Using Classlist to take payment for tickets and items can save your Parents' Association a serious amount of time, especially if you take payment for tickets or goods exclusively online.
Demos
Watch our 2 minute video demo of events: "The 2 minute challenge"
Taking payment with Stripe
Parents can buy tickets directly with their bank or credit card on Classlist within our app if you use payment provider, Stripe.
"Our new Head is super impressed with the PTA’s use of your app! Over lockdown we’ve run virtual events for our families, and we're using Classlist to communicate and sell the tickets. That has been very successful" - Katie Webster, PTA Chair, Wandsworth Prep.
"We’ve already organised a quiz night where people paid for their tickets online. I think it cut my time as treasurer by about 75%, probably because I wasn’t chasing after cheques from junior school, cheques from senior school, cheques all over the place. It was really, really great to just have that ‘go on and buy a ticket online’ system." - Lin Skinner, Treasurer PSA Sydenham High School
"Buying tickets via Classlist is hassle-free for parents. They can choose to pay on their credit card – and it’s done. They don’t have to write a cheque or find someone to give the money to. It’s also far easier for the PTA because there’s no chasing people for payment or reconciling money. It saves everyone time." Kelly Walsh, organiser of the Summer Ball at St George’s School in Weybridge, Surrey
How to get started
You can set up a Stripe Connect account for your Parents' Association the first time you sell tickets on Classlist using Stripe. You'll be directed to Stripe to set one up. If you already have a Stripe account for your PTA you can just login to your existing Stripe account. More info about setting up Stripe here.
If someone else is the Stripe account holder
They need to be made an additional event organiser on that event first.
Then they should go to the draft event on the Community events list, open the event and scroll down to the “Tickets” section. Click on add a new ticket.
Then click select type “Paid” ticket (put anything for now in the ticket description, quantity and price, you can edit the ticket amount later), click ‘Add’ then it says ‘Receive payments’.
Then they should click through to Stripe, and login.
When you come back to the Classlist-side, it will show the name of the account added. Save and exit.
The original event organiser can now carry on to add details and publish the event.
How to sell tickets for your community event on Classlist
- When creating your community event on the green admin side, click on 'Add Tickets', choose the 'Paid' option and select 'Get Paid Using Stripe'.
- Enter details of your tickets e.g. School Disco, £5.00, and the number of tickets available.
- You can add multiple ticket types for your event if you wish - great if you want to offer individual tickets as well as family tickets, or tickets with the extra option of food, for example.
- You can also add group tickets (eg 1 table for 8 people) alongside individual tickets, click here for more info.
- You can also ask parents a question which will be added as a note to their ticket. For example, you might want to ask who will be picking up their child for safeguarding, or if their child has any allergies you need to be aware of.
- Sign in to your Stripe account to which you wish to receive payment (or set up your new Stripe account).
- Then, invite guests by clicking on the 'invite' button and selecting whether to send the invite to the whole school, a particular class, year or group.
- If you want to buy your own tickets to the event - or to see how the event will appear on Classlist to other parents - switch to the blue parent side and go to the event.
- Parents buying tickets don't need a Stripe account, they just use their credit or debit card (VISA, Mastercard, American Express accepted), which is easy to enter quickly.
Fees
After suspending our fees at the start of the pandemic over 2 years ago Classlist will now charge 1.5% platform fees. This is on top of the Stripe Fees.
Stripe's standard fee is currently 1.5% + £0.20 per transaction in the UK
For non-UK cards Stripe charges higher fees in the UK, see the Stripe website for details.
If you are in another country please check Stripe's fees for your country.
We remain cheaper than most other platforms - see our comparison table for details.
It is also easier for parents to pay within our app. They don't even have to login or add their name - we have that already! And you can communicate with your guests in an instance.
We are committed to supporting school communities, and the core features of the Classlist app are all still covered in your plan. We cover all the costs of in app messaging & emails, hosting your school's Classlist site, development of the app & technical support by displaying sponsored ads on the free plan or via subscription fees for schools that have chosen to be ad-free.
- Once you've put your tickets on sale, don't forget to check out our 'manage event' features
From the green admin side if you go into your event you will see an option in the guest list section to send a message. The 3 dots next to each category also allow you to view the list of parents, download a list of who is going or resend the invite to those that haven't responded yet..
- Apply for non-profit status if you mostly accept donations to reduce your Stripe fees further
- Set your Stripe account to manual payouts
We recommend that you set your Stripe account to manage payments manually. Stripe transfers money each day that your account is in credit as a default. This can be handy for many organisations who are taking large amounts of money. However, we feel it is often better to set this to manual and simply transfer your money in one go at the end of your event. You can change this in Balance, Settings.
- Ask your treasurer to add you as a user to the PTA's stripe account
If your treasurer or another member of your team sets up the Stripe Connect Account for your PTA, they can add you as as user on that account so you can connect to it and sell tickets too. Alternatively you can both be Event Admins on Classlist and the Treasurer can connect the Stripe account.
- Before putting tickets for sale check you are logged in to the correct Stripe account
Stripe - A few things to note:
- Stripe does take fees from the ticket price - i.e. the transaction values in Stripe will be lower than the amounts shown in the downloaded spreadsheet. The total purchase value for a transaction in Stripe will relate to the total for each purchaser on the spreadsheet, less the Stripe fee
- In Stripe each purchase will be listed as a transaction, and it states the event name too. So it is easy for you to see which list of transactions in Stripe relate to which event and transfer them out.
- The guest list on Classlist itself shows each purchaser listed in date order, newest at the top for cross reference if you need it
- If you click on a transaction in Stripe you can see the fees taken for that transaction so it is very clear what you are receiving.
- Tickets are only issued on Classlist if payment is confirmed by Stripe. ie Purchasers will not have tickets if they didn't pay!
- Don't switch the Stripe account if selling already tickets for your event as that will remove the tickets.
How are the Stripe fees calculated?
The Stripe fee is calculated on the sale price of your ticket. So if you are selling a ticket for £4.00 then (at the time of writing) you will be charged 1.5% + 20p per transaction on the price of this, working out at a cost of £0.26 for the ticket. Classlist's fee of 1.5% will also be applied. For a £4 ticket this is 6p, making the total £0. 32.
How are the fees applied?
Parents will still only pay the ticket price e.g. £4.00. The Stripe fees will be deducted before the ticket proceeds are passed to your Stripe account.
I have a PayPal account - Can I still use it?
The Paypal Checkout is no longer available. Please set up a Stripe account instead.
Benefits of Stripe
Stripe is integrated in the app, is easier for parents to pay with, and the fees are cheaper. Stripe also has better customer service if you need to get in touch with them.
It only takes a few minutes to set up a Stripe account so we recommend you switch to using Stripe.
Using Classlist to sell tickets to your events will help your Parents' Association run events more easily, freeing up time for you team to do more fundraising, and will help make your current events even more successful. We've had PTAs tell us that their firework's night and summer balls have sold out in minutes on Classlist. Good luck!
Contact support@classlist.com for more info.
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