Our Software makes it easy to run a charity auction, covering the management of auction items, attendees and production of auction catalogs/brochures, silent auction bid sheets, invoicing and reports. Whether or not you use our software for your charity auction the following should give you some hints on what you will need to do. Each of the sections covers
Having a clear view on certain aspects of your charity auction will help you get sponsorship, donations and promote the silent auction. These include; why you having the charity auction, what the main goals are (the more specific you are the easier it will be to get sponsorship and target the right type of donors) and the date of the auction. Depending on the size of the auction you will also decide on roles and start a log of action points.
General Information about the Auction that will be used in Auction Documentation
As you speak to donors you will need to record all the information about the auction items donated. Remember that the donor may be able to offset the item against tax, so make sure you have recorded the item value. Also you may need to pay tax on auction items sale price (check state rules). For Silent Auction’s you should decide on the minimum bid and minimum raise to use per item. You should set a minimum such that it attracts multiple bidders, and then make the minimum raise such that if there is strong bidding the final bid will exceed the value of the item.
Creating and Editing new Auction Items
- Selecting “View All”,
- Selecting a Category Group from the Tree View,
- Searching on criteria that will result in multiple matches.
Providing an auction catalog (especially in color with images) increases the value to item donors and sponsors (advertising) so make sure you tell them how many people you will be distributing the auction catalog too, and also can increase interest for Attendees to attend and bid. This is also an opportunity for you to further highlight your own organisation and your goals.
The Auction Catalog view allows you to change the style and see the effects on the individual auction items or front page, and then print or save the catalog.
In informal auctions where you have an open door policy, you may only need to record the attendees who win auctions. In more formal charity auctions where guest are invited you may have a large number of pieces of information to record, not just the attendees details, but for example which table they will be at, what they want to eat etc. You will most likely also need to group the attendees, by for example organization, so that you can structure your communication and planning. You may also want to issue “paddle” numbers to guests either individually or for groups so that they can bid with these numbers and not need to use their names.
Attendees can be added prior to the Auction, or can be added during recording of the winning bids (on the Auction Item Screens).
- Selecting a Attendee Group from the Tree View,
Silent Auction Bid Sheets should contain the items description, donor information, ideally pictures or images, and usually the item value, as well as your own branding. If you have recorded all the information on Auction Items it should now just be a case of deciding the layout style and bid sheet's fields required.
The Bid Sheet view allows you to change the style and options and see the effects on an individual auction item’s bid sheet or front page prior to saving or printing the bid sheets.
- Whether to calculate the Silent Auction Bid Amounts (based on the min bid and min raise values),
- To include a column for the paddle number,
- The number of bid (rows) to include.
As each part of the charity auction wraps up, you should record the winning bids immediately, and if possible take payment details before the attendees leave. For bigger charity auctions it can be advisable to close auction sections in parts, both to keep up with recording the winning items and to use it as a technique to increase interest in auction items about to close and also remaining auction items
The Winning Bids can be entered below the Auction Items
Once you have recorded the winning bids, you should ideally provide invoices / winning bid summaries to the attendees that show included tax. If they pay part or all of the payment you should also record this, it may be necessary to produce a number of requests to catch up with all the payments required.
Once Winning Bids have been entered on Auction Item’s View, you can print invoice enter payments and print remaining payment summaries from the Attendee’s view.
You need some way of tracking your progress pre and post the charity auction, looking at it from the auction items, attendee views and also the financial view. It’s also very useful to be able to look back and identify the top items (and donors), and top spenders, to help you plan the next charity auction event.
The reports view contains a number of pre-defined reports to help keep track of the charity auction progress and also print/save financial statements.
This area is specific to making the Live and Silent Auction Software easy to use, setting defaults across the auction or adding custom fields to Auction Information, Auction Items and Attendees.
This view sets up configuration or defaults for the rest of the software.
In the example screen shot, note the following: