Avis clients sur SchoolAuction.net

I'm entering into my seventh year using SchoolAuction.net, and I continue to recommend it to others.

It's not a bad platform but the user interface needs some work.

The software makes it possible to get every fundraising dollar and clearly organize guests for the event.

We solved our school auction with this software, I loved it because we mostly use volunteers to staff the event and it was very easy to have people with no previous experience with the software use it that evening with ease.

We have used this software for years now. Myself, the last two. It is easy enough to teach the least computer literate person to use.

This program brings professionalism and SO many tools to our event administration! It improves the guest experience (if we utilize it well), and helps keep the chaos in order. It also helps us reach a bigger audience by making information available to online users who cannot attend an in-person event. Our experience has been nothing but positive with SchoolAuction/[SENSITIVE CONTENT]

Generally very good experience. 3 Major Problems that I would like to discuss with someone for next year. (1) When guests with a shared bidder number checked in, the guest whose email was secondary in the account got an error message that they needed to create a password and vault a credit card. That made no sense because the first guest had already done so. We don't know if we were doing something wrong at check in or what but it frustrated our guests and slowed them from getting to room to start bidding. (2) Despite being told in advance of the auction that we could go to Auction Night/Will Call to see what had been sold/won periodically through the night (so that we could collate the items to the winning bidders' folders), I could not get Will Call to show the winning items during the auction. It showed only the pre-auction sales. This was a major problem and slowed down our process for getting items into the hands of winning bidders' folders for check out. After the auction, I see that Will Call does list all the winning bids. We will need clarification on this for next year. (3) With shared tickets, the second guess did not always get outbid text notifications. How can we fix this for next year?
Also, less of a major problem: We were selling some items for a fixed price. We were doing mobile bidding. When we selected "buy now" for "price to display", the mobile catalog properly shows the "buy now price." But our printed description sheet listed "cost" with the FMV. This was confusing and I could not figure out a way for the printed sheet to show the buy now price.
Is there a way for me to talk to/email directly to SchoolAuction.net to get clarification on these things for next year. We can't have the check-in problem and Will Call problem again.

Working with SchoolAuction.net was been a wonderful experience. I would highly recommend them to someone looking to do an auction.

We used this software last year for our school fundraising Gala. we have opted to renew and use again this year. It's fairly easy to jump in and get started. There are video tutorials to help you get started. If you organize yourself well, the reporting at the end is great. If you don't categorize as intended, it will affect you at the end. Make sure everyone entering information and creating sellable items, tickets, free, retail, tax info, etc. understands the reason for certain categories because this software can do a lot for you. There were some live features during gala that I would have liked to see -- like a full list of each current bid - it scrolled through and took forever for people to see the current bid on the item they wanted. This may be a feature, but I couldn't find it that night. Make sure to set the settings for live bids to allow your guests to put in their max bid. This was something we did not do, but wish we did. For our first year, I feel that we didn't fully understand the power of the software, and are learning it better prior to the event this year. I am looking at last year as a trail run for us and am hoping from what I've learned in closing out the event that this year will be much more smoother now that I see things we should have done when setting up the event. Overall, last year it was a 4 without much planning into how to use the software. I am hoping with better planning on our end, we can use the software to its full potential. The important things to consider when creating event are: Roles assigned to Users, Settings for your Guests software experience, and categorizing each sellable item, auction item, ticket, sponsorships, etc. If set up properly, the reporting within this software is great at the end and live during the event. If it's wrong, you can always fix during the reporting phase at the wrap up, but the information won't be accurate leading up to and at the event. There is a lot of great tools in this software, but take the time to use it at its full potential.

In my role as our school's fundraising & auction chair, and a professional event planner for corporate, government and non-profit clients with over 15 years' international experience, I need a complete event software package - it has to be easy to learn, easy to use, come all the features and have a cost-effective and clear pricing structure. Technical support is also a must, as is data ownership - I stay away from companies that would take my guest and parent info and use them for their own marketing purposes.

After having worked with a number of software tools, ranging in price from $500 to $40,000, I came across Tofino / SchoolAuction.net. Their staff are friendly, responsive and knowledgeable, the price structure is uncomplicated and very affordable, and the software is intuitive and easy for just about anyone to pick up and run with.

Pros - Simple to use for both customers and event staff. Easy to configure look / feel. Data structure is smart and all information is linked so double-handling is at a minimum - and it is impossible to accidentally delete something! Reporting is robust and everything can be exported for further manipulation. I have confidence in the software's built-in credit card security protocol and their server back-up protocols, so that no event data will be lost in the event of an outage. I love that I'm not locked into a contract and that there is no additional % processing fee on top of our merchant account fees. Mobile bidding is fairly new - we were the first client to use it - and it did everything we needed and more, bug-free. The email support is excellent - I am often delighted to receive a response in under 10 minutes, with the option to have them fix it or teach me how to. The online documentation is thorough and clear. Their releases are planned and carefully executed to ensure consistency and minimal interruption.

Cons - nothing major. I've put forward a few suggestions which have been added to their wish list, and some prioritized higher because I took the time to feedback.

Tofino / SchoolAuction.net understands what event organizers need in a software tool, and what non-profit organizations need to be successful in raising money. I love working with Tofino and recommend them without hesitation.

When I came on-board at my non-profit, they had been using just Excel sheets and word docs for all of their auction needs. That gave me nightmares! When we finally started using School Auction, it was a game-changer. As we began last year, the committee asked "Are we using the auction software again?" I stopped them dead in their tracks when my reply was, "I refuse to participate if we DON'T." That's the power of School Auction.Net! :)

Better yet, their leadership team provides personalized attention and support around the clock. That's something that is hard to find in a software company--but they want you to be successful, and so they are committed to answering any questions and addressing any issues you may have.

I can't say enough!

Ease of use and online and help desk support.
A robust software and very well priced especially for non-profit organizations.

I helped out at my daughter's school to run the software system for their annual fundraiser. We had only used the system for one prior event and our PTA wanted to make sure their money was being well spent before they paid the renewal fee. I'm a software project manager in Silicon Valley and I research and evaluate (and install) software for a living. So I researched the different auction software systems that are out there and hands down SchoolAuction.net was the best choice.
Many of the products in this field have similar features. What stands out about SchoolAuction.net is:
- COST - It is a reasonable flat fee to use. Most all other products I looked at charged a slightly small fee but also took a percentage of your earning and this turned out to make them many, many more time expensive.
- CONFIGURATION- The look and feel of the catalog, email notifications, landing pages, etc. is very configurable no matter what level of computer expertise you have.
- TRAINING MATERIALS- Even though the software is very user friendly, the company has an amazing inventory of training materials. They have done an outstanding job of integrating these into the product where you need them. Other products don't do this at all. They instead suggest you hire their professionals to do it for you...at a price.
- CUSTOMER SERVICE - I can't say enough about what great service we've gotten over the past few years I've been working with this company. I don't know if Roger and his team sleep because they are always there to take my call or respond to an email. Thanks team.

In summary we've used SchoolAuction.net for 3 years now for many events a year and plan to do so for the foreseeable future. They are an honest company with a quality product.

My first year running an auction, I used software already purchased by the organization. It was cumbersome, difficult and not web based. It required me mid-event to do some pretty technical things to run credit cards. Issuing refunds was a NIGHTMARE. Enter SchoolAuction.Net. This software is superior in its design, ease of use and most of all, stellar customer support. During 2020 during the pandemic, they automatically upgraded all their customers so they could go fully virtual for their events. In 2021, they introduced a live streaming life video with chat board. We used it and was very successful. I cannot recommend using this software for your gala/auction event. Being web-based also gives you great flexibilty (I have performed all sorts of admin tasks off of my smartphone for example).

I work for myself as a nonprofit event production manager in Northern California and in the two years since discovering SchoolAuction.net I have happily introduced it to three separate clients and been involved with three other organizations who also enjoy using this product. The team at SchoolAuction/TofinoAuctions have virtually thought of everything, and packed a ton of power into their user-friendly, intuitive program. Top that off with an affordable annual subscription fee, and ZERO transaction fees -- ! I hope to work with this organization again and again!

Aside from the product itself there is the dynamo known as Roger Devine. I cannot say enough about Roger -- his friendly manner, consistent professionalism, commitment to improving his product and his customer's experience with it. On the rare occasion that he does not pick up the phone on the first or second ring, he either calls right back or emails me with a detailed answer to whatever question I left on his voicemail. Rest assured SchoolAuction.net is not your average internet seller, where you suddenly find you are no longer able to reach the company after they have your deposit in hand. Roger and his team are dedicated to ensuring your success - period.

Roger was also instrumental in introducing several local organizations and from that introduction we have built an experienced pool of users who now swap volunteers at our annual fundraising events. It has made our check-in and check-out processes smoother and faster, and greatly reduced the need for training. All of our organizations learn more about the powerful options and shortcuts built into the program. This is critical for me in particular as I produce or support annual fundraisers for different clients whose management needs vary greatly in terms of which aspects of their events raise the most money, and where they need the most support. Brilliant!

Increased revenue each year of use

Ultimately what matters most is how it works for our supporters. Following our last auction, which was both online and live, we surveyed participants. The vast majority gave the Tofino system high marks. One commented, "I thought this platform was visually pleasing and extremely easy to use. I had no difficulties whatsoever."

It was good, but we are unfortunately going with another auction site, as it provides the things that schoolauction.net doesn't provide. Once SchoolAuction begins to provide these things, we will be much more likely to go back to them.