Paid registrations: how to collect event fees and services without chasing bank transfers

Why collecting payments becomes a separate job

Opening registration for a paid event looks simple: the guest registers, pays, and everything is settled. In practice the steps are often separate. The registration form lands in one place, the bank transfer in another, the card receipt in a third. Someone has to put the pieces back together, usually by hand.

Anyone who works on a registration desk knows the result. To find out "who has already paid?" you have to compare the list of registrants with the bank statement. And when the names do not match, because the company pays and not the attendee, time is lost looking for the link. We covered this in Iscrizioni, pagamenti e check-in su Excel? Quando è il momento di cambiare (in Italian).

What guests can pay for during registration

It is not just the fee. With webRay® guests can buy the following while they register:

• the registration fee;
• workshops;
• optional activities;
• hotel nights;
• additional services;
• dedicated packages.

Keeping everything in the same flow helps twice: guests choose and pay in one go, and the registration desk sees in a single place what each person has bought.

The three most common ways to collect (and where they get stuck)

Before choosing a tool, it helps to understand how you work today. Most teams fall into one of these three cases.

How a payment linked to registration works

The payment goes through a payment gateway: the specialised service that handles online payments, such as Stripe, PayPal or Nexi. webRay® can be connected to these gateways. Seen from the guest and from the registration desk, the flow looks like this:

1. The guest fills in the form. They choose the fee, workshops, hotel nights or other services. The form can show only the questions that apply to them, based on earlier answers.
2. They pay through the gateway. They complete the payment online, without making a separate bank transfer or writing to the registration desk.
3. The platform records the outcome. The transaction status is linked to the guest's record, so nothing needs to be matched by hand.
4. The registration desk checks. They can see completed payments, pending transactions, amounts paid, services purchased and transaction codes.
5. Reports are exported. Data can be extracted with dedicated reports, useful for checks and for the administration team.

Pending payments: how to avoid chasing them

A "pending" transaction is not necessarily a missed payment: the guest may have stopped halfway through, or may be waiting for approval from their company. What matters is not finding out at the last minute. A few simple rules help:

• decide in advance by when payment must be completed;
• decide whether the place stays reserved in the meantime or not;
• prepare one reminder message for everyone, so you do not write to each guest by hand;
• look at the list of pending transactions at fixed intervals, for example once a week.

For reminders you can use the platform's built-in communication tools, which handle email, SMS and browser push notifications with automatic, personalised messages.

Workshops, hotel nights and extras: who bought what

When each guest can buy different things, the difficulty is not adding up the amounts but knowing who bought what. If the payment is linked to the guest's record, the registration desk starts from a reliable list to organise workshop rooms or the hotel list.

If places are limited you also need a good event booking system, which handles availability and waiting lists. And the link continues at the entrance: webRay® integrates with accreditation systems such as goAhead, so whoever reaches the desk is already on the right list.

If guest data also needs to reach company systems, you will find the steps to follow in Integrare la segreteria organizzativa con i sistemi aziendali: come farlo bene (in Italian). And if part of your income comes from sponsors, the reasoning is similar to Come gestire gli sponsor di un evento senza inseguire loghi, materiali e pagamenti (in Italian).

Checklist before opening paid registration

Frequently asked questions