ClickBid 101: Post-Event

Wrapping up your event is just as important as running it. This walkthrough covers everything from the video above: getting bidders checked out and paid, pulling your post-event reports, and closing out (or rolling into) your next event.

Quick Summary

• Before your auction closes, turn on phone checkout under Software Settings > Auction Settings > Payment so winners get a personalized checkout link the moment bidding ends.
• Items > Manage Items shows your closing time. Once it hits, items move to Closed and winning messages go out automatically.
• Event Central > Event Payments is your post-event payment hub: batch-process Unpaid Checkouts, request Instant Payouts, or check people out one at a time from Event Central > Butler.
• Weekly payouts land every Wednesday if you skip instant payouts. Reconcile them under the Merchant Report.
• Pull your Event Sales and Post-Event Data reports for a full breakdown of results.
• When you’re done, deactivate the event to free up your keyword, then start your next event, optionally copying data over from this one.

Step 1: Turn On Phone Checkout Before You Close

1. Go to Software Settings > Auction Settings > Payment.
2. Make sure guests are allowed to check out from their phones. This is what triggers the winning message that lets silent auction winners tap through and pay.
3. Customize the message text to match your event’s voice if you’d like.

ℹ️ We recommend leaving the [P] shortcode in place. It automatically inserts a personalized link straight to that bidder’s payment page, so they don’t have to search for their items.

Step 2: Let Item Closing Times Do the Work

Your closing time for each item lives on Items > Manage Items. Once that time passes, the item flips to Closed status, which is what fires off the winning notification to the bidder. There’s nothing extra to do here, just confirm your closing times are set the way you want before the event ends.

Step 3: Process Payments in Event Payments

Head to Event Central > Event Payments to see who still owes money.

1. Open the Unpaid Checkouts tab to see everyone who hasn’t paid yet.
2. Select Show All, then use the master checkbox to select everyone.
3. Click Batch Process to charge the group at once.

While a charge is running, the checkout button is replaced with Processing. Once it goes through, that person moves down into Paid Checkouts.

💡 You don’t have to process everyone at once. You can select just a handful of people at a time if you’d rather work through checkouts in smaller batches.

Requesting an Instant Payout

If you’re eligible, you’ll see an Instant Payout option in the upper right corner of this page.

1. Select the transactions you want paid out immediately.
2. Confirm the payout.
3. Funds typically arrive in your account within 30 minutes.

⚠️ Instant Payouts are available 24/7, but there’s a 1% fee on top of your standard 3.5% processing fee for that deposit.

Step 4: Check Out Bidders One at a Time

Need to charge just one person? Use Event Central > Butler:

1. Find the bidder using Bidder Lookup.
2. Click the red Checkout button next to their name.
3. Choose a payment method (card, check, cash, etc.), for example select Check and enter the check number.
4. Click Complete Checkout, then Continue.

This automatically sends the bidder an email receipt. To confirm a payment went through, check that the red Checkout button is gone; from the dropdown, select Paid Items to view, print, or resend their receipt.

Step 5: Reconcile Weekly Payouts

If you didn’t use Instant Payouts, funds are paid out automatically every Wednesday to the bank account on file.

1. Open the Merchant Report tab in the left-hand toolbar.
2. Look for the status of each deposit:
   • Unreconciled: funds haven’t been deposited yet.
   • Reconciled: funds have been received, and you can view the fee breakdown for that deposit.

Step 6: Pull Your Post-Event Reports

Under the Reports tab, two reports are especially useful after your event wraps:

• Event Sales: a spreadsheet-style report you can group and filter by nearly any field.
• Post-Event Data: broken into several tabs covering different angles of your results.

Use whichever fits what you’re looking for: Event Sales for flexible, grouped totals, or Post-Event Data for a more segmented view.

Step 7: Deactivate the Event

Once everyone’s paid and you’re done communicating about the event:

1. Go to the Organization tab and scroll to the event that ended.
2. Click the three dots next to it and select Deactivate.

Deactivating frees up your event keyword for reuse and removes the event from your active events view. To find it again later, use Show Inactive Events and filter.

ℹ️ We typically recommend turning off bidder registration for the event around the same time you deactivate it.

Step 8: Start Your Next Event

Ready to roll into your next event? From the Events tab, click Add New Event (permissions dependent).

1. Reuse a past keyword, including the one you just freed up, or set a new one.
2. Name the event and set your dates and time zone.
3. Choose whether to open the event early (allows sign-ins and bidding right away) or keep it closed until your event date.
4. Assign an event admin, either an existing user or a new one.
5. Choose whether to copy information over from a previous event or start from ClickBid’s default setup. Copying over more than you need is fine, you can always delete unused fields later without affecting the original event.
6. Confirm your details and save.

Your new event will appear in your active events view (this can take a minute to populate). From the Users page, you can add or carry over existing users. Anyone without the Org Admin role will need to be added to the new event directly to see it. Carried-over data like bidders and items may take a little time to finish transferring, but you can start working in the event while that finishes.

Related Best Practices

Want more detail on any of these steps? Check out:

• Bidder checkout → Bidder Self-Checkout
• Instant payouts → How to Request an Instant Payout in ClickBid
• Refunds → Process a Refund in ClickBid
• Understanding your reports → ClickBid Reports Overview and Post Event Data Report: How to Analyze and Export Event Results
• Credit card fees on your deposit → Understanding Credit Card Fees and the Event Sales Report
• Closing out and reopening → How to Deactivate an Event and Start a New Event in ClickBid
• Adding people to your new event → How to Create, Remove, and Manage Users in ClickBid