Online to Live Auction Event Setup

Moving from an online auction to a live event is a great way to end an auction with your community at an event.

This process, however, does take some planning and we are here to help!

Here is how an item’s bid type should be set depending on the type of auction event your organization is hosting:

NOTE: To AVOID bidder confusion, auctions should never have mobile bidding and offline paper bid sheet bidding going on at the same time at the same live event.  

Prepare:

• It is best to set your close date for the online portion at least a day or two before your live event.
• Make sure the items going to your live event have the bidding type of Online to Bid Sheet (in each item’s Pricing details section)
• If you want absentee bidding for your Live Event, make sure the Absentee Bidding Option is checked under Event > Live Event > Live Event Dates.
• Learn more about absentee bidding.
• If absentee bidding is enabled download the Absentee Bidders Report from the Reports tab and/or the Absentee Bid sheets for volunteers from Event > Live Event > Print Materials > Absentee Bid Sheets.
• If you are having a traditional silent auction print out bid sheets from Event > Live Event > Print Materials > Bid Sheets.

IMPORTANT:

Absentee Bidding only applies to items set to "Online to Bid Sheet".

When the online auction ends, the leading online bid becomes the opening bid on the paper bid sheets.  

If the leading bidder has a Maximum Bid (an amount they're willing to bid up to that is above their current leading bid), the admin can print an Absentee Bid report that would allow a volunteer to bid on the paper bid sheets on behalf of the online bidder up to the bidder's Maximum Bid.  

The nonprofit would need to prepare and print that report and have a volunteer do the bidding for the online bidder to support Absentee Bidding.

After your Online Auction has ended, you will need to close the Online to Live Items:

For items won by absentee bidders:

1. Go to Close Out > Close Your Auction > Award Items, search the item number, and go to the item and click Select Winner.
2. In the Type of Winner drop down select Online, their information will automatically come up and all you need to do is enter is the correct amount that you are selling the item for.
3. Click Award.

For items won by Bidders attending the Live event that you have collected payment for:

1. Go to Close Out > Close Your Auction > Award Items, search for the item number, and click on the Select Winner link.
2. In the Type of Winner pull down menu, select Sell without Assigning, enter how much the item sold for at the event.
3. Click Award.

For items won by live bidders whose payment you wish to process using your selected payment processing method (under Event > Set Up > Payment Processor): 

1. Go to Close Out > Close Your Auction > Award Items, search for the item number, and click on the Select Winner link.
2. When selecting the type of winner select Offline and then click on Add Offline Bidder. On that page, complete the form with the bidder’s information, including their card, and click Add Offline Bidder. 
3. Then go back to the item and start typing in their name in the Offline Bidder field.  There information will come up at that point. 
4. Enter in the amount the item sold for and click Award.

Once this is done, go to Close Out > confirm type of purchase> Process Payments
You can also find step by step instructions with videos here: Close Out Steps - For Online to Bid Sheet Auctions

To confirm the auction is completely closed out, we suggest going under Close out > Close Your Auction and checking everything beneath it to make sure nothing was missed.

For example, we suggest going into Ticket Orders, Donations, Award Items and Quick Sales to make sure nothing is waiting to be confirmed or processed.

Once all categories show nothing contained within, the auction is officially closed out.