FAQs

Yes. From procurement through wrap-up and all tasks in between, ReadySetAuction provides you and your team with a comprehensive solution for planning, managing and conducting your silent and live fundraiser auction.

Not only can you track donations, manage guests, and generate printed bid sheets, display sheets, gift certificates and a catalog; but also with ReadySetAuction you can check in guests, capture credit card information at check-in, record wins, purchases and fund-a-need pledges, generate invoices, checkout out guests, email receipts, and generate a wide-variety of accounting and activity reports that easily export as .CSV files and open in Excel.

Yes. With ReadySetAuction, you and your auction team have the tools you need right at your fingertips to run a successful mobile bidding event – all by yourselves!

There’s no need to bring in a small army of consultants. Your venue simply needs a robust Wi-Fi network and/or strong 3G/4G/LTE cellular signals.

Bidders use their own smartphones and tablets to browse your auction catalog, place bids, make purchases, donate money, and check themselves out. So there’s no expensive equipment for you to rent or buy.

Yes. Because ReadySetAuction is a 100% cloud-based auction management software solution, you and your auction committee can fully share in the tasks of organizing and managing your live, silent, mobile and online charity auction. There’s never any software to install or maintain, and never any need to sync your data.

Your account Administrator can add up to 50 committee members to your staff roster and invite them to set up accounts for logging into the Control Center.

To protect the privacy of your data, we require that each committee member sets up his/her own account via the link in his/her invitation and subsequently logs in with his/her own email address and password. Your Administrator can then control how much access each user has to the Control Center.

All 50 of these committee members can log in to the Control Center simultaneously.

Yes, of course.

In fact, with ReadySetAuction you can email receipts to donors as well as print them to send by snail mail.

Yes. Using ReadySetAuction’s flexible RSVP feature, not only can you track individual admission tickets sales, but you can also track who is coming as someone’s guests, at what tables they are seated, and what they have selected to eat.

Yes. It’s quick and easy to import your donors and guests to ReadySetAuction from .CSV formatted files. You can even import donations and packages too!

Yes. You have the option to assign a Win-It-Now price to each item.

Yes. You can print all the materials you need to conduct a traditional silent auction with bid sheets. ReadySetAuction fully supports traditional auctions from start to finish.

Yes. The ReadySetAuction Control Center includes a “Preview” feature where you and your committee can view and explore your eCatalog as you’re building it.

Yes. When your organization purchases the ReadySetAuction Select or Complete plan, you can extend the reach of your event with a branded website. ReadySetAuction creates and hosts the website for you. There’s no html for you to learn or programming skills needed.

Yes. You can customize your event website’s home page with your own banner, welcome message and the logos of your sponsors. You can even change its background color.

You can update or change these elements as often as you like.

Yes. You can add your sponsors’ logos and advertisements to your event website’s home page and they can link to wherever you’ve directed them to go.

Yes. After setting up his account, a visitor can purchase admission tickets to your event for himself and his guests. The ticket buyer can even enter a name and contact info for each guest he’s buying for.

Since guest information — including meal choices — flows directly into your ReadySetAuction Control Center’s guest management tools, this feature seamlessly automates RSVP tracking.

Yes. At the time they buy their tickets online, guests have the option to save their credit card for event purchases.

Your committee can also capture a guest’s credit card information via the Control Center prior to the event and during check-in.

Yes. You can sell tables online, and the person making the purchase can even enter the names of the guests at that time.

If the guests’ names weren’t provided at the time of the table purchase, then at Check-in your computer operators can assign them to the proper ‘party’ as part of checking in a walk-in guest.

Yes. Your supporters can make cash contributions online prior to your event by way of your ReadySetAuction-hosted event website.

Yes. You can direct donors to your ReadySetAuction-hosted event website where they can fill out the online procurement form to submit information about their donations.

When submitted, the information ‘lands’ in the inbox in your Control Center where you and your committee can review it and add it right to your list of donations.

Yes. If your organization has purchased the ReadySetAuction Select or Complete plan, then your eCatalog becomes viewable at 6:00AM EST (7:00AM EDT) 45 days before your event date.

Yes. If your organization has purchased the Complete plan, then you can conduct online bidding leading up to your event starting at 6:00AM EST (7:00AM EDT) 45 days before your event date. During that period, your auction items (packages) can open and close on their own schedules.

Yes. We call that type of package ‘ePrebiddable.’

As you create each package (item) to auction off, you will decide whether it’s for eBidding, ePrebidding or traditional bidding.

An eBidding package is biddable online (through your eCatalog) only. The winner is determined by the highest electronic bid at the time online bidding for that package closes and is recorded automatically.

An ePrebidding package is biddable online until the package closes. At that time, your committee will carry the leading bid over as the starting bid of a traditional live/silent auction. Your committee will manually record the final, winning bid.

A traditional bidding package is when the bidding takes place via paper bid sheet or live auctioneer. Your committee will manually record the final, winning bid.

ReadySetAuction Complete

Yes. If your organization is using the Complete plan, then your event website will be available for 45 days post-event during which time you can conduct online bidding and sell fixed-price packages from your event website’s eCatalog. /p>

At your event you can set up as many computers as you’d like — staffed by your auction staff/volunteers — for conducting check-in, bid recording and checkout. Each computer simply needs access to the Internet. A mix of Macs and PCs is fine. There’s no software to install.

In order to capture credit cards at check-in and run transactions during and following your event, your organization will need to set up a ReadySetAuction-compatible merchant account to link to your ReadySetAuction account. Card swipers are optional. If a computer is not equipped with a card swiper, then the computer operator can key-in the credit card information at check-in or checkout.

We partner with merchant processing companies to provide a fully secure, PCI-DSS compliant solution. For more information and to contact our partners about their rates, please visit our Payment Processing page. Our partners can also advise you on how to purchase compatible swipers.

The merchant account your organization sets up belongs to your organization. The money you process by credit card is deposited by your merchant account directly to the bank account you designate. In other words, ReadySetAuction is not the middleman for your money.

If your organization has purchased the ReadySetAuction Select or Complete plan, this same merchant account will allow guests to purchase tickets and sponsorships online and make cash donations online prior to your event, and for winners to self-pay from their own phones/tablets during and following your event.

If you want to use an existing merchant account with ReadySetAuction, you will need to set up a gateway with one of our merchant processing partners. Your new gateway plus your existing merchant account will then provide the same fully integrated credit card processing experience as you would get by establishing a new merchant account with one of our partners.

If you set up a gateway to your existing merchant account, or if you set up a new merchant account with one of our partners:

• your organization can sell tickets and sponsorships online and accept monetary donations online
• your patrons can place their credit cards on file at the time of an online purchase
• your committee can capture credit card information prior to the event and at event check-in
• your committee can run credit card transactions as part of the check out process during and following your event.

To contact our partners to discuss their rates for setting up a gateway vs. a new merchant account, please visit our Payment Processing page.

Please note that you are welcome to use your own merchant account outside of (i.e. not integrated with) ReadySetAuction. In this case, your team will be able to indicate ‘credit card’ as the payment method for ticket purchases, cash donations and auction purchases recorded through the Control Center. And ReadySetAuction will generate emailed and printed receipts. However, your event will not be able to take advantage of the features listed in the above bullets.

Yes. There are multiple opportunities for your auction staff to capture a guest’s credit card information: prior to the event, at check-in and during checkout.

In fact, if a guest purchases tickets online, (s)he can opt to store the credit card for use at the event.

With both the Select and Complete plans, guests can also pay from their own phones, tablets and computers during and following the event.

Yes. Our solution is fully secure and fully PCI-DSS compliant. In fact, at no time does credit card information ever pass through the ReadySetAuction servers. It goes directly and securely to your merchant processor.

200. Yes, you read that correctly. Up to 200 staff members can simultaneously log in to your Control Center to check in guests, record winning bids and conduct checkout.

The Administrator of your Control Center controls who has access and the level of access – ‘view-only’ or ‘modify‘– of each staff member.

You can begin entering winning bids and fixed-price purchases at any time, even before your event.

Very. From multiple computers, you and your team can record up to 10 winners at a time at each fund-a-need level you’ve established.

Yes. We call it “Win-It-Now.” For each item, you have the option to set a Win-It-Now price.

If a bidding war is underway for an item and its high bid gets within 80% of its Win-It-Now price, its Win-It-Now price will disappear. This is to encourage even higher bids.

Yes. eBidders can place maximum bids on items. The system will then place bids on behalf of the bidder up to her/his maximums as competing bids come in. If (s)he’s outbid, (s)he is immediately notified.

Yes. Your account Administrator controls whether to allow bidders to bid anonymously. It is then up to each bidder to set this preference in his/her account settings.

With ReadySetAuction, the eCatalog Access Period lasts a total of 90 days, 45 days pre-event, starting at 6:00AM EST (7:00AM EDT), and 45 days post-event, ending at 6:00AM EST (7:00AM EDT).

If you have purchased ReadySetAuction Select or ReadySetAuction Complete, then the eCatalog Access Period lasts a total of 90 days, 45 days pre-event, starting at 6:00AM EST (7:00AM EDT), and 45 days post-event, ending at 6:00AM EST (7:00AM EDT).You may purchase Pre-Event eCatalog Access Extensions to extend the eCatalog Access Period leading up to your event and/or Post-Event eCatalog Access Extensions to extend it following your event.

Visitors to your Event Website can view your eCatalog and sign themselves up to bid starting 45 days prior to your event date. You can also email invitations from your ReadySetAuction Control Center directly to bidders you’ve added or uploaded to your bidder list.

In order to place bids, a bidder must set up an account by entering his/her name and email address. The system then automatically sends the bidder a short email message containing instructions to click the button in the email and complete his/her registration. The amount of information that the bidder is required to enter depends on the settings you’ve established. At minimum, the bidder needs to choose a password and 4-digit PIN.

If a guest at your event doesn’t have access to her email, she can set up her account at a Shared Bidding Station.

An app is not required for mobile and online bidding. Bidders access your online auction through the browsers on their smartphones, tablets and computers. The bidding interface adapts to whatever sized screen the bidder is using.

As you create a new package, you will determine its open and close times. Each package can open and close on its own schedule within your eCatalog Access Period.

Yes. With the ReadySetAuction Complete plan, eBidding may begin as early as 6:00AM EST (7:00AM EDT) 45 days prior to your event date.

Yes! Your eCatalog is open for 45 days after your event date and eBidding can continue during this period.

The ReadySetAuction bidding interface keeps your bidders actively engaged by notifying them in a variety of ways:

• An eye-catching Outbid Badge at the top of every screen of the mobile bidding site automatically updates to let a bidder know when he’s been newly outbid on an item. The Outbid Badge doubles as a button – tapping it takes the bidder straight to a list of all items on which he has bid, but is no longer in the lead.
• A bold, colorful icon alongside each item in the bidder’s eCatalog tells him how he’s doing at a glance. A yellow warning sign means he’s been outbid on that item. A green running man means he’s in the lead on that item. And a purple smiley face means he’s won that item.
• The bidder receives an email notification each time he’s been outbid. This feature can be disabled by the bidder in his preferences.
• Patrons can also be notified via text message notification with the Complete package. This feature can be disabled by the bidder in their preferences.

Yes. eBidders may purchase items and make cash donations electronically via the eCatalog. They can also do so face-to-face at the event and your committee members can record these purchases through the Control Center.

Sure. But each will have more opportunities to bid if they each bid from their own device.

No two devices may access the eCatalog from the same bidding account at the same time.

In our experience, when a couple shares an eBidder account they tend to place fewer bids than when each spouse/partner has their own eBidder account. In other words, your auction will be more successful when each individual bids from his/her own phone with his/her own eBidder account.

The ReadySetAuction mobile bidding platform is built to support a wide variety of modern mobile devices and mobile browser software, in addition to traditional desktop/laptop web browsers. See the lists below for more details. A list of devices and browsers supported by ReadySetAuction mobile bidding interface can be found here.

No! You may have an unlimited number of eBidders participate in your event.

Although Check-In is optional, we recommend that you check in all guests as they arrive at your event.

Check-In serves a few purposes:

• At Check-In, you can capture the credit card information of each guest. So at the end of the event, if a guest doesn’t self-checkout, you can run her credit card transaction and email her a receipt without her being present.
• At Check-In, if a guest pre-registered to eBid, ReadySetAuction will email her a Welcome Email. She can click the link in that email, log in, and start bidding.
• At Check-In, if a guest hasn’t pre-registered to eBid, ReadySetAuction will email her a Registration Invitation. She’ll click the link in that email, choose a password and PIN, and then be directed straight to the eCatalog and can begin bidding. If the guest doesn’t have access to her email, she can complete her registration at a Shared Bidding Station.

Yes. At your discretion, bidders can bid from anywhere they have access to the Internet.

Yes. Your mobile bidding event is truly a hybrid of a traditional silent auction and an online auction. Many bidders — especially those who like to shop — will enjoy viewing items displayed on tables.

Yes! In fact, that’s what we recommend you do. Most of our customers use mobile bidding for their silent auction items and conduct their live auction and fund-a-need as they have in the past, using an auctioneer with bidders raising paddles.

Your auction staff can record the winning bids from the live auction and the fund-a-need pledges directly into the Control Center. Because ReadySetAuction is a single, consolidated platform, each eBidder’s wins and purchases from mobile bidding, the live auction and fund-a-need are consolidated on a single invoice.

Yes. Setup is super easy! Select a theme and transition style for your Showcase – we offer many choices – and the number of seconds to display each slide. The slideshow themes and animated slide-to-slide transitions you have to choose from are tasteful and sophisticated, adding that little something to your event without overwhelming the crowd’s senses. Then to feature an item, simply check a box when adding or creating its auction package, and to feature a sponsor, check a box when updating the donor record.

Yes. For each location, you simply need a computer connected to the internet with either a large monitor, a television or a way to project it to a screen.

Yes. You simply need a computer connected to the internet with a way to project it to a screen.

Yes. To feature a package in your Showcase, simply check the “Show in Showcase” check box when adding or updating its record.

Yes. To feature a sponsor with his logo in Showcase, check the “This donor is a sponsor” check box in the sponsor’s donor record and add an image for that sponsor. The image can be the the sponsor’s logo or even an advertisement.

If you don’t provide an image, the slide will read:

Special Thanks to Our Sponsor
Sponsor’s Name

Yes, you can take-over the slideshow manually during the live auction and display only each item as its being auctioned off by the auctioneer.

Yes. A slide is automatically generated that shows who has contributed to each fund-a-need level.

Computers will serve two functions at your event:

• Essentials, Select, and Complete plans: Your staff will use computers to check in guests, capture credit card information at Check-in, record winning bids of traditional silent auction items (auctioned-off via bid sheets), record purchases of fixed price items and fund-a-need donations, generate invoices (optional, of course), and check out guests. We recommend that you set up one staffed computer for every 50 guests. Each computer needs access to the Internet. These computers can be a mix of Macs and PCs. There’s no software to install. (If you are conducting mobile bidding during your event with the Complete plan, then from these computers your staff can also monitor eBidding activity, make adjustments on the fly, retract bids and purchases if necessary, and more.)
• Complete plan only: Guests without their own mobile bidding devices can place bids on Bidding Stations. We recommend that you set up one Bidding Station for every 5 to 10 eBidders who do not have their own bidding devices. So, for example, if you have 250 guests who will attend your event, 25 of whom do not have their own smartphone or tablet, then you should set up 3 to 5 Bidding Stations at your event. A Bidding Station is simply a computer, laptop, or even an iPad that your Control Center Administrator has set to Bidding Station Mode.

• eBidders (guests bidding from their smartphones and tablets) can access the online catalog by connecting to the Internet via their cellular data plans. We do not recommend, however, that you rely exclusively on cell service to provide access to the Internet.
• If eBidding (mobile bidding) will be taking place during a concentrated time period at your event (i.e. 2-5 hours), we recommend that your venue’s WiFi network supports about half your bidders simultaneously. If it doesn’t, you should plan to supplement the venue’s WiFi with additional wireless access points to provide additional connections.
• For auctions with up to 500 eBidders, your venue’s wired internet connection should support 50 Mbps download (recommended minimum) and 10 Mbps upload (recommended minimum).
• Discuss with the venue if other parties/people will be using their network during your event. 50 Mbps download and 10Mbps upload is sufficient to support your eBidding activity. But your connection can become congested and slow down if there are people using your network connection for high traffic activities like playing YouTube videos, uploading/downloading photos or videos, etc.

We recommend that your Wi-Fi network offer enough access points to accommodate simultaneously at least half the number of registered eBidders.

There are two ways that guests without their own smartphones and tablets can still join the fun:

• Place laptops, computers and/or tablets around your venue to act as Bidding Stations. Any registered eBidder can login, browse the eCatalog and bid from a Bidding Station.
• Via the Control Center, staff members can also place proxy bids on behalf of any registered eBidder.

We do not provide equipment or personnel for your event. ReadySetAuction is a ‘do-it-yourself’ solution, designed so that your own volunteers can run your event. With ReadySetAuction, there’s no need to spend the extra money to hire consultants to do it for you.

Yes.

Yes! Whether they’ve been bidding at your traditional event and/or placing mobile bids, bidders can check themselves out from their own phones, tablets and computers as long as your Control Center Administrator had enabled self-checkout and has set up a compatible merchant account. (Select and Complete plans only)

The Administrator of your Control Center has a global setting for allowing (or disallowing) self-checkout.

If self-checkout is enabled, then as soon as an eBidder has an item on his invoice (having won or purchased an item), a “$” button will appear at the top of his eCatalog. Tapping the button takes the bidder to his invoice. He can pay for that item right away or wait until later when he may have won/purchased additional items.

eBidders can pay by PayPal or credit card if you’ve set up a PayPal Business Account or compatible merchant account.

When a guest purchases his ticket(s) online, he has the option to keep his credit card on file for future auction purchases.

A winner can also enter his payment information at the time he pays his invoice. He need enter it only once and then can use that same payment method again later if he has another invoice to pay.

Your auction staff can check out any bidder via the Control Center — whether (s)he won and/or purchased items in your traditional auction or mobile auction — and accept payments by credit card, cash or check.

Yes. ReadySetAuction automatically emails receipts to your guests when they self-pay and when they are checked-out by the auction staff. Your committee can also re-email bidder receipts as well as print them.

Yes. If your state requires your organization to collect sales tax on the sale of certain types of auction items, you can set up tax rates and assign those rates to items when entering them. ReadySetAuction will calculate the sales tax on the winning bid amount and add it to the amount due to the bidder.

There are several locations where your staff members can look to see who has paid and who still owes money:

• the bidder’s Invoice in your Control Center
• the eCatalog Home Page on the bidder’s mobile device
• the eCatalog Invoice on the bidder’s mobile device
• the Balance Due column of the Manage Bidders list in your Control Center
• the Payments Due and Payments Received reports in your Control Center

Yes, you can send thank you notes by email in bulk or one-by-one, directly from your Control Center.

Your auction staff can check out bidders and bidders can check themselves out for the 4 weeks following your event date, or if you’ve purchased an eCatalog Access Period post event extension (or extensions), then for the 4 weeks following the end of the extension.

During the four weeks following your event date — or the four weeks following the close of your eCatalog Access Period if you have purchased a post-event extension — your committee retains access to your Control Center and your bidders retain access to their accounts for checking out and viewing receipts.

Yes. We endeavor to store your data for three years after your event. During this time your Administrator can log in and view your data, print materials and export reports.

Yes. ReadySetAuction generates a wide variety of reports, each of which can be exported as a .CSV file and opened in Excel.

You can purchase ReadySetAuction up to a year prior to your event date.

To purchase, contact our sales team at 888 • 824 • 0490. At the time of purchase, you must agree to our Terms of Service. There is no paper contract to sign.

You may pay the ReadySetAuction Event Fee up to twelve (12) months prior to your event date. We take payment only by credit card. The credit card can belong to your organization or an individual on your committee.

You’ll be up and running immediately upon purchase.

During the period leading up to your event date, you will have access to the ReadySetAuction Control Center to prepare for your auction. You will retain access to the Control Center for wrapping up your auction for four weeks following the end of your event. Your organization’s mobile bidding site will be available for 90 days starting at 6:00 AM EST (7:00 AM EDT) 45 days prior to your event date and ending at 6:00 AM EST (7:00 AM EDT) 45 days after your event date.

Interested in extending mobile bidding? Your Administrator may purchase Pre-Event and Post-Event eBidding Extensions from within the Control Center.

View ReadySetAuction plans and pricing.

Yes! telephone & email support for all registered committee members is included in your Event Fee. Our support team is available Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM Eastern Time, excluding holidays. We promise 24-hour turn-around on business days. Typical response time is less than 60 minutes.

View our Support Policy

We continually enhance ReadySetAuction with new features. Any enhancements made to your current plan are provided to you automatically and free of charge. There is nothing for you to install! If you would like to upgrade to a higher service plan than you initially purchased, you may do so at any time from the Control Center by paying an upgrade fee.

We do not believe in locking customers in to long-term agreements. Rather, we prefer to win customer loyalty by providing superior products and an excellent customer support experience.

With that said, we incur costs immediately when you purchase a ReadySetAuction product. This prohibits us from providing refunds.

We encourage you to take advantage of our free 15-day limited trial to evaluate ReadySetAuction prior to purchasing.

The Nonprofit Cost is listed with each package in the Winspire Catalog.

The amount your organization makes from a Winspire package depends on the winning bid. You will pay our partnering vendor the Nonprofit Cost as listed in the Winspire Catalog. The difference between the winning bid amount and the Nonprofit Cost of the package equals the amount you make.

ReadySetAuction partners with Winspire, Inc. to provide travel, destination and experience packages to our customers for their fundraising auction events.

Winspire Inc.

Winspire Inc. is a registered commercial fundraiser with The Attorney General and a registered seller of travel. Winspire Inc. is also a member of IATA, the International Air Transport Association, and CLIA, the Cruise Line International Association.

Winspire Inc. provides highly desired, hard to find, exclusive travel packages for use in charity auctions and fundraisers. Charities purchase only what is sold, making it risk free. Family vacations, international trips, cruises, adventure travel, golf trips and hundreds more, Winspire Inc. offers it all.

Winspire Inc.
9641 Irvine Center Drive
Irvine, CA 92618
(949) 544-8545

The ReadySetAuction Winspire Catalog lists both your price (a.k.a. Nonprofit Cost) as well as the Suggested Retail Value for each package. We suggest you set the starting bid at least 10% above your price.

There is no limit to the number of Winspire packages you sell during your auction. In fact, you can sell the same package multiple times if you choose.

We’ve made this easy for you! In the Winspire Catalog, you’ll find a brief description of each package and its amenities. To view this description, click the package’s “View Options” or “View Details” link. Then copy and paste the description into the Package Description field in your ReadySetAuction Control Center.

Any restrictions and/or blackout dates are included with the package description in the Winspire Catalog.

Be sure to include any restrictions in your printed and/or online catalogs.

Any restrictions and/or blackout dates are included with the package description in the Winspire Catalog.

Be sure to include any restrictions in your printed and/or online catalogs.

Yes. You must reserve a Winspire package prior to making it available during your auction.

To reserve a package, fill out this Learn More form and a representative from our partner, Winspire, will reach out to you shortly.

To reserve a package, fill out this Learn More form. A representative from our partner, Winspire, will reach out to you shortly.

As soon as you know that you would like to feature a Winspire package during your auction, fill out the Learn More form. We strongly encourage you to submit your reservation at least 5 business days prior to your gala auction or 5 business days prior to posting the Winspire package in your online auction.

As soon as you have collected payment from the winning bidder, submit your order directly to Winspire.