A common request event managers get from attendees is the request to substitute their registration with another person. Attendees may want to substitute, rather than cancel the original registration.
While it may be tempting to simply edit the registration and change the contact details, we strongly recommend against doing this. The Eventsforce database uses “email” as the main identifier so it’s possible that changing the contact details will have a negative impact on your data.
As an example of an incorrect substitution, let’s assume John Smith (jsmith@ef.com) registered for events A, B, and C. John is no longer able to attend event C and would like to send a colleague, Susan White (swhite@ef.com), in his place. If the event manager edits John’s registration and changes the name to “Susan White”, and also changes the email address of the person record to “swhite@ef.com”, this can have a negative impact on data. Doing so would cause Eventsforce to show Susan White as having registered for events A, B, and C, while John would no longer have any registration in Eventsforce.
Substituting a registration
The recommended process for substituting a registration is cancelling the original registration, and creating a new registration for the new person. Cancelling a registration may trigger a cancellation fee (if applicable) and may require a refund to be issued. We can apply an offline refund in this case to make your reports look more accurate. No money will actually be refunded in this scenario. The full procedure is outlined below:
Update payment to remove any cancellation fee (if applicable)
Update payment to add an offline refund (if applicable)
Update payment to add offline payment (if applicable)
Transferring payment
If payment has already been made against the original registration, event managers may want to transfer that payment to the new (substituted) registration. The best way to handle this would be to add an offline refund to the registration to be cancelled (so it appears as no payment was made), then register the new person, and add an offline payment to the new registration in the amount of the original payment. This effectively allows you to transfer payment from one registration to another. Follow the steps below:
Go to People > Registrations
Locate the person you need to cancel and select the record
Use the 'Tools' dropdown and select "Update payment..."
In the 'Amount paying' field, enter the payment amount as a negative value (ex: "-1300.00" for a $1300 refund)
Enter a payment comment such as "payment transferred to another registration" (maybe add the new attendee's name)
Click "Save"
Once the offline payment has been added, the amount paid in this registration will be reduced. You can then cancel the registration
If a cancellation fee has applied, you may need to complete an admin price override to remove the cancellation fee
Complete an admin registration for the new person or ask them to register
Go to People > Registrations
Locate the registration for the substitute
Use the 'Tools' dropdown and select "Update payment…”
In the 'Amount paying' field, enter the payment amount as a positive value (ex: "1300.00" for a $1300 payment) - the amount should equal the refund amount given to the cancelled attendee
Enter a payment comment such as "payment transferred from another registration" (maybe add the old attendee's name)
Click "Save"
Note: By default, the attendee is not sent an email when the payment is updated by an event manager. If a payment email should be sent, select the “Send payment email to registration contact” checkbox prior to clicking “Save” in step #13 above.