Payments, Invoices, and Financial Documents

While online credit card payments work for standard events where attendees pay for themselves, B2B registrations often involve government representatives, corporate executives, and industry leaders you actively want in the room. Flexible payment options make it easy for them to complete registration without worrying about personal expenses or reimbursements, leaving billing, purchase orders, and invoicing to their finance department.

Eventact supports online payments and alternative methods, with invoices, receipts, and payment tracking into the registration process. Organizers can handle any payment scenario while keeping all records neatly organized in one place.

Available options depend on the organizer's payment gateway and account configuration. Requirements for specific gateways or system setups are noted below.

1. Choose When Payment Is Due
2. Offer Multiple Payment Methods
3. Manage Invoices, Receipts, and Other Financial Documents
4. Manage Payments per Registration
5. Price and Collect in Multiple Currencies
6. Keep Registration and Financial Records Connected

Set payment timing per registration form. The amount due at registration can differ by product category, such as tickets, hotel nights, and flights.

• Pay at registration: Attendees pay in full when they submit the form. Suits public conferences and standard tickets.
• Pay later: An option the organizer can offer on the form. Attendees who choose it register without paying and are expected to pay before the event.
• Deferred payment: A status the organizer sets on a registration, not an option attendees choose. It means the organizer agrees the attendee can pay after the event. The balance stays open until it is settled.
• Deposits: Attendees pay part of the fee at registration (a percentage, fixed amount, or first hotel night) and the balance stays open. The organizer collects the balance later with a charge from the Back Office. This is common for expensive workshops, multi-day programs, and hotel bookings.

How to Set the Amount Due at Registration

1. Go to Event › Settings › Forms and open the registration form.
2. In the form editor's side panel, expand Payment Settings.
3. Under Amount to charge, choose Total amount, First night, Percent of total, A fixed amount, or By services ordered, and enter the amount.
4. With By services ordered, set the amount per service category: Do not charge, Total, First night, Percent, or Fixed.
5. Choose whether to charge a credit card after submission, which document to produce (receipt or invoice receipt), and whether to email the financial document to the registrant.

Explain the balance terms in the form text, so attendees know what they owe and when. To offer Pay later, add it to the payment field (see section 2).

How to Approve a Deferred Payment

• One registrant: go to Event › Registrants, open the registrant, and on the Registration tab click Approve Deferred Payment. The button appears only when the registrant has an open balance. Cancel Deferred Payment Approval reverses it.
• Several registrants: in Event › Registrants, select the rows, then Bulk Actions › Status Set › Payment Deferred.

Open Balances at Check-in

By default, check-in admits registrants with status Submitted, Paid, Approved, Free, or Payment Deferred. A pay-later registrant with an open balance is not stopped automatically. To prevent unpaid registrants from checking in at the self check-in kiosk, go to Event › Settings › Arrival kiosk, then under Pre-registered Attendees, clear Submitted.

A registration form can present both online and offline payment options, depending on the methods approved by the organizer.

How to Set Up Payment Methods for the Account

Payment methods and gateway credentials are set once for the whole account, then offered per form.

1. In Studio, go to Settings › Payments › Payment Methods.
2. Turn on each method you want to use.
3. On the Credit Card card, choose the Gateway, enter the credentials provided (such as Merchant ID, API key, and API secret), and click Test to check the connection. You can also set allowed card brands, Require 3D Secure, foreign card rules, and blocked countries.
4. For PayPal, enter the Client ID and Secret. For Google Pay, enter the payment service provider and merchant IDs.
5. To show payment instructions (for example, bank details for transfers), open the method's ⋮ menu, choose Add instructions, and add a translation for each form language.
6. Click Save.

How to Add Payment Methods to a Form

1. Go to Event › Settings › Forms and open the form.
2. Click + Add Common › Add payment page, or use Add Field on an existing page.
3. In the payment field settings, choose:
   • Credit cards: the accepted card brands and Installments.
   • Require credit card details for guarantee: collects card details from attendees who choose an offline method.
   • Skip CVV and Block foreign credit cards, if needed.
   • Other payment methods: Cash, Cheque, Purchase order, Pay later, Invoice, PayPal, Google Pay, Payroll deduction, and Bank transfer.

Reconciling Offline Payments

With bank transfers, purchase orders, and cash, registration and payment happen at different times.

To record a payment once the funds arrive:

1. Go to Event › Registrants and open the registrant.
2. On the Payments tab, click New Receipt (or New Invoice-Receipt if no invoice was issued yet).
3. Add the payment: choose the method and fill in its details (bank, branch, account, and reference for a transfer; bank and cheque number for a cheque).
4. The amount defaults to the open balance. Lower it for a partial payment, or add more payments to split the amount across methods.
5. Produce the document. The balance on the Payments tab updates.

A purchase order is a promise to pay, not money received. Keeping them separate shows which balances remain open before the event.

Attendees rely on invoices for reimbursement, finance teams demand precise billing details, and organizers need a clear record of every payment, deposit, cancellation, and refund.

Eventact issues these documents under the organizer's legal entity and billing settings.

Document Types

The invoice title matches the business's tax status: Tax Invoice, Bill, Donation, or Invoice No Tax. Set this under Studio › Settings › Payments › Invoices and Receipts › Default Details › Invoice document title.

Which documents are issued, in what order, and which are sent automatically depends on the organizer's accounting setup.

Document Settings

Most document settings are set once for the account in Studio, under Settings › Payments.

• Legal entity and billing details: Go to Accounting Details and enter the legal name, Business registration number, Tax ID, and address. These details appear on every document. One issuing business serves all of the account's events.
• Document design and branding: Go to Invoices and Receipts › Invoice Receipt Template to upload a Header Image and Footer Image and to position the address box for windowed envelopes. To add an event-specific banner, go to Event › Settings › Finance and integrations › Accounting, and on the General tab set Banner for invoices and receipts. See Invoices and Receipts for template examples.
• Language and localization: Set the Document Language under Invoices and Receipts › Default Details.
• Notes on documents: Set account-wide default notes under Invoices and Receipts › Default Details › Default Notes. To set notes for one event, go to Event › Settings › Finance and integrations › Accounting and, on the General tab, fill in Default notes on invoices and receipts.
• Currencies and taxation: Set the Main currency (the accounting currency) and Additional Currencies under Accounting Details. Amounts in another currency are converted at the exchange rate for the payment's value date. VAT rates are set per business, can vary by the payer's country, and prices can be defined as VAT-inclusive or VAT-exclusive.
• Document numbering: Go to Invoices and Receipts › Initial Serial Numbers to set the first number for invoices, credit invoices, receipts, invoice-receipts, and deposits. Each document type follows its own sequence. The organizer is responsible for ensuring numbering meets local accounting and legal rules.
• Electronic document delivery: Documents are generated as PDFs. To email them automatically after an online payment, turn on Send financial document to registrant by email in the form's Payment Settings. You can also send documents from the Back Office (Send by Mail on the registrant's Payments tab), and attendees can download them from their account.

Accounting and ERP Exports

1. Go to Accounting › Export Journal Entries and click Add New Export.
2. Choose the Export format, such as Excel or SAP.
3. Filter by document type, events, and dates, then click Create and Download.

To record bank deposits, go to Accounting › Deposits and click + Add.

A registration is not limited to one invoice and one receipt. Organizers can issue as many invoices, receipts, and refunds per registrant as needed, and each new document covers only what remains open.

The Payments Tab

To open it, go to Event › Registrants, click the registrant's row, and select the Payments tab. You can also open it from the row's More (⋯) › Payments menu. The tab shows:

• Total, VAT, price adjustments, amount invoiced, amount paid, and balance due.
• Each ordered item with its price, VAT, paid status, and who paid for it.
• Every financial document issued for the registration, with its number, date, and total.

Actions on the tab:

• New Receipt, New Invoice-Receipt, New Invoice: issue a document for the open items.
• Charge Registrant: charge the saved card or record another payment method, for selected items or a custom amount.
• On each document: View PDF, Send by Mail, Cancel, and Refund.
• In the ⋮ menu: Credit/Debit (move funds to or from another registration), Delete credit card, and Recalculate.

To approve a deferred payment, use the Registration tab (see section 1).

Partial Payments and Additional Services

• Invoice part of an order: select which items to invoice and edit the amount per line, for example, to invoice 50% now and the rest later.
• Receive part of the balance: a receipt defaults to the remaining balance, and you can lower the amount for a partial payment.
• Combine payment methods: one receipt can hold several payments, such as part by bank transfer and part by cheque.
• Add services after registration: extras like an additional hotel night or a workshop become new items on the registration and can be invoiced and charged separately.
• Pay for linked registrations: a single payer document can cover open items for multiple linked registrants.

Billing Details

You can update the payer's organization, name, and address on each document, making it easy to invoice employers or institutions instead of individual attendees.

Refunds and Cancellations

• Refund a payment: On the Payments tab, click Refund on the receipt. Choose Refund credit card to return the money through the gateway, or Record offline refund for a refund made by transfer or cash. Refunds are not available for payments taken on an on-site terminal.
• Credit invoice: click New Invoice and mark it as a credit invoice to reverse or reduce an earlier invoice.
• Cancel a document: click Cancel on the document. Cancellation is blocked once the payment is included in a bank deposit.
• Cancellation fees: charged from the cancellation rules (days before the event) or set manually.

Bulk Actions

To charge or invoice many registrations at once, for example, to collect deposit balances before the event:

1. Go to Event › Registrants and select the rows, or click Select All.
2. Click Bulk Actions › Payment, then Charge... or Generate Invoice....
3. Choose the amount (full total, first hotel night, percentage, fixed sum, or by service category), whether to charge the saved card, the document type, and whether to email the documents.
4. Click Charge or Invoice.

Document List

To see all of an event's documents, click Accounting in the event's side menu. You can search by serial number, name, or registration ID, filter by status (Issued, Draft, Canceled), date, and document type, and open, send, or cancel each document. Select documents and use Bulk Actions to send them, download them as one merged PDF, or refund them. To see documents across all events, go to Studio Settings › Payments › Invoices and Receipts › Documents.

International events can use multiple currencies. Each event has a main currency and can add more from the currencies enabled for the account. When an item has no price in the attendee's currency, Eventact converts an existing price at the exchange rate on the order date. Every document records amounts in both the attendee's currency and the business's accounting currency.

How to Set Up Multiple Currencies

1. Enable the currencies for the account: in Studio, go to Settings › Payments › Accounting Details and tick the Additional Currencies you need.
2. Add them to the event: go to Event › Pricelist and click Payment Settings. Under Additional Currencies, tick the currencies this event accepts.
3. Set the currency by country (optional): on the same page, tick Automatically set currency for user based on country. Each new registration gets the currency of the attendee's country if the event accepts it; otherwise, the form's default currency applies. The currency is set when the registration is created and does not change if the attendee later edits their country.
4. Set the form's default currency: in the form editor's Payment Settings, choose the Currency of payments.
5. Set prices per currency: go to Event › Pricelist, open the item, and enter a price in each currency field (labeled by price plan and currency), for example USD 500 and EUR 450. Leave a currency empty to have Eventact convert it from an existing price.
6. Keep exchange rates up to date: in Studio, go to Settings › Payments › Exchange Rates, click + Add, and enter the date, the From and To currencies, and the rate. Before registration opens, make sure a rate exists for every currency pair the event uses.

Where to see who registered, who paid, and what is still open:

• Issuing business details, document title, language, and initial serial numbers are set (section 3).
• Payment methods and gateway are turned on and tested, and instructions are added for offline methods (section 2).
• The form has a payment field with the right methods (section 2).
• The amount due at registration is set in the form's Payment Settings (section 1).
• Currencies, per-currency prices, and exchange rates are in place (section 5).
• Someone is assigned to record offline payments as they arrive (section 2).

For configuration guidance, see Eventact Pro or contact Eventact Support.