Is there a way to attach a fee to an event?

Scoutbook Feature Assistant Extension
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Thanks for the great tool!

I’m looking for a way to add a fee to an event. The hope is that when Scouts or parents RSVP for the event, they will automatically get a fee posted to their account. Many of our events have many Scouts and parents, and it is a challenge to keep track of invoices for these events.

I couldn’t find a way to do this, but I’m new to the Feature Assistant and likely missed something important.

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No yet, but yes this would be amazing! If you mark your attendance sheet it books a fee. Awesomeness! Very manual processes for tracking money at this time.

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I could see this becoming complicated if an event has options that impact cost. For example, our council hosts a shooting sports weekend twice a year. The “base” price includes archery and .22. There’s an added cost for shotgun, and another add for other firearms (some of which are restricted to adults and youth of Venturing age). There’s also an added cost for a camping option. Food is BYOB for the units. Our unit needs to sort out what our participation is (day trip or overnight), who wants to do what “level” of shooting, and then charge the appropriate fees so that it covers the costs.

For Scoutbook to handle things like this and charge the right fee, I think it would need to be able to identify more than one “type” of signup. That’s not to say it’s impossible or even impractical. I just wanted to make sure that when the “story” gets written for this feature (assuming it hasn’t been already) it contemplates potential for multiple cost-option events, even if it’s not implemented in the first release.

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I would be fine with a “base” fee for an activity, with options to be handled separately. In our case, we often have trips where the food and transport are fixed per person, but the gate fee varies per the number of attendees due to spreading the gate fee across all attendees. I am looking for a quick way to get things started with event fees, as now I need to constantly check on who’s RSVPd and then go chase them down for money.

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So, if they rsvp yes, you’d want their payment log to immediately show that they owe it. Then, if they change that RSVP, would that then be removed? But I’d assume there’s point in time at which you’d still owe the money even if you cancel. Those are just a few of the complications I can think of with the “simple approach” I’m not saying it can’t be done, but I am saying there are details that it’s never as easy as it seems, and the details are really important.

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Yeah, I got that even a starting point would be good. 99% or more of our events are “one-price-fits-all”, as well.

I am just concerned because generally, developers aren’t familiar with how the software is ultimately used, since they aren’t necessarily scouts or scouters. Therefore, they might not contemplate the importance of leaving hooks to hang a particular feature expansion (like ability to offer differing cost options) on later. That, and limited resources, are part of the reason that revamping the calendar and RSVP system is such an enormous job now.

@jacobfetzer makes a good point, too. Even “simple” features can have significant complications. What about the display of the event cost? As a leader, if I want to accommodate multiple costs (or not use the Scoutbook payment log), I don’t want the interface to list $0 as the cost in the event. The event’s not free, I just don’t want to use the payment log feature automated charges here. How should that look on the UI side?

I would say that there should, IMHO, be:

  1. The ability to set an RSVP deadline (previously requested, and I believe in the backlog for calendar RSVP in general)
  2. The ability to differentiate “Not yet responded” from an active “Maybe”. (previously requested, and I believe in the backlog for calendar RSVP in general)
  3. The ability to differentiate a “Yes” from a “Yes and paid”.
  4. The ability to set more than one cost level and for the user to indicate what cost level they have chosen.
  5. The ability for the event coordinator to indicate whether or not they will use the payment log auto-charge feature, and for the interface to visually distinguish between a zero-cost event and an event that isn’t using the payment log.
  6. The ability for the event coordinator to indicate whether or not “charges” are revokable/refundable if the RSVP status changes, and whether that is permitted to occur automatically or only with active approval by the event coordinator.

There are probably more features that could go on this list. What are the wish-list features you would include, @JamesLockman?

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I’m OK with making manual adjustments for the cancellations. It’s still less than what we do now, which is a manual enroll for ALL payments plus manual adjustments.

I suppose there’s another way to slice this. In the bulk entry, can we filter by criteria, like RSVP YES to an event? in that case, I can do bulk apply to the dynamic group.

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@CharleyHamilton you’ve done a great job of defining the user story here. Since this is focused on events and the relationship to payments, in an ideal world, I could add:

  1. The ability to set an event price that includes one or more fixed fees and variable fees
    • The variable fee would be set at the event level and would be distributed across all attendees
    • The variable fee could become a fixed fee at some time
    • The variable fee would have a hint showing the cost per attendee based on the number of attendees
    • The fixed fee would be the same for all RSVP attendees
    • The total fee would be the sum of the fixed and variable fees
  2. The event organizer would be able to filter by payment status as well as RSVP
  3. The event organizer would be able to send messages to Unit Members (not just Scouts) based on RSVP status
    • Messages can include automatically calculated fees (based on the current fixed and variable fees) and amounts due
  4. Treasurer should have access to all events for the purpose of recording payments to the Troop

Spinning this around and focusing on the Treasurer, I would be happy with the following.
As a Unit Treasurer, I want to be able to set fees for events and charge Unit members accordingly for participating in those events. I want to be able to:

  1. Filter the unit (Scouts and Adults) by RSVP status
  2. Filter the unit (Scouts and Adults) by payment status
  3. See payment status in the unit list (Scouts and Adults) when filtering by event
  4. Create fees and apply them to the filtered list
  5. Record payments to the filtered list

This might be easier to accomplish, and would require limited changes to events, as payments can already be attached to events in the Quick Entry>Payment Logs screen.

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We have opted to pay for a 3rd party tool that has a more robust calendar, event (with RSVP Deadlines and Fee options) and scout account feature set. I would love to have just Scoutbook, but it is to limited at this time.

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