5. Repeat these steps with all other Fees.

E. Update The Facility Management Module

RESOURCES

1. Go to Setup >> System Tables >> Resources.
2. Double click on the first Resource.
3. Click on the Accounting tab.

   Change the Purchase Tax Rate and the Sales Tax Code from the old tax rate to the new tax rate.

4. Close the window to save the changes.
5. Repeat these steps with all other Resources.

1. Go to Setup >> System Tables >> Code Table.
2. Select the Volunteer Activity option in the left column.
3. Double click on the first activity in the column on the left.
4. Select the Facility tab.

   Change the Sales Tax Code from the old tax rate to the new tax rate.

5. Close the window to save the changes.
6. Repeat these steps with all other Resources.

Congratulations! New sales may now be processed, and all Web Sales listeners can be started.

Clearing Erroneous A/R

1. Run your regular End Of Day

   Click Here to learn how.

2. Stop web sales and all box office sales

   Click Here to learn how.

3. Run a Receivables Based on Order Balances report

   Determine what is "real" A/R and what needs to be "cleaned up." Examine each receivable to determine its validity. If it is an actual receivable - meaning the patron actually owes you money for a pledge or a group sale, for example - or you owe the patron money for a refund, then you may leave it as it is. However, if the A/R is the result of an error at the box office (generally this is the result of an unpaid order fee, or a non-refunded exchange difference), then mark it on the report so you can fix it on the patron record.

   
   
4. Locate the first patron with an order that needs to be corrected.

   Click here for information on how to find a patron.

   
   
5. Click on the Orders tab. Highlight the order indicated on your report and click the payment button at the bottom of the screen


6. Add a payment or a refund depending on what the order needs to bring it to $0.00.

   Click Here to learn how.



7. Use the payment method OTHER

   Alternatively, you can create a new payment method called "A/R Write-off." To learn how to set up a new payment method, Click Here

   
   
8. Repeat the process for all your erroneous receivables


9. Run another End of Day, which will keep all the A/R write offs in one End of Day report
   

   Provide the new End of Day reports to your bookkeeper to keep the records clean.

   
   
10. Start Web Sales

    Click Here to learn how.



11. Resume sales at the Box Office

Donation Clearing Account

To set this up, you would change the BANK ACCOUNT in the Campaign setup to the restricted GL account you have assigned to the separate bank account.

In this example, let's assume your general CASH GL account is 1000, and the Capital Campaign GL account is 1008.

The next assumption is that a $50,000 donation is pledged - but not paid - to the capital campaign. This simply increases A/R by $50,000, and increases the Capital Campaign donation GL account (in this example, 4125).

When the donation is paid (either in part or in full), Theatre Manager will tell you through the End Of Day reporting to move the funds from where they were originally posted to the separate bank account.

To understand this report, first remove the simple transactions. The final transaction reduces the A/R and the second transaction increases the CASH account by $50,000, which is the amount of the payment. These are the same transactions we see for every payment in Theatre Manager. Reduce A/R, increase cash.

That leaves us with the two transfer GL entries.

• The first is the Transfer from (1000). It is a credit for $50,000 - meaning that you are going to take the entry for the funds OUT of the cash account.
• The second is the Transfer To, which moves them IN to the other bank account, which is 1008 (because that is where you are keeping the actual money for the capital campaign).

Donation Clearing Example Setup

The key to setting up a restricted donation clearing account is found in how one or two settings are made in Theatre Manager.

Code Table Default Accounts

The two highlighted accounts below are what makes the automatic creation of G/L entries for transferring donations to the restricted account work.

• The first is the Donation-Bank Acct. Don. Normally Post To. which really should be the same account number as the operating account. When you look at a normal donation (second picture), you will see this account is placed into the 'Bank Account' field
• The second is the Donation-Bank Transfer Clearing Account. This will be an asset clearing account - which in general means that if something gets posted to this account, you will need to make a manual GL entry in your accounting system to get it moved from this holding place to the right bank account

Typical Donation - Non Restricted

This sample shows how the bank account is entered for almost every donation campaign. Typically these would be referred to as non-restricted. Theatre Manager will put any payments received against these donations into the operating account

Special Donation - Restricted

This sample shows how the bank account is entered for a donation that is deemed to be 'restricted' - meaning the money needs to be moved to a different bank account, or accounted for in some different manner. When the donation is paid for, Theatre Manager will create a clearing entry for you to this account.

Example of an order

This picture shows an order with two donations in it, one for each of the donation campaigns described above.

Sales Posting

When the sales posting is created, you can see that each of the donations is placed into its own sales/income account. This will happen whether or not there is a payment yet.

Deposit Posting

When the payment is received at some time after the donation is entered (it could be right away, or the payments for some donations can be received in installments), running the deposit process is intelligent enough to:

• Put the entire check into the cash account
• Decrease the receivables account like any other payment
• Add two special entries that offset each other
  • The first entry from Theatre Manager is telling you to put some money into the restricted bank account because a payment was received for the donation
  • The second entry is in the restricted donation transfer account. Normally the total value of funds in this account is zero. However, as payments for restricted donations are received, this account will increase in size. Theatre Manager tells you which donation the funds are for. At some periodic basis (daily, weekly, monthly), you will need to clear this account to zero. To do this, you go to your web banking and transfer funds from your operating account over to the various restricted accounts as identified by the clearing account.

Using this methodology, Theatre Manager makes it very easy to track special campaigns.

End Of Day Settlement over an Extended Break

Your credit card processor (Chase Paymentech, Authorize.net, Elavon, Moneris, etc.) requires that you settle your credit card batch on a regular basis (i.e. daily). Your merchant provider sets a specified maximum frequency between settlements so that they can guarantee that the amounts they have authorized for you will still be available when you go to collect the funds. Because authorized credit cards must be settled within the pre-defined frequency, there is a "Settle Batch Frequency" setting in the Setup>>Merchant Accounts>>Settlement tab that retains the maximum days that your merchant provider indicates before a settlement is required. The maximum setting in Theatre Manager is set for seven days before settlement is required, however it is recommended that this is set at three days in order to maintain clean batches and regular settlements.

This setting applies to Box Office Sales only, and if you are running web sales over an extended break (such as the end of year holiday season), your web sales will continue to authorize credit cards beyond the time out setting in Theatre Manager.

On an extended break, and if you have web sales occurring, deposits still need to take place on a regular basis. Therefore, your options are:

• Option 1: Stop all sales during the break, including Box Office, Web Sales and any donation entry by the Development Department - essentially 'close the shop'
• Option 2: Come in to the office and do your deposits every few days
• Option 3: Remote into your company network from your home office and perform your deposit.

Option 1:

Turning off web sales means you do not need to come in at all. If this is a time of year when you do not have many online ticket sales, gift certificates, passes or donations, this may be an acceptable option for you.

Option 2:

If you can stop by the office once every few days (within the limits of the Batch Settlement Frequency), then you can run the Deposits in order to clear the open batch. You do not need to run the full End Of Day until you return from the break if you do not want to.

Option 3:

The more likely option is to remote in to your company network from your home office and perform the deposits. You can (along with your IT department's permission and direction) use a remote connection to access your company network and run the End Of Day from your home. If you are running web sales only (and have an online payment gateway), you may choose to delay the End Of Day until you return to the office, as long as it does not exceed the time specified by your processor.

At Arts Management Systems, we use TeamViewer for its ease of use, and the fact that in most cases it does not require a firewall configuration. There are several other remote access programs available, including:

• Remote Desktop Connection
• Apple Remote Desktop
• PC Anywhere
• LogMeIn
• VNC
• Timbuktu

While Arts Management Systems does not directly support any of the above products, we have tested each one and know they work for remote access. Installation, licensing requirements, and operation of any remote access product is the client's responsibility.

End of Day Settlement Warning

For example, Global Payments is notoriously strict and starts removing credit card authorizations that have not been deposited within 5 days - which throws out the settlement balance (one reason we recommend not using them as credit card processors)

You can alter the 'batch settlement frequency' which is the number of days before the End of Day Settlement Warning appears'.

1. Click Setup >> System Tables >> Merchant Accounts.

   

2. Double click on your Merchant Account to open it.
3. Select the Settlement tab.

   

4. Alter the Settle Batch Frequency field as desired.

   

5. Click the Save button at the top of the window.
6. Close the Merchant Account Detail window.

How do I correct an End of Day Imbalance?

If you are running into problems trying to bring the daily imbalance to zero in end-of-day, then please follow the troubleshooting steps at fixing an imbalance

How do I tell which payment method paid for a ticket and why can it only be inferred from a payment allocation report?

Getting a reasonable approximation

The reasonable answer can be obtained using the 'Revenues by Payment Method-Ticket Based' report or looking at one of the royalty reports. The general process for these reports are to:

• Run the 'Receivables-Based on Order Balances by Event' to see if anybody owes you money for the event. If there are any receivables, clear them out or pay them off
• Find all the orders for the tickets you need the answer for. e.g. you may want to do the calculation for all tickets sold to a particular show at the end of the run to obtain credit card discounts paid - and which can be deducted from royalty payments
• Theatre Manager then finds all the payment methods for the orders and allocates the payment method amongst the tickets in the order.
• The allocation is then printed on the report. Please refer to the examples below to see how this might work

Why cant the number be exact?

Lets use a simple example of why the question being asked is not available in ANY accounting system. i.e. specifically what payment method paid for an item out of inventory is simply not possible in any accounting system. It can be inferred, but there is no way of ascertaining 'fact'. (you won't find an answer in quickbooks that event attempts to do this). First, Theatre Manager uses accrual accounting. This, at its simplest, means that each payment decreases accounts receivable. Each purchase increases accounts receivable. In a perfect world of buy one ticket for $10 and pay $10 in cash, it can be inferred that 1 ticket was paid for with cash.

What if the transaction gets complicated?

Lets use a more real world example. Suppose a patron buys a play pass for $100 and donates $50 at the same time. He is sharing the pass with a friend, so you get paid $50 from the friend by visa (the friend donated separately earlier in the year) and the patron pays $100 with Mastercard. Question: how many tickets were paid with by visa at this time? Answer: it could be inferred

• none because it is a play pass an they are not yet used.
• In fact, if they are never used, then the answer will be zero.
• A possible answer is 50/150 = 33% of the pass because that is the exact ratio of payments made on this order and you really don't know the patrons intent.
• A possible answer is 50/100, if you knew the patrons intent.

How do other industries do this?

The answer is: they don't. If you picked another industry such as a lumber store where you buy some lumber, some screws, a new power tool and pay with a gift certificate you got for christmas and top it up with some cash in your pocket and then use a debit card, you could be asking the same question. Did my gift certificate pay for my cool power tool, or did it pay for my screws? again, the answer is: YOU CANT PROVIDE AN EXACT ANSWER OF WHAT PAID FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL PIECE OF INVENTORY.

Summary

• In an inventory management system, it is never possible to clearly determine how each item removed from inventory is paid for.
• There is no accounting system that we know of that provides this capability in any of its reports
• Theatre Manager recognizes that there is an advantage to being able to approximate the answer with a degree of precision and provides report to allocate payments to tickets at the end of a run for purposes of royalty deductions. These are accurate to 4 decimal places and fractions of tickets

Why is there only one A/R account in TM? Can we have one for donation receivables?

Theatre Manager

• uses pure accrual accounting -and-
• inventory management (eg tickets, donations, gift certificates) does not permit separate receivable accounts in any accounting system.
• The roots of double entry accounting and the early 15th century textbook by a franciscan monk Luca Pacioli, who documented the system used by the Venetians make interesting reading.

Corner Store Example

• Your partner sends you out to buy tomatoes, lettuce, cereal and you arrive at the checkout counter. The clerk scans everything through and indicates that you owe $100.00 for your groceries. Essentially, this increases the balance owing on the order.
• Then you dig through your wallet and find you have a visa card, some cash, and coupons for $1.00 off the box of cereal. You recall that you have not paid your visa bill yet and are unsure where the remaining limit is, so you give the coupon and as much cash as you have to the cashier. Then you pay the remaining $35.00 using your visa.
• Happy with your purchases, its off home only to find out that you were supposed to pick up some romaine lettuce instead of iceberg.
• back to the store to do an exchange of lettuce, but they are out of what you need, so you settle for arugula instead (after calling home to your partner to confirm)
• This costs more, but since have no more cash left, or limit on your visa, the clerk, who knows you well says Don't worry, pay the balance next time you are in!

Thats how all accounting/inventory management systems work, bar none. I do not know of one that separates out receivables on any inventory item.

Using Tickets and Donations Instead

• exchanging tickets for donations
• paying for a subscription and an annual donation at the same time using post dated visa withdrawals
• entering that annual board gift as a receivable, only to be informed by the donor that the original (large amount) was to also include 2 subscriptions and the gala dinner

How to bend the rules

• Who owes you the money
• The due date & days overdue. Very important: this can be affected by setting the final payment due date in the 'contractual' tab on the payment window. If it s a school/group sale for tickets, or an ad sales where they wont need to pay for 6 months, then set the final payment date 6 months in the future. If you do that, then the receivable will say in the current column - so this can be VERY useful)
• It makes a darn good guess at whether the receivable is for donations or tickets using simple criteria (see donation balance and ticket/memb balance columns). If there is a donation in the order, then any payment pays for that first before paying for tickets or anything else.
• It tells you current/30/60/90+ days overdue.. and based on that, who to send reminder notices to.
• And, if you wish, there is the PO# column. This comes form the payment window at the top of the screen (above the reason to buy). Normally nothing is put there, but you could put 'Ad Sale' or some other tag there if you want.


You can also see an amount in the End-of-Day wizard under the A/R tab. These are accurate at the instant they are viewed.





However (heavy emphasis on this), it is not wise to put this breakdown into your accounting program. Any simple ticket exchange for a donation, or conversion of a donation from a pledge to fully paid because the patron dropped off a check, or any turning in of a gift certificate for a donation simply becomes a make-work project and violates the rule of 'make G/L entries in your accounting program from TM's G/L list - exactly as is - unchanged'.

Since Theatre Manager handles it fine for you, it is not worth tracking in your accounting system. As illustrated above, the better way is to use TM as the A/R sub-ledger and produce sub-ledger reports from Theatre Manager.

In addition, you can move all future donations into a liability account using the setup in the donation fund accounts and be able to track future donations that way.

Checklist when performance has degraded recently

Sometimes we are asked to identify why Theatre Manager has slowed down, or is slow after it has been installed. In almost all cases, the issue is not Theatre Manager, but some setting that has changed on the network, on the computer, or on the server. The following list contains the 'usual culprits'. Please check to see if you have been affected by one of them should you experience an abrupt change in behavior with Theatre Manager.

Finally, we are not expecting problems to occur. Usually things just run. But sometimes it is possible for things to awry and a checklist of possible culprits is useful.

Things to look at on the Server

• Make sure auto update (Microsoft) or software update (OS-X) is completely turned off. Those features should never be run automatically. Microsoft is famous for delivering them often and restarting servers. its just bad news. Plan your service outages and do them all - say - once a month. Downloads of large patches in the background might be a problem, or restarts after an upgrade may have affected Postgres's buffer pools so it needs to run a bit to get faster and determine commonly used database pages
• If there is a virus scanner on the database server, and the server is used only to hold the Theatre Manager database, please disable it. There is no need to place a virus scanner on database traffic. At the very least, disable checking all incoming traffic on port 5432 and all scanning of changes to the database folders where postgres is installed in 'live' mode. If you really must scan the database folder, it is acceptable to run a once per day scan on the database folder - but only if scheduled late at night.
• If the virus scanner is required because the database server is also a file server, then disable all scanning of traffic on port 5432 as well as any disk scan on any file the postgres database directory and below. On Windows, this is located in "Program Files\Postgres". On OS-X, it is located in "\Library\Postgres"
• Look to any service that you might have added recently. For example, if you installed another program on the server, does that take resources that affect the original installation. If so, then you may need to re-configure that application, remove the application or reconfigure the postgres server. For example, Microsoft Exchange server is known to suck the resources out of a machine and it is always recommended (even by Microsoft), that it be placed on its own server.
• Check for disk space on the server. If you have less than 15%-20% disk space left, then you might want to get rid of some old data or backups. Postgres uses the operating system to do page swapping and if there is no space left, you will see performance degradation because you filled up the dad drive. Old database backups might simply be accumulating and you may wish to save older ones and delete them from the server
• Check the performance monitor (Windows or OSX) to see where your resources are going. If CPU is being consumed, see who is using it. If disk I/O is going crazy, that could be a clue
• Perform a 'vacuum analyse' on the entire database using PGAdmin (check with Arts Management first). Quick vacuum's occur automatically for each file - but the full blown one might be needed occasionally.
• It is possible that a parameter was set up incorrectly for the server. If other items are not found to cause the problem, please contact support and we can look at the postgres database parameters for you

Things to look at on a Workstation

This kind of trouble shooting is often on a comparative basis. You want to start looking at a workstation if running TM on the server works fine, or if TM runs fine on one workstation, but not another. Things to look at in this case are:

• Does Theatre Manager run fine if it is the only application turned on? If so, look to other applications causing the problem and the solution might simply be a case of adding ram.
• Look at ram usage anyway and the applications that are running. If many applications are running, you may find you need a minimum of 2 gigs of ram just to smooth out performance of the workstation. This is especially important if those other applications can be chatty or active in the background. For example, if you have Theatre Manager, Word, Excel, Outlook or Mail, a browser looking for RSS feeds, youTube, music playing in the background, etc. etc. and all in use at the same time, you may just need ram.
• If you are streaming high bandwith video (like YouTube) at the same time as selling tickets, it is reasonable that it might affect performance of a machine while the streaming is going on
• Does TM receive data from the server reasonably fast, but does opening windows take a long time. If so, look to the type of processor. Theatre Manager uses the floating point processor to handle some screen interface elements. That means if you are running a Celeron, it could be slow - because Celerons do not have floating point. The minimum machine is a Pentium 4 or core 2 duo. Please refer to the standard machine to see if you meet those requirements

Things to look at in the Network

Resolving network issues can be tricky because many factors are at play. Resolving these usually involved swapping things around to try to isolate the problem. Things we've seen in the past include checking:

• if performance for all clients got bad at the same time, check the ethernet card and settings on the server. Make sure that you are not dropping packets and that you are always connected at the speed you expect to connect to the network at.
• Swap the wire from the server to the hub to see if that makes a difference
• Swap the port on the hub to another port to see if that makes a difference
• If only one workstation suddenly went slower, then check the ethernet card settings for speed and performance. It could be it is bad.
• Check the cable and change it to see if that helps
• Take the slow machine to a location where a machine runs fast, and plug it into its network port to see if that makes a difference. If so, it could indicate a problem of wiring in the wall or at the post on the router where the line terminates.
• Try switching the port on the router for the computer to see if that makes a difference
• Did you add any more network traffic? Does the performance change during the day and happen to coincide with other events. We had one University notice that tickets sales got slow each time classes got out and students used the internet. Another venue indicated that performance slowed down when all the actors were backstage using YouTube and doing mail. In both cases, the solution was to put the high bandwidth network users on a segregated (and controlled) network.

In all cases, it is important to go into troubleshooting mode to narrow down with component might be contributing to the problem. Eg:

• Turn all components off but TM to see if that makes a difference
• Try things at the server and move progressively away from the server to see if that makes a difference
• Swap wires or ports to see where that makes a difference. If swapping a wire at the server changes everything - you have your answer. If swapping a port makes the difference, then tells you there is a router issue
• Compare machines. All machines with the same issue tends to suggest the problem is at the server. One machine with the issue tends to suggest the machine of network port
• Move the problem machine to a non-problem location. That will tell you if the problem is in the machine or not

Client or Interface Function Not Available

If you are using:

• 10.4.11, you may need a different version of the libpq.dylib file and you might need to put it in a different place
• 10.5 or later, OSX might be picking up an older version of the library. If that is the case, use Activity Monitor and locate 'Theatre Manager'. Then double click to look at the list of open files. What we need to do is look to see which path name that the libpq.dylib file is found at -- and make sure that it is looking at a pathname internal to the Theatre Manager directory in applications. If it is not, then call support and we can help resolve the problem.

OSX 10.4.11 Problem Resolution

When installing Theatre Manager on OS-X 10.4 workstations, some of the workstations may experience the following error due to an incompatibility with an extension file used within the Theatre Manager application.

The error would appear as:

To resolve this situation:

1. Download libpq for OSX 10.4 and save it to your desktop.
2. Extract the libpq.dylib file from the OSX104_libpq_dylib_compatibility.zip file (if it did not automatically extract)
3. Go into \\Macintosh HD\\Applications
4. Right-Click on the Theatre Manager icon and select "Show Package Contents"
5. Go into \\Contents\\MacOS
6. Move the libpq.dylib file into the \\Macintosh HD\\Applications\\Theatre Manager\\Contents\\MacOS folder replacing the existing libpq.dylib file

Installing Theatre Manager on a New Workstation

For Windows2000/XP computers
1. Download the latest version of Theatre Manager and save it to your desktop
2. Double click on the installer TMSetup.exe to install Theatre Manager
3. Follow and respond to the prompts

For OSX computers
1. Download the latest version of Theatre Manager and save it to your desktop
2. Extract the Theatre Manager TMSetup.zip file (if it did not automatically extract)
3. Double click on the installer "Theatre Manager" to install Theatre Manager
4. Follow and respond to the prompts

Installing Theatre Manager's Workstation Serial Number on a New Workstation
For Windows2000/XP computers
1. Download the serial.zip file (please e-mail support@artsman.com for the link) and save it to your desktop
2. Extract the serial.txt file from the serial.zip file
3. Move the serial.txt file into the "C:\Program Files\Theatre Manager" folder replacing the existing serial.txt file

For OSX computers
1. Download the serial.zip file (please e-mail support@artsman.com for the link) and save it to your desktop.
2. Extract the serial.txt file from the serial.zip file (if it did not automatically extract)
3. Go into \\Macintosh HD\\Applications
4. Right-Click on the Theatre Manager icon and select "Show Package Contents"
5. Go into \\Contents\\MacOS
6. Move the serial.txt file into the \\Macintosh HD\\Applications\\Theatre Manager\\Contents\\MacOS folder replacing the existing serial.txt file

Starting Theatre Manager on a New Workstation
1. Start the Theatre Manager application
2. If you are presented with the "Theatre Manager Demo Login Window, click "Change Data File" in the lower left hand corner of the Login Window
3. Enter in the Exact Name of your database
4. Enter in the IP address of your server
5. Click Connect

Making internal LAN ip addresses changes

• the accepted IP range in the postgres pg_hba.conf file
• the accepted IP range in Apache's httpd.conf file
• internal DNS setting to find the apache server

1. Changing the postgres pg_hba.conf file

This file is found in the postgres 'data' directory. On a PC, you can edit it with notepad. On a Mac, you might need to use 'vi' to edit the file while acting at the postgres user. You need to change (or add) a subnet range that allows people to access the database from the new IP range and/or remove the old one.

Once the subnet has been changed, you need to reload the postgres configuration. You do this by stopping and restarting the server, or if you are familiar how to do so using pgAdmin interface on the PC or the command line on the Mac, you can do it that way.

2. Changing the Apache httpd.conf file

The apache httpd.conf file is found in the 'conf' directory of the apache folder. On both Mac and PC, it can be altered by any text editor. Near the bottom is a setting that says:

SetEnv TM_LISTENER_MASK 192.168.0.255,68.145.52.251,127.0.0.1

Change the ip address range here according to the instructions in the conf file.

After, restart apache and test that it works by typing one of the following in a browser on the machine that Apache runs on:

• http://localhost/apacheindex.html which should give a web page that says It Works!
• http://localhost and see if it does a redirect to https://tickets.myvenue.org/TheatreManager/1/login&event=0

3. Changing the internal DNS server or Hosts file

For Mac listeners, there is nothing further to do. On PC networks, you many have to reset some internal DNS entries so that it points to the new computer.

For example: suppose that the setting TM is looking for is https://tickets.myvenue.org but it can't be found by machines inside the network.

• Outside the network, anybody can find https://tickets.myvenue.org because the external DNS services point it to your router.
• Inside the network, getting things to point outside can be troublesome. the internal DNS setting for https://tickets.myvenue.org needs to point to where the apache server is at this time... at the new IP.
• You can do this in two ways:
  • if you have DNS server set up on your IIS server, change the entry for tickets.myvenue.org
  • if you do not have a DNS setting, you need to edit the 'hosts' file on each machine that is acting as a listener or needs access to the web listener. Typically, that is in the /windows/system32/devices/etc folder, or on the Mac, it is in /etc

Starting and Stopping Theatre Manager

Order to Start Up components

Start the various server components of Theatre Manager in the following order:

1. The postgres database server, apache, and PC Charge credit card server are independent of each other. You can really start them in any order you want. They must all be running before you can start Theatre Manager on any machines.
2. Start Theatre Manager running on the web listeners
3. Allow other Theatre Manager users to log in on their machines or to connect to terminal services if using it remotely

Order to Stop components

Generally, you stop the components of Theatre Manage in the reverse order that you start it up.

1. Have all users quit Theatre Manager on all workstations
2. Stop Theatre Manager running on the web listener machines
3. Shut down or restart postgres, credit card server and apache server in any order you wish.

Some exceptions to the above

• If you want to restart apache server, you should stop all the web listeners first. You don't have to do anything special with the postgres or PC Charge servers. While the above is recommended, you can sometimes just:
  • restart the apache server
  • go to each web listener and click the 'stop server' button on the web listener interface
  • then click the 'start server' button on the web listener interface
• If you are not processing a credit card at an exact moment in time, you can stop and start PC Charge independently if you need to. Anybody trying to process a credit card while PC Charge is stopped will get a decline message.

Theatre Manager preference file

Preference settings unique to each machine are stored in the standard preferences location defined by Microsoft and Apple. These may vary depending on operating system and version that you are using.

MyUser represents the user you are logged in as. This means that each user of Theatre Manager on a shared machine will have their own preferences:

The current contents of a sample preference file is below. These may be changed upon advice from customer support. Only the bold values can be adjusted for some of the italic fields.

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<theatremanager>
  <key>CashDrawerDelay</key><int>0</int>
  <key>CashDrawerPort</key><int>0</int>
  <key>DatabaseIP</key><char>127.0.0.1</char>
  <key>DatabaseName</key><char>TheatreManagerDemo</char>
  <key>DatabasePort</key><int>5432</int>
  <key>DebugDam</key><bool>false</bool>
  <key>DebugMode</key><int>0</int>
  <key>PingServer</key><bool>false</bool>
  <key>Printer1</key><char>255/192.168.0.64@10001</char>
  <key>Printer2</key><char>255/192.168.0.64@10001</char>
  <key>PrinterType</key><char>31/0/20</char>
  <key>WebLogPath</key><char>Doug's HD:Users:Shared</char>
  <key>WebThreads</key><int>5</int>
  <key>WebTimeSlice</key><int>20</int>
  <key>WebPort</key><int>5111</int>
  <key>Wireless</key><bool>false</bool>
</theatremanager>

Unable to connect to the database or print on the ticket printer.

IP Address Analogy

IP addresses are like phone numbers. Each server and machine on the network has one. Each IP based printer also has one.

• The ones on the printers and the database server are 'fixed'. That means they should not be changed. TWe recommend putting a label on the printers inside the back of the printers to remind you what it is. You will see the one for the database server see each morning when you start theatre manager. This is at the bottom of the login screen.
• The workstations usually have 'dynamic' ip addresses. That means each morning they could be given a different one from the router. This is a good idea as it simplifies network setup and maintenance.

Everything will work well if you can 'dial' those 'fixed' phone numbers using Theatre Manager. It's like 911 and 411 - you only need to know those phone number to get help or to get directory assistance.

Every other phone number can change, but as long as those two stay the same, you can get help and find out a phone number for anybody else. In theory, as long as the network stays up, or is started normally, or is not changed, you will be able to 'dial' those phone numbers

But what If I can't Dial Those Numbers

What can get in the way of being able to 'dial' these special IP numbers from Theatre Manager.

• If the router is not up, you simply cannot make a call. That should never go down and if it does, restart it or contact your IT support person if you need them to start it for you
• If the router configuration is changed and starts giving out phone numbers with different area codes, you can no longer make a 'local' call to the printers or servers. Generally, that should never change.
• If they need to change, have changed the permanent phone numbers for the printer and server in advance of the change -AND- change the numbers inside Theatre Managers 'phone book' so that you don't have an issue
• If the power is out to any of the little routers or servers along the way - you can't complete the call
• If, for example, a rat chews a cord, then there is no wire (this really happened at a venue) and it must be replaced so you have a connection.

Those are only examples. and really, the computer network should just work with little attention. It is much like the phone system .. you can call direct anywhere in North America, Europe, and most of the world with no worry.. You should always get a dial tone.... and generally, phones just works unless there is some power issue, storm, or somebody is doing maintenance on the phone network.

Same goes for the network that Theatre Manager relies on If the network is there, then any machine should be able to dial any machine. If you cannot dial a machine or a printer, then tools at your disposal are:

• Ping to see if you can get from one machine to another.
• If ping does not work, then time to call your IT person - it is a network problem
• if ping works, then check to see that the database is started (again time to call your IT person). If the database is not started on the server, you won't be able to get to it.

General troubleshooting steps

Generally, try the following:

• Try and ping the server
• If you can, and Theatre Manager tells you that the database is not there at the server
• If everybody can use the database, except one machine, reboot the one machine
• If nobody can use the database, then reboot the server and try again at the top
• If nobody can use the printer, restart the printer
• If one person can use the printer, but another cannot, reboot the machine and go into the employee preferences in Theatre Manager and set up the printer IP address.
• Check to see that nobody turned on a firewall at the server
• Check to see that nobody turned on the Firewall on the Windows or OS-X machine to prevent outgoing connections.

If none of those work, call your IT person to see what they have to say.

If the situation is still not resolvable, then call Arts Management Systems as there may be something else at play and we'll be happy to help.

Credit Card Charges do not show up in Deposit.

No Employee Permissions to deposit credit cards

Depositing credit card batches is a responsibility that is not necessarily given to every employee. If you do not have the ability in your employee preferences to deposit credit card batches, you will not see any credit cards in the deposit list. It means you cannot deposit them inadvertently. The benefits to this are to allow certain employees the ability to deposit credit cards as part of the accounting procedures, while preventing others from making unscheduled deposits throughout the day.

No Internet Access

For your own protection, Theatre Manager will not show any credit cards to deposit if it detects that the internet is not available. This prevents a venue attempting to settle a batch in Theatre Manager and force closing it, without the corresponding batch being closed at PC charge and/or the bank.

Theatre Manager assumes if it cannot talk to the internet, then PC charge cannot talk to the Internet. If both cannot talk to the internet, then money might not make it to the bank which, after all, is the goal of everything.

It is far harder to recover money if you close Theatre Manager without closing PC charge and sending the batch to the the bank. So having a valid internet connection ensures all are in sync.

How to Change a Merchant Provider

How to Change a Merchant Provider

Before beginning this process, have everyone log out of Theatre Manager including the Web Listener. Transactions cannot be processed until the new Merchant account is in place. You may also choose to backup the pccw.mdb file for your old Merchant account before adding the new one.

Backing up the pccw.mdb file

1. Complete the End of Day Deposit process in Theatre Manager.
   For more information on completing the End of Day process in Theatre Manager, click here.
2. Minimize Theatre Manager.
3. Open PC Charge.
   This will be on a separate computer.
   
4. Click the EOD button.
   
5. Ensure the batch totals are zero.
   
6. Click the Cancel button.
7. Close out of PC Charge (do not minimize).
8. Open My Computer.
   There will be an icon for this on the desktop.
9. Navigate to c:\Program Files\Active-Charge
10. Right-click on the pccw.mdb file.
11. Select Send To >> Compressed Zipped Folder.
12. Allow the file to zip.
13. Right-click on the zipped copy of the pccw file (it will be a yellow folder with a zipper on it).
14. Select Rename.
15. Add the date to the end of the file name but before the .zip extension.
16. Right-click on the original pccw.mdb file.
17. Select Delete.
18. Move the zipped pccw file to a location for storage and backup.
    The BoxOffice\Backups folder containing daily backups is a good option.
19. Start up PC Charge.
    Upon starting PC Charge a new pccw.mdb file will be created. This file will continue to store future transactions for you.

Switching Merchant Information in PC Charge

1. Goto Setup >> Credit Card Company.
   
2. Click Change and edit the credit card company information.
   
3. Update the serial number and merchant numbers, then click OK
   Merchant /TID must match the Server ID number in Theatre Manager.
4. Click Extended and set your extended fields.
   

Switching Merchant Information in Theatre Manager

1. Goto Setup >> System Tables > Merchant Accounts.
   This will open the Merchant Accounts List window.
2. Open your old merchant account.
   
3. Change the Account Name to the new account.
4. Select the new provider from the Merchant Provider drop down list.
5. Change the "Server ID" to become your Merchant/TID number you entered in PC Charge.
   The server ID must match Merchant/TID in PC charge.
6. Change the "Merchant Number" to be your Merchant ID if you want it to appear on the ticket face.
7. Click Save in the toolbar

Once the Merchant Account is updated in Theatre Manager and all Merchant Numbers have been updated, run a test transaction in the database. Run an End of Day in Theatre Manager to ensure the transaction batches properly. Due to Merchant Provider standards you will need to run three more charges in Theatre Manager before you can refund the original test charge. Once you are sure the transactions are processing correctly you can then start up the web sales again and employees can log back into the database.

Switching your Ticket Faces to print your New Merchant Account Information

1. Goto Setup >> Ticket Faces
   This will open the Ticket Faces List window.
2. Locate your Credit Card ticket Face
3. Edit the ticket face
   
4. Locate the line of code that displays your current merchant account number(s) (if they are hard coded on the ticket face). If the field is MM_MERCHANT_NUMBER, then no change is require to your ticket faces
5. Edit the line of code to have your new merchant account information
6. Click the Save button
7. Click Save the toolbar

Missed Settling PC Charge within the Required Time Period

1. Determine the starting batch totals from the merchant provider via PC Charge
2. Determine which credit cards need to be re-authorized in Theatre Manager
3. Authorize the credit cards in PC Charge
4. Verify the batch totals from the merchant provider via PC Charge
5. Manually Settle PC Charge
6. Force Settle Theatre Manager

Determine the starting batch totals from the merchant provider via PC Charge

1. In PC Charge goto Batch >> Inquire >> Open Batch
2. Click OK
3. Write down all the numbers presented on the screen. The key value that will be used to balance to, is 'Total Balance $'
4. Click Close Form to close the window

Determine which credit cards need to be re-authorized in Theatre Manager

1. Log into Theatre Manager as an employee with 'master user' access
2. Go to Accounting >> End of Day Wizard >> Deposit tab >> Deposit Funds
3. Enter today's date
4. Click Deposit
5. Select ALL non-credit card payments
6. Click Remove in the window toolbar. This will just 'remove' the payments that we do not need to deal with at this time -- they have not been deleted.
7. Click Summary by Patron
8. Maximize the window size in order to view more columns easily
9. Sort by the 'Date Received' Column (do this by clicking on the column header)
10. Start at the BOTTOM of the list and start multi-line selecting each credit card one at a time. At the bottom of the window, there will be a 'total' payments displayed. When this 'total' matches the PC Charge Batch 'Total Balance $' that you determined in the prior step, then STOP. You now have the credit cards authorizations that the bank has.
11. Click Remove in the window toolbar. This will just 'remove' the credit card payments that we do not need to re-authorize at this time -- they have not been deleted.
12. The credit card payments on the screen, are the payments that need to be re-authorized as their 'authorization number' provided by the bank is no longer valid.
13. Click Print in the window toolbar to get a printed report of the payments that need to be re-authorized or use the list on the window as a reference if PC Charge is close by.

Authorize the credit cards in PC Charge

1. In PC Charge go to Transactions >> Credit Card >> Sale tab
2. Enter in the credit card information, Amount, Ticket Information (order number), and Zip Code (for Canadian clients, enter 99999)
3. Click Process

Verify the batch totals from the merchant provider via PC Charge

1. In PC Charge go to Batch >> Inquire >> Open Batch
2. Click OK
3. The batch totals should now match the total credit cards in Theatre Manager.

Manually Settle PC Charge

1. In PC Charge go to Batch >> Settle
2. Click OK
3. The batch will now be settled with the merchant provider.

Force Settle Theatre Manager

1. Log into Theatre Manager as an employee with 'master user' access
2. Go to Accounting >> End of Day Wizard >> Deposit tab >> Deposit Funds
3. Enter today's date
4. Click Deposit
5. Proceed with the deposit as normal.
6. At the end of the process, you will get warning messages that the PC Charge could not be settled -- this is ok, as you have manually settled it. You will be asked if you should 'force' the deposit, click the buttons to proceed with a forced deposit -- there will be multiple warnings.

PC Charge database is approaching limit

Every time you start Theatre Manager, it checks to see if it can find the credit card server and inquires about its health. After many credit cards have been authorized, you may see a message that indicate that PC Charge's PCCW.MDB database is approaching its recommended maximum.

You will continue to get this notice each time you start Theatre Manager, until you archive the PC Charge data file. You can exceed the manufacturers recommended maximum and can still process credit cards, however, you may see authorizations and reports slow down and other odd behaviour as the file gets bigger. We recommend taking care of this situation as soon as practical.

To shrink the size of the PCCW.MDB database

Pause all Web listeners to prevent any sales while you are performing the following steps. The time required might be 5 minutes.

1. Pause all Web Listeners on all machines.
2. Complete your End of Day Deposit process in Theatre Manager.
3. Close Theatre Manager.

Steps at PC Charge machine

Go to the machine that has PC Charge on it and open the PC Charge interface. Perform the next steps at that machine.

1. Click the EOD button.

   Ensure the batch totals are zero. If they are not, start the instructions at the top of the page.

   If there are still batches (or intermediate batches), please call support and do not continue.

2. Click the Cancel button.

   Close out of PC Charge completely(do not minimize).

3. Open My Computer.

   Navigate to c:\Program Files\Active-Charge

   Look for the file called PCCW.MDB. Verify that its size is about the same as reported by Theatre Manager.

4. Right-click on the pccw.mdb file.
5. Select Send To >> Compressed Zipped Folder.

   Allow the file to zip.

6. Right-click on the zipped copy of the pccw file (it will be a yellow folder with a zipper on it).

   Select Rename.

   Add the date to the end of the file name but before the .zip extension.

7. Right-click on the original pccw.mdb file.

   Select Delete.

   Optionally, you can copy the zipped pccw file to a location for storage and backup (the BoxOffice\Backups folder containing daily backups is a good option).

8. Start up PC Charge.

When you start PC Charge, a new pccw.mdb file is created. This file will continue to store future transactions for you. You can now start Theatre Manager, resume sales and start any web listeners.

Creating a mail list for eblast that excludes all household members for a condition

There are some cases where a client may wish to create a mail list to merge with a letter for eblast that will include patrons in the database with email addresses, but exclude patrons and their associated household members if that patron or one household member meets a particular condition. For example, you may wish to eblast everyone in your database with an email address, except attendees to a recent event and any of that attendee's household members.

For step-by-step instructions on how to build a mail list, click here. For steps on how to create a form letter in Theatre Manager for eblast, click here. And for steps on how to merge a form letter with a mail list, click here.

The following steps will specifically arrive at a mail list for the above example. Similar steps could be used to fit other cases (exclude patrons in a household where one member has donated, or exclude patrons in a household where one member has a particular marketing flag set).

1. Start by creating a new mail list. If you need steps for doing so, reference the link above for instructions.
2. On the description tab, set the patron selection drop-down to "All patrons in household"

3. On the Criteria Tab, ADD a group to the mail list with the following:

   Marketing Primary Email Unique # is greater than or equal to 1

   Make sure to check the box to exclude patrons marked "do not email" if you wish to exclude those patrons who have asked for no email contact

4. Then add a REMOVE group where the

   Event # is one of the event in question - The Rolling Stones

5. Execute the mail list

The same instructions could be used to create any number of mail lists. The only variable you would need to change is the REMOVE group.

Post Office CASS certification (USA)

CASS certification is required by the US post office to obtain bulk rates and is based on the content of your data. There is a web page at USPS that explains this.

Theatre Manager provides the tools to help your database become CASS certified

• bar code printing with supplied font
• conversion of the text within the address to uppercase
• conversion of items like Road to RD and Street to ST
• export of data from TM
• import of corrections into TM

CASS certification is not actually for the software, it is for CONTENTS OF THE DATA in a database.

It means that each database of addresses needs to be CASS certified and verified annually. When that is done, you get a certificate about YOUR DATA that allows your venue to have the bulk rate for subsequent mailings. This means you can do it once a year.

The process is generally to:

• fix/merge all your current data
• export all data
• send to a mail house to get your data CASS certified
• import address corrections

and that will CASS certify your venue's data for the year (because your data was through the process)

What can I do to view html emails prior to sending

• Format the emails in Theatre Manager an send them out as is. They will be sent in 'what-you-see-is-what-you-get' format (if selected during export).
• Or you can have total control over the contents of the HTML and use and external tool to design a web page and then paste the resultant HTML into the form letter

Theatre Manager WYSIWYG email

When using Theatre Manager's WYSIWYG option, you will need to do a one-time setup to connect to the Apache server 'htdocs' folder. Then just create your email blast letter inside Theatre Manager.

Using externally composed HTML

For the option of designing web pages externally, an excellent tool is Dreamweaver. If you have your non-profit id, this can be purchased for $25 at Tech Soup. Its handy for editing things and viewing web pages.

Or, your web designer, can post the page on the internet and you can view it with internet explorer, firefox, safari of other browsers. Or they could email the HTML and if you save the file on the desktop, just drag it onto your web browser to see it.

This this, every venue has the software to view an html email it on every workstation in the office.

Before sending, make sure the images are visible.... if they are, then:

• copy the email into a theater manager letter
• and blast it out.
• make sure you do a test blast to yourself first to make sure its right
• ... then send it to all people on a mail list

In the Web Sales Module

This feature is designed to allow a patron to buy tickets, provide only sufficient information to get them their tickets, and checkout. If they buy again, they would need to provide the same information they provided the first time. For example: if all tickets are print at home or held at will call, you only need the patron name. If you still want to mail tickets, you will need to make address mandatory.

If the 'Limited Profile Patron' feature is enabled in System Preferences, the following will apply:

• Patron still has the option of logging in to an existing account to see prior purchases.
• A new patron will always be created if they choose the quick checkout process and provide their name, email, address, etc. again
• Theatre Manager always makes a check using the email address. If it already exists in the database, this 'new' patron will be added to the existing household. If the email does not exist, a brand new household will be created.
• A patron who checks out as a 'Limited Profile Patron' has no login credentials. Ordinarily, this means they cannot log in and see past purchase history. However, if they visit the web site and ask for their password to be emailed, they can log in with their email and password and purchase again. If they do that, they will be required to complete the patron information that they did not complete the first time (thereby becoming a full profile patron). If they never log in and simply buy again (they don't ask for their password), they will have to provide their name each time they checkout.
• At the box office, 'Limited Profile Patrons' are indicated on the patron list using a new icon. If you edit the patron contact card for one of those patrons at the box office, you will then have to complete the missing information before the data can be saved.
• You will need to implement a feature to find and merge 'Limited Profile Patrons' on an ongoing basis if you allow the feature. This is because several records may be created for the same patron if they never log in.

Instructions for enabling Limited Profile Patrons follows here.

Enabling Limited Profile Patrons

To enable limited profile patrons, go to Setup > System Preferences and choose the Mandatory Data tab.

• Web sales checkout - checking this box enables patrons with limited patron data to buy tickets.
• Web sales mail list add - checking this box enables patrons to sign up for mail lists giving only essential information (email address, name). Click here for more information about this feature.
• Credit card swipe - checking this box will enable patrons to purchase using the information on their credit card (name on the card). This is most useful for auctions and is described further here.

Limited Profile Web Sales Checkout Patron Data

This is where you set the minimum data patrons must provide to access the web sales checkout.

If all tickets are held for will call or print at home, then set as many of these options as you'd like (even none).

"Quick Add" to a Mail List online

The form can be placed either within the Theatre Manager web pages, or outside on your main shell site, depending on where you want to display the form and capture the data. The form is not a standalone page, but rather is incorporated into another page, whether on 'www.yourtheatre.org' or 'tickets.yourtheatre.org'.

• To use this feature, you must let the mail list be visible on the internet. For information on how to do this, click here.
• You must allow limited profile patrons to be added using mail lists. To learn more about this setting click here.
• If the patron's email address already exists within the database, creating a limited profile patron will create a new patron within the database. Your Box Office staff will need to be vigilant about merging duplicate patrons.
• At minimum (when used on the main website such as 'www.yourorganization.org'), the form will need to collect three fields in order to subscribe the patron to the Mail List:
  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Email Address

A sample file can be found in your WebPageEN directory in tmTemplates/tmMailListQuickAddInsert.html. If you need assistance locating this file, please contact your web designer. The sample file shows how you can use hidden parameters, checkboxes and lists all around a form that is submitted.

Examples:

As stated above, if the form is used OUTSIDE Theatre Manager - meaning it is not on the tickets.yourserver.org web site but rather on the shell site of 'www.yourserver.org,' then you have to make sure that the form includes the three fields for name and email.

However, if the form is served up by Theatre Manager from within the Apache server, then you can end the form after the options by adding the form closing code:

< input type=submit name="btnAccountMailListAdd" value="Subscribe to Selected Mail Lists"> < /form>

and the patron will be added to the selected mail lists.

Quick Mail List Sign-up Online

Limited profile patrons also allows quick sign up to any number of mail lists by providing only name and email info (rather than the usual new sign up or sign in process).

• This feature is a simple form on your web sales site. Users can select which mail lists they'd like to receive from a list defined by the venue.
• You need to set up a form to tell TM which mail lists to include on the form that users will select from.
• Please refer to the samples in the web page tmMailListQuickAddInsert.html. You can find this page (and others new to Version 8.15) by clicking here.
• Double-click that file to preview what it will look like, then open it with a script editor (WordPad on a PC, Apple Script Editor on a Mac) to make the changes to it representative of your venue (ie. add your mail lists to it in place of the samples). For example, this is the page opened for preview:

  

  And this is the same page opened in a script editor:

  

• So using the example in a script editor, you would change the name of the mail list at the end of each line to match a mail list you have set up in your database.
• Save the edited file then place it in your web pages folder under TMtemplates.
Confirmation Email

If the patron was not logged in when they subscribed to a mail list (the only gave their name and email), they will receive an email asking them to confirm their subscription to the mail list. Patrons who follow the usual sign-in routine will not be subject to this confirmation process.

If they do not confirm their subscription to the mail list(s), they will automatically be removed from the mail list after a specified number of hours (default 24) in Company Preferences. This occurs during the end of day process when other web information is purged.

• To change the default setting go to Setup > Company Preferences and open the End of Day tab.
• In the bottom left, there's a section for Web, Logs & Shopping Cart Retention Policy settings.
• Set the Purge unconfirmed mail list number of hours to the desired setting.


If the email address a patron uses here exists in the database already, the patron in the database will be added to the mail list. If the email address does not exist, then a new 'limited profile patron' record will be created for the patron.

Credit Card Swipe

There is a convenient quick-add feature that creates a patron by swiping their credit card. This might be best used during the admittance process for Auctions. The process works as follows:

• You start by setting the Patron List window to search by credit card. For more info on the Patron List window, click here.
• Then, when you swipe a credit card, it will find the patron if that card number is in the database.
• If the card number does not exist in the database, TM gives you the option to quick add the patron attending the auction.
• Patrons added in this way will be 'limited profile patrons'. That is, the name on the card along with their credit card on file stored in the database.
• In an auction setting, if there are bid packets, you can give the patron the patron number created during the swipe.
• You can now sell auction items to this patron using the auction process.

Comparison of Donor Data as of a Specific Date

Comparison reports provide management with an opportunity to compare giving trends from specific dates from year to year and answer the question: How is my Annual Fund Campaign doing as of this date, compared to last year (and the year before and the year before.)

The reports are probably reports you already run, however the secret is in the criteria used to generate the desired results.

For Example:

• You want a report that lists all donations to the Annual Campaign up to December 1 of this year, and compare that to each year's Annual Campaign up to the same date. This allows you to see who has not come through yet this year, but was expected to by this time.
• You can extend the concept using the appropriate criteria to look at totals in a quarter or any other range of dates

The report you will use is found in Donation Reports & Receipts and is the Donor Giving Trend by Year (Fiscal) or (Program).

For more information on Reports, click here.

Create your criteria as follows:

• Campaign # is one of Annual Campaign (or select your own campaign(s)).
• AND (Donation Date is between JAN 1, 2008 and NOV 30, 2008
• OR Donation Date is between JAN 1, 2009 and NOV 30, 2009
• OR Donation Date is between JAN 1, 2010 and NOV 30, 2010)

The key is in the grouping of the data. After creating the criteria (taking note of the strategic usage of AND and OR, OR, OR), GROUP all the date criteria by highlighting all of them, and clicking the GROUP button.

The result is the standard Giving Trend By Year report, but the data is limited to your specified campaign, and only the date ranges you are interested in.

Secondary Ticket Outlet Voucher Redemption

Unlike conventional sales, the ticket buyer is not the actual patron. The patron is the Secondary Ticket Reseller and this is the person/company that we record the ticket sales against in order to manage receivables. The ticket buyer is a customer of the Secondary Ticket Reseller and we record that information, if it can be obtained, in Theatre Manager's ticket comment.

Typically, the sales and redemption process follows the picture and general steps below:

• The Secondary Ticket Reseller advertises themselves as a place where you can get tickets to all the major attractions in an area
• The ticket buyer comes to town for a visit and may stop at any one of the Secondary Ticket Resellers where they receive advice on the best 'hot shows' in town.
• When the ticket buyer selects some events, (1) the Secondary Ticket Reseller will call the venue direct (or may have a customer sections of seats set aside for them) and book some specific tickets. At this time, the Secondary Ticket Reseller may provide only an internal voucher number for the venue's reference to act as a booking number.
• At time of sale, the venue would
  • Provide Theatre Manager's (2) Order Number as a reference back to the Secondary Ticket Reseller to provide to the ticket buyer for confirmation at pickup time.
  • Enter the ticket buyer's name into the ticket comments in Theatre Manager as a cross reference - and so that the patron could be found at will call prior to the show.
  • It may also be advisable to adjust the ticket face so that the ticket comment prints on the ticket face if this has not already been done
• (3) The Secondary Ticket Reseller will give the ticket buyer a Promissory Note/Voucher number as proof of the financial transaction.
• The ticket buyer would then arrive at the venue prior to show time to get their tickets. At this time, they will need to (4) provide the actual promissory note/voucher from the Secondary Ticket Reseller to the venue
• At time of ticket redemption, the venue needs to:
  • Enter the voucher number for tracking and future receivables purposes. Note that the ticket buyer is not actually paying for the tickets, the Secondary Ticket Reseller will do that later.
  • (5) Print the tickets for the ticket buyer
  • (6) Reconcile the vouchers received in the till prior to end of day to ensure money can be collected
• At time of billing the reseller, the venue will need to:
  • (7) Print an invoice to the Secondary Ticket Reseller that shows the voucher numbers on it
  • Use the Theatre Manager invoice/email feature to sent it to the Secondary Ticket Reseller
  • Collect the money actually owed for the tickets and enter it as the true payment method to complete the A/R process

In Theatre Manager, the 'Promissory Note/Voucher' payment method can assist tracking these non-cash payments without affecting the receivables balances and provide a perfect audit trail.

Time of Sale

At time of sale of a ticket to a Secondary Market Reseller, it may be important to capture a few things with the purpose of:

• Being able to identify the eventual ticket buyer when they arrive. We suggest asking the Reseller for the ticket buyers name and entering it into the ticket comments in Theatre Manager as a cross reference. This should allow the box office to find that the patron at will call prior to the show when they show up to collect their tickets.
• Giving some recognizable number to the reseller to give to the ticket buyer. We suggest providing Theatre Manager's Order Number as a reference.
• Finding some way to cross reference the order back to the Reseller. If the Reseller has a voucher or a purchase order number, we suggest putting it in the PO reference number so that both reseller and venue can cross reference the order.
• Gather some statistics. We suggest asking the reseller the zip code of the ticket buyer so you can at least get some statistics based on approximate zip/postal code to find out where people are coming from.

Most Theatre Manager ticket faces print the patron name on the ticket. In this case, the actual patron is the reseller because they are buying the ticket. It may also be advisable to adjust the ticket face so that the final ticket buyer you enter into the ticket comment also prints on the ticket face.

In many cases, you may not be able to get the name and address of the final ticket buyer from a reseller. If not, the above should suffice for identification purposes. If you are able to get the name and address information, you may also want to also enter the ticket buyer into Theatre Manager and use the ticket gifting feature to gift the ticket from the Reseller to the Ticket Buyer as a way to have more complete marketing data for future email, mail or mail list building and reporting.

Ticket Redemption

Prior to showtime, the ticket buyers will start arriving at the venue to pick up their tickets. The Event window on the 'Attendance Tab' is a convenient place to show the patrons coming for the evening. However, tickets may be assigned to the Secondary Market Reseller - and so the trick is to find the ticket buyer -- who is the customer of the reseller.

Step 1: Find the Buyer

If we have entered the ticket buyer's name into the ticket comment, then we can use the search at the lower left of the window to find the patron as per the example below. WE are assuming that the patron who books the ticket is the one that shows up. However, if they do not, you can find the ticket by Secondary Market Reseller name, their Voucher number, the order confirmation number you gave the Reseller or a few other search fields.

Step 2: Add the Voucher to the Order

Once the tickets/order is found, right click on the order and apply payment to the order as per the example below.

Since most Secondary Market Resellers do not pay until invoiced, we are doing this for two reasons:

• Enter the voucher number that the ticket buyer gave you which is really a Promissory Note - a promise to pay later upon presentation of the voucher. To do this:
  • select the payment method called 'Promissory Note/Voucher' and enter the voucher number and accept payment. There is no payment amount because it is a future promise to pay and you do not have any money yet. (Note that the payment type may have been renamed at your venue)
  • Select 'On Account' as the second payment method and click 'Print Tickets' which will print the tickets so that the patron can enter the venue and we know who has picked up their tickets. and close the payment window.

Note that the context menu in step 1 has additional options such as adding tickets to the order, exchanging tickets, changing the price - most of the actions you may need to quickly do when the ticket buyer walks up to the box office.

You can also double click on the ticket to see the ticket detail and from there proceed to the order. At that time you have a full range of capabilities of editing the order that you would anywhere else in Theatre Manager.

Step 3: Balance the Till

At the end of the day, the voucher numbers will appear in your till balance as per the picture below so that you can account for them. There is a checkbox at the bottom left of the till balance to indicate if the count of vouchers matches. However, we recommend balancing them by Secondary Reseller name one at a time for accuracy.

Billing the Secondary Market Reseller

There are a some reports that are useful for managing the receivables from any Secondary Market Reseller. Typically, one would use the Accounts Receivable report to identify who owes you money. You can also use the order detail report that includes tickets and payments as per the picture on the right for a trail of all things in the order.

The invoice report on the patron window will also be helpful. If you:

• open up the patron record for the Secondary reseller
• click on the order tab to see all orders in 'red' where the reseller owes you
• uncheck the 'Include Closed Orders' checkbox at the bottom of the order list to see only the orders where you are owed money -- and then --
• select all those orders (or the appropriate ones) and click the invoice button, you will see a report like below

Once you see the invoice on the screen, you can click the 'email button to email it to the Secondary Market Reseller, or you can print it as a PDF, or you can print it and then mail it as appropriate.

Can Patrons Select their Own Seats?

Here are three general problems with having patrons select their own seats:

• Marketing: If you wanted to display your live venue map online for patrons to select their seats from, patrons would be able to see how well, or more importantly how poorly, sales are going for a particular performance. If sales are going poorly and it is displayed online, it may not make for good marketing as patrons may delay making purchasing decisions. Our intuition suggests that sometimes you want to display available seats, and sometimes you don't.

• Single Seats: When selecting their own seats, patrons would always pick what they see as the best seats and because of this there would be many single seats created by patrons. For example, if there are three available seats in your best row, a patron buying two tickets is likely to buy two of the three available in the best row, and it would be very hard for the box office to sell the single seat left behind. By design, Theatre Manager's web listener will not allow tickets to be sold that will leave single seats.

• Application Development Priority: Picking seats online is a relatively complex development issue considering that each browser supports the same technology in a different way:
  • Syntax for Javascript can change depending whether your patrons are using Internet Explorer, Safari, FireFox, Opera or some other browser.
  • While there is a 'W3C' standard body, browser makers can implement the HTML standards how they see fit.
  • Mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile etc) further muddy the mix.

  The slight differences from each of the above increases the amount of development effort significantly. Due to these factors, application development effort is currently focused on other features we believe to be more important to our customers. However, we are watching for technology convergence and may undertake efforts for this feature at a later date.

What can you change in your listener to help

In the web sales module, you have a fair degree of latitude to help users get to the seats they want without actually letting them pick them. To help your customer get seats near where they want you can implement one or more of the following:

• Have more granularity in your sections to narrow down where a patron may want to search
• Use the feature that shows what seats are taken by masking out the sold seats. This will help user make decisions on sections and know that they have been given good seats.
• Implement a feature that lets people break up their seats. This means that if TM cannot find 5 together, it would be enabled to offer 2 and 3 seats or 2, 2 and 1 seats. This feature would be good in high sales column situations, or where the seating arrangement in venues just do not support group style sales.

Clearing the Cache for Online Sales

• Locate the machine(s) that act as the web listener(s).
• Click the Clear Cache button toward the top left of the Web Listener window.

• Click Setup >> Company preferences.
• Select the Apache tab.
• Click the green button to the right of the Last Cache Clear field.

Emails are not being sent by the web listener

If their email address is correct, it may indicate a set up problem.

Each day, you should review the email error log in Theatre Manager that displays any emails in error status. Errors can come from a few sources.

Port 80 Already In Use

It's possible for a network to be setup in such a way that Port 443 is forwarded to the Apache machine for online sales and Port 80 is not. Often Port 80 is in use by another application within the network. The online sales will run however this can impact the patrons ability to access the online sales.

The Patron can click on a direct link to the website (https://tickets.yourvenue.org) and reach the online sales site. However, if they try to type tickets.yourvenue.org in the address bar by default the browser will take them to http://tickets.yourvenue.org.

Notice there is no S after the http. The http uses Port 80 to connect to Apache. Apache then redirects the site to httpS://tickets.yourvenue.org/TheatreManager/1/login which then hands the connection over to Port 443 since the link is now using httpS.

It is recommend that Port 80 is also forwarded so that when someone tries to type the address of the online sales site into their browser they are more likely to get to the ticketing site rather then experience errors indicating the site may not be working.

Options for working around a network where Port 80 is already in use are listed below:

• Change the exchange server settings to use a port other than 80. This becomes a case of what is more important, that end customers can reach web sales on a standard HTTP port, or staff use an alternate port when using exchange from home. Arts Management Systems believes the customers and standard should prevail and so the answer is change Port 80 for exchange to something else.
• Get another external IP dedicated to the exchange server so that both can use Port 80. One will be through tickets.yourvenue.org:80, the other will be a different external ip.
• Do some HTTP magic on the IIS server to redirect the path. On apache, there is a module called mod-rewrite, or you can create proxy settings so that anything with /TheatreManager/..... in the http path name in it gets sent off to Port 80 on the web listener. There should be something similar in IIS.
• Don't serve exchange on the outside so that its not a problem any more and leave Port 80 on the single IP for customer web purchases

Starting Theatre Manager to Automatically Log in as a Web Listener

1. Goto the workstation that you want to have auto logged in as a web listener
2. Log into Theatre Manager as the Master User
3. Go to Setup->Users and Access->Employee List
4. Find the web listener user ID
5. Double click (edit) the Web Listener user ID
6. Click the 'Box Office' tab.
7. Click the 'Set Auto-Login' button to set up the auto login process with the current password
8. Repeat the above steps on each machine that is to act as a dedicated web listener

If you are running a Windows machine:

1. Create a shortcut of the c:\Program Files\Theatre Manager\Theatre.exe application
2. Move that shortcut into the Windows Startup Folder

Stopping Theatre Manager from Automatically Logging in as a Web Listener

1. Close Theatre Manager if it is open.
2. Locate and open the application preferences file for the appropriate user profile on the particular machine.
   Refer to the following table to find the application preferences file on your operating system.

   Operating System	Generic Location	Typical Path Name
   OS-X	HOME	~/Library/Preferences/TheatreManager/TheatreManager.plist note: ~ refers to each users preferences, or /User/MyUser/Library/Preferences/TheatreManager
   Win 2000 and XP	USERPROFILE	C:\Documents and Settings\MyUser\Application Data\TheatreManager\TheatreManager.txt
   Vista	LOCALAPPDATA	C:\Users\MyUser\AppData\Local\TheatreManager\TheatreManager.txt

3. Delete the web listener login.
   In the file, delete the lines containing "WebServerPassword" and "WebServerUserID".
4. Save the changes made to the application preferences file.
5. Restart Theatre Manager.
   You will now be prompted to select a user to login as.