Milan asked my for thoughts on caamtgard's payments. Here's a somewhat rambling reply I gave him. (I might make it to the next meeting if there's any questions from the board)
caamtgard for payments:
In general, we put too much info on Facebook / Discord. enough people avoid social media that they don't see payment info (or other stuff!). Caamtgard, gets past that issue.
FUNDRAISING:
For the fundraising auction trial, there were glitches that have been fixed ( needed a couple patches applied). I think at present, getting somethign set up will be 15-30 minutes, then run pretty much automatically.In the past, there's been auction fundraisers a person ran, and getting the cash from the person to Westmarch took hella long. No bueno. Caamtgard sends direct to Westmarch's Paypal.
EVENTS
Chatting a little with Ohlanna, for prepay at gate, she can offer credit card payment! People will pull up caamtgard on their phone. Woohoo! Upgrades!Payment integration. Paypal was Easy-Peasy to set up. Other options exist, proper business credit card systems, those look like a hassle. Might have lower fees, but... oy vey.
Looks like one way - like money is sent, but no info retreived. Plus side, that means there can be multiple admins to caamtgard, setting up store stuff, who don't see / have access to WM Paypal finances. On the downside, those annoying PayPal (or other payment) fees aren't seen by crats; that does factor into their budget.
Back when I was kPM, taking prepays via Paypal direct, each email had to entered into the ledger and tallied, AND each email entered into a prepay sheet for the crats for signin sheets. Gate checking people in who had prepaid still needed to figure credits, count and class.
The past Feast of Gods, I know nothing directly; only 2nd/3rd hand. Sounds like, setup was a pain. The site was via Wix, who took their fee, processing via 3rd party, who took their fees; payments where lumped together, so while the PM had fewer payments to enter into the ledger, reconciling was a disaster. Thistledown can speak more to this if needed.
via caamtgard, there were a few glitches in getting set up. Due to that, a few payments went Paypal direct instead of via caamtgard store. I *think* glitches have been figured out, som notes exist on admin pages for future reference (and those admin pages are growing :) )Currently running mostly automatically. While the PM still needs to log every payment into the ledger, beyond that they don't need to forward much information to the crats (mostly I think, paypal fees). Well, other than those people who paid direct while glitches were being fixed.
Meanwhile, we can get information like classes and speed up gate, in terms of that being already decided for most people. caamtgard's store has some built in reports (I need to get some folks pointed at them), so lists of who bought meal tickets, who bought VIP, can be figured out easier, without the poor PM having to check a couple hundred emails one by one. the default reports are ok; it's possible for someone who speaks computer languages (like me) to create some custom reports for specific needs (something I don't think Wix / Squarespace / whatever lets us do). So best of all worlds there.For the end user: I found the checkout pretty easy, but I set it up so know what buttons to push. Might be worth polling the populace. Not sure what all can be fixed though.
Ongoing hiccups:
-Not many. Things like, 3 month prior prepay for a big discount, 2 month prior a small discount, and 1 month prior no discount, takes a small amount but sort of annoying management. If this continues over the years, crats might be able to take over. Short term it's me; by summer a sit down with a person or two will expand the pool of people to manage stuff :) Some can be automated (ex, prepays can expire automatically), that glitched already due to timezone errors, followed by the prepay being in the basket, then unable to checkout the day after.
-Those blasted processing fees. Not sure if there's a way to account for them, so that the PM doesn't have to tally those to report to the crats for their budgets.MARKETPLACE / RANDOM DAYDREAMS
hm. Maybe a future project. There's a marketplace module. I think we can set up things where people can sell ware on caamtgard, payment goes to them. We could do a crafter's area, Ka'a sells tunics (she keeps the money); I sell bracers (money goes to me).Westmarch could sell merch. Get a bunch of cups made with WM heraldry, sell those. The payment is the easy part; a voluntold storing and shipping stuff is the hard part!
