So your auction has ended... now what? This article will walk you through the steps for opening checkout, marking bidders as “paid,” and more!

Checklist (Click any of the following items to read more detailed instructions)

☐ Open Checkout
☐ Mark Bidders “Paid”
☐ Review Reports
☐ Deactivate Auction Package

To watch a video of these instructions, click below:

Before bidders can pay for their auction items, you’ll need to open checkout for your auction items categories.

Log in to Bloomerang Fundraising, and navigate to the Virtual Terminal.

Select your auction from the drop-down menu.

Click the Checkout tab, and then click Open Checkout.

If you have more than one auction items category, you'll see them listed along the top of the screen.

You’ll need to open checkout for each auction items category. Store items and fund-a-need items won’t appear here because checkout for those categories is always open.

When you click Open Checkout, you’ll see a Checkout Summary modal. If there are items that have no bids or unmet reserve prices, you can review them before opening checkout by clicking Review Items.

For Reserve Not Met Items, you can decide whether you want to move them to checkout anyway by clicking Accept Highest Bid.

For Items with No Bids, you can assign a winner by clicking Assign Winner.

Click Done to return to the Checkout Review screen, and when you’re ready, click Open Checkout.

Marking bidders as “Paid” is how you will process payment for auction items, so it’s pretty important!

Beneath the categories, you’ll see a table of your attendees, including their unpaid balance, total amount billed, and payment status. From here, you can take a variety of actions.

You can edit attendees’ payment methods in the Payment Method column.

Mark individual attendees “Paid” by clicking Pay Now.

When you click Pay Now, the Pay Balance modal will appear. From here, you can review the payment amount, see the total that has been billed to the attendee, and add Gift Assist (if it’s enabled for your auction).

When you’re ready, click Process Payment.

To use the “Checked Out” status, click Check Out. It’s not necessary to mark attendees as “Checked Out,” but it is useful for keeping track of which attendees have received their items.

Once you click Check Out, a confirmation modal will appear. Click Mark as Checked Out once confirmed or click Cancel to go back.

You’ll see attendees’ statuses change based on the changes you make.

You can also Group Edit attendee status by clicking the checkbox next to the name of each attendee you want to edit. Then, choose the status change you want to make from the dropdown menu, and click Apply.

Once everyone is "Paid,” you are free to pull any reports you need on the constituents.

Start by navigating to the Reporting area of your org-level control panel.

Scroll down to the Auction Reports list.

A popular one to help with coordinating item distribution is the Auction Purchased Items report. This report will include all information on your bidders and what they won.

Another useful report is the Transactions report, filtered by Auctions. This report will give you a high-level overview of how much was processed for the event.

To access the Transactions report, scroll back to the top of the Reporting page, and look for Transactions.

Or click Transactions in the Reporting navigation links.

Once you’ve opened the Transactions report, use the Advanced Filtering menu to filter by Auctions.

And then select your auction from the additional choices.

Finally, you'll want to deactivate your Auction package to prevent it from billing again. Here's a quick article to show you how to do this: How can I upgrade or downgrade my Bloomerang Fundraising plan?

When you’re ready to host your next Bloomerang Fundraising auction, you can quickly and easily renew your Auction package subscription!

As always, if you need any help, feel free to give us a call or email [email protected].