Box Office Xpress Junior - FAQ
As common questions arise, they are listed here.
Different Versions
Q: What is the difference between Box Office Xpress Junior and the regular version of Box Office Xpress?
A: It is important to
note that these are two entirely different products - Box Office Xpress Junior
(BOX Jr) is not a stripped-down version of Box Office Xpress (BOX). BOX Jr is
intended for smaller and non-profit venues while the regular version of BOX is
designed for any venue of any size. There are over 150 additional major features
and enhancements that BOX has.
The general rule of thumb
seems to be that venues with more than 600-800 seats tend to want the extra
features found in BOX. This is not a hard and fast rule, because most of our
college and university customers are content with BOX Jr for their theatre and
athletics departments.
Perhaps the most notable
difference is the way reserved seating is handled. BOX Jr is restricted to
seating sections of up to 600 seats per section in a 30(seats) X 20 (aisles)
configuration. You can have as many sections as you want, so if your arena has
2000 seats, for example, the program can handle it. BOX, on the other hand, has
no realistic restrictions on the size of each section.
Q: When is the next version expected and what would be the upgrade cost?
A: There may be minor updates from time to time and they are available
free if downloaded from our web site. The more significant types of upgrades are
announced and priced when available.
Q: What are the restrictions of the trial version?
A: The trial version can only be upgraded to a minor upgrade. If you download a moderate or major upgrade or a new trial version without ordering the program, you will loose all of your data each time. The trial will only work for a limited time. Other than that, there are no restrictions on the functionality.
Tickets
Q: Can the program use thermal printers?
A: Yes. Box Office Xpress is designed to also work with Boca and Practical Automation
thermal printers as well as any other Boca-compatible thermal printer. The program will also work with the Epson TM-T88II thermal
receipt printer as an optional method for day-of-event sales.
Q: Do we have to use your dot matrix ticket style and purchase stock from you?
A: Absolutely not. Ticket styles can be customized to suit your needs. There will be a
charge to create a custom format for you that will vary depending on the complexity of the
change. For example, if you wanted a very similar layout but an inch narrower, the charge
would be about $200 to set up the program to accommodate your needs. Bigger
changes would cost more. We can provide the
ticket stock for you, or you can use your own preferred supplier.
Q: Does the program support Internet Ticketing?
A: Our program can currently be used for "allocated" Internet ticketing when you use a third party Internet ticketing service provider (of your choice). You simply block or hold the seats that are to be sold on the Internet and give the seating information to the ticketing service provider for them to sell. You then remove the seats from Internet sale typically 24 to 48 hours before the time of the Event so that your in-house box office staff can sell them. "Real time" Internet ticketing will be available in the near future. "Real time" Internet ticketing is where people can purchase the same tickets on the web as your box office staff are selling. Venues tend to prefer either one method or the other as both have advantages and disadvantages, depending on your needs.
Q: How long does it take to print a ticket?
A: It depends entirely on your printer, as the actual time for Box Office Xpress to send data to a dot matrix printer only takes about a second. With thermal ticket printers, it takes about 1 second to print a ticket. Dot matrix printers, however, are slower. It takes anywhere from 10 to 20 seconds per ticket depending on the dot matrix configuration you selected within the program and the speed of your printer. You may find yourself waiting for tickets to finish printing if your customer pays cash. However, if you are doing a credit card transaction, the tickets will likely be ready before you finish the transaction. Obviously thermal ticket printers are the nicest way to go, but they may not be affordable to venues with a very small budget.
Order Taking
Q: How hard is it to generate a new ticket sale over the phone?
A: It's a simple process as is shown in the demo for taking an order. An advantage is, you
don't have to print the ticket right away. You can book several productions for the
customer and not print the tickets until you have time or when they show up to get them.
There is also a button you can click on that will print *all* the tickets for a particular
customer, if you want.
Q: How hard is it to exchange tickets a) within the same show for different dates or seats, and b) between shows?
A: Same performance / different seats -> extremely easy ... a button click to change,
then select the new seats, and a button click to save. Different performance -> the
order has to be redone, so the original order has to be deleted (which essentially
involves a button click) and then place the new order (and you know how easy that is!).
Q: How do we do a full return on tickets, where someone just changes their mind and wants a refund, not an exchange?
A: To delete an order you click either the Cancel or Remove button (after you do a simple search for the
order). One button completely removes the order from the database (as if it never existed)
the other cancels the order so that you have a record of the initial transaction (where
you received payment) and the new transaction where you refunded payment (refunding is
also an option). In other words, the Cancel button provides an audit trail. Note, to
search for an order you can use either the customer's partial phone
number (such as the last four digits) or the actual order # (which is printed on the
ticket), so it is very fast.
Q: We want to be able to sell tickets the night of the performance but don't have access to the computer at the actual theatre location (some theatres sell tickets the night of a performance at a different location than the actual box office).
A: There are several alternatives that various theatres use. These include connecting a
computer up at the theatre by a network (which requires the network version of
Box Office Xpress), copying the database files to a laptop that also
has a copy of Box Office Xpress on it*, pre-printing tickets for unsold seats in advance
(using the batch print function) and adjusting the sales in the program the next day,
using the printable seating plan to sell off remaining seats, and so on.
*You can have as many copies of the program as you want running on different computers for
your theatre with only having to pay for one copy of the stand alone (single
user) version. However,
only one computer can be the active box office computer at a time (in order to preserve
data integrity). You can't access the database across multiple computers at the same time
unless they are on a network and you have purchased the network version of Box
Office Xpress. This means, if
you want to switch computers, you need to manually copy all the program's databases (all
the files ending in ".mdb") from one computer to another. If you have the
network version and the theatre location is connected to the network, then transferring
files is obviously not necessary.
Q: Does the program handle credit card processing?
A: No, transaction processing is not available in Box Office Xpress Junior. That functionality is
available in the regular version of Box Office
Xpress.
Q: Is there some place to store a customer's credit card #?
A: There a few fields to choose from in the customer database where you can keep miscellaneous information like credit card numbers. Because of the potential for misuse, this is not a recommended practice with Box Office Xpress Junior. The regular version of Box Office Xpress, on the other hand, has fields that are restricted to those with special security access and the credit card numbers are encrypted in the already secured database. This is a safer solution if you must keep people's credit card numbers on file. Corporate Consultants can not endorse the storing of credit card numbers. You should check any potential legal issues in your area and with the specific credit card companies.
Seating
Q: Our theatre often changes some of the seating from one production to the next. Can we create different seat maps to accommodate this?
A: Yes, you can create as many as you want.
Q: Is it possible to generate a seat map larger than 30 seats wide?
A: No, not in Box Office Xpress Junior. The
regular version of Box Office
Xpress, on the other hand, has no realistic limits. However, all you need
to do with Box Office Xpress Junior is create additional seating grids (which is what most
theatres do anyway). For example, if you have a center aisle, create one grid for each side
of the aisle.
Q: Does the program have a feature to automatically choose the "best seats"?
A: No, not in Box Office Xpress Junior (the
regular version of Box Office
Xpress has a feature to choose the next available seats). Keep in mind that the Box Office
Xpress order process and seat selection are so fast, it is still quicker to do it manually
than with other programs on the market that have best seat functions.
Q: We are a touring theatre and we don't sell specific seats. How can this program work for us.
A: First, the program can keep track of the number of available seats (assuming you sell
in blocks of large quantities) using the "General Admission" functions.
Secondly, the program will create invoices that will allow you to add several lines of
text so that you can better customize it. Since each venue can be treated as a separate
performance with it's own quantity of seats, keeping track of what is available where
should be effortless. There are also additional features built into the program for
touring theatres. The regular version of Box Office
Xpress has more advanced touring theatre features.
Q: Can I sell tickets for more than one venue or theatre company?
A: The program requires one specific venue name on the ticket. This is the theatre that bought the program. If you run multiple venues out of the one main theatre company, you can reference the venues using the 2 or 3 additional lines of text that you can include on the ticket for each performance. To sell for different theatre companies, however, requires multiple program licenses and can't be all done from the same copy of the program. The regular version of Box Office Xpress has special functions specifically designed to handle these varying scenarios.
Q: Can I set up my seating for a dinner theatre?
A: Yes. Click here for an explanation.
Other
Q: Do you have a version for the Mac?
A: Regrettably, the programming language that Box Office Xpress was written in only
supports PC's at this time. However, other theatres (who have Mac's) have opted for an
alternate solution. Since one computer is usually restricted to the box office, these
theatres purchase a basic PC to handle that job exclusively using Box Office Xpress. They
then use their Mac for other jobs. Also, Box Office Xpress stores all of it's information in Microsoft Access 2000 databases, which the Mac can read if it has MS Access 2000 installed.
Q: How do I do mailings to certain groups of customers?
A: There are two fields in the customer database (called "Type" and
"Code", for lack of a better name) that you can use for whatever you like
(actually there are four such fields if you include the "Misc." and
"Notes" fields). However, labels can be printed based on the information
displayed in either of these first two fields. For example, you could enter a descriptive
word in one of these fields, such as "school" for every school in your database.
Later, you could have the program just print labels for all the schools. Labels
can also be printed based on the customer's recent type of subscription.
Q: How many productions, performances, pricing schemes, seats, etc. can we have?
A: One word … UNLIMITED!
Terminology Note: Box Office Xpress Junior considers a performance to be a single showing of a production. For example, "The King and I" is a production, and the showing of "The King and I" this Tuesday night at 8:00 PM is a performance.
Q: Why then, does the demo only show 5 productions?
A: That is an automated point-and-click method of entering performances without having to
retype the names over and over again. You enter all the performances for 5 productions and
then enter up to 5 more productions and so on for as many productions as you like. You
will find that a significant portion of the program uses point-and-click methods in order
to speed up operations and make the program easy to learn.
Terminology Note: We define a "performance" as a single showing of a
"production".
Q: Can Box Office Xpress help me calculate royalties?
A: Box Office Xpress isn't meant to take over bookkeeping functions but it does provide
sales reports that can assist with your bookkeeping functions. One of those reports is
called "Distributed Value by Production" which, among other things, takes the
total cost of a customer's subscription and spreads the derived value out equally over
each of the performances that they have booked.
Q: Box Office Xpress Junior seems to be geared towards just stage theatre. Is this correct?
A: Primarily. Especially in regard to reserved seating. However, the general admission
feature works well for most any event requiring admission. For example, in
addition to museums and tours, we have
a significant customer base
of colleges and universities, some of whom use Box Office Xpress Junior for
large sporting events. Otherwise, check out
the regular version of Box Office
Xpress which is designed for
any venue of any size.
Q: The Box Office Xpress Junior trial doesn't appear to have certain features that I require. Will more features be added or is there a more advanced version?
A: Yes, the regular version of Box Office Xpress, as mentioned before, is designed for any venue of any size. There will not be any considerable enhancements to Box Office Xpress Junior.
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