Reporting on Ticket Returns

Jessica Abejar
Jessica Abejar
  • Updated

Ticket returns (refunds) can have a financial impact on an organization. By using a combination of Attributes and Custom Reports, you can report on the returns made in your system.

By using custom Ticket Attributes and Custom Reports, you can prompt users to enter the reasons why tickets are returned and track the actions customers take immediately after returning them (for example, full or partial returns, exchanges, or donations). This means you can keep track of how many returns you’re processing, as well as why tickets are being returned and what customers do after they’ve returned their tickets.

The resources in this article require a working knowledge of understanding, running, and building Reports. Before starting, we recommend reading the following articles:

In this article, we’ll take a look at:

  1. Setting up Ticket Attributes
  2. Applying Ticket Attributes to ticket returns
  3. Creating a Custom Report on ticket returns
  4. Running the Custom Report
  5. Reading and understanding the Custom Report
  6. Segmenting Customers who have made ticket returns

REMINDER: The Report we will build in this section will only report on tickets and not other items, such as merchandise, ticket subscriptions and vouchers, memberships, gift vouchers, or commissions and fees.

 

Setting Up Ticket Attributes for Ticket Returns

You can use Ticket Attributes to report on returns as well as segment customers who returned tickets.

TIP: Attributes can be held against most concepts within Spektrix and are a customizable way for you to store additional information on your system. For more information, read the Support Centre article on Attributes.

You can create as many Ticket Attributes for as many purposes as you need. For the purpose of Reporting on returns, we recommend setting up at least two Ticket Attributes. The drop down values you choose will be unique to your organization. 

TIP: You can also choose to allow free text responses to be included as a value. Once the Attribute Definition has been implemented, if you regularly input similar free text responses this may indicate that you should add it as a drop down value.

An example of the Ticket Attributes you can use to Report on returns could be:

  1. Refund Type: (drop down list) exchange, refund to a customer’s credit card, refund to Account Credit, etc.
  2. Return Reason: (drop down list) illness, unable to make a performance, etc. 
  • To set up Ticket Attributes, navigate to the Settings Interface > Attribute Definition > Ticket. Click New Attribute Definition.

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    1. Name (required): Give the Attribute a descriptive name, for example: “Refund Type”
    2. Attribute Type: Select Dropdown List.

      WARNING: You cannot modify an Attribute’s name or type after making it active.

    3. Description: Include an optional description, for example: “How will this ticket be refunded?”
    4. This attribute is visible in your API integrations checkbox: Leave this checkbox unchecked.
    5. This attribute is always required checkbox: Leave this checkbox unchecked as keeping it checked will require ALL tickets to have this attribute, regardless if it is a return.
    6. Dropdown values: Type each value on separate lines.
    7. Allow users to enter free text for this attribute checkbox: Check this box if you would like to include a text field for a free response

    Click Create Attribute Definition to save the new Attribute and repeat the process for the second Attribute.

 

Applying Ticket Attributes to a Return

Next, we’ll cover how to record information when returning tickets.

WARNING: You must add Ticket Attributes to the tickets before you return the tickets. Once they’re returned, you can no longer add this information nor can this information be modified.

  1. Navigate to the Order Details of the ticket(s) you would like to return
  2. Select the Ticket(s) by checking the boxes next to the ticket(s)
  3. Click the arrow next to the Print button and select Ticket Attributes from the dropdown menu:

    applying-ticket-attributes-to-tickets.jpg

  4. Choose the appropriate values for your Ticket Attributes in the pop-up dialog box:

    selecting-ticket-attributes.jpg

  5. Click OK

TIP: You can apply different Ticket Attributes to different tickets from the same order.

The tickets will appear with a gold border on the right of their order details to indicate they have Ticket Attributes.

tickets-with-ticket-attributes.jpg

After applying the Ticket Attributes to tickets, you will then proceed to making the returns. For information on making returns, read Performing a Return and Refund.

 

Creating a Custom Report on Individual Ticket Returns

Once your Ticket Attributes for returns are in place and refunds have been processed, you can create a Custom Report to return this information. 

When creating your Custom Report, follow the steps in Introduction to Building Custom Reports and How to Build a Custom Report and additionally set the parameters as follows:

  1. Set the Report Type as Analysis (read more about Report Types in Introduction to Building Custom Reports).
  2. Give the report a Name (required), for example, “Individual Ticket Returns.”
  3. Give the report an optional Description, for example, “Individual ticket returns including refund type and reasons for return.”
  4. Create a Criteria Set using the Tickets wrapper > Date Returned metric with the Returned box checked.
  5. Switch the Output to Grouped Mode and in the Groups in the Output Columns, include the Tickets/Reservations wrapper > Date Returned metric with Date selected from the dropdown, the Order Items wrapper > Order ID metric, Tickets/Reservations wrapper > Ticket Attributes metric along with other metrics you may want to report on.
  6. In the Aggregate Columns include the Seats wrapper > Seat metric and the Tickets/Reservations wrapper > Price metric with Sum selected from the dropdown. Check the Show Count? box. Add other metrics you may want to aggregate.

View an example of how to build this custom Individual Ticket Returns report. In this report we include several different outputs, including Event and Customer information. We will use this example to demonstrate how to read the report later in this article.

 

Creating the Custom Report in Grouped Mode vs. Single-Item Mode

  • Grouped mode will group similar items together where possible. In this example Individual Ticket Returns report, tickets will appear on the same line if they meet the following:

    • Returned on the same day
    • From the same Order ID
    • For the same Instance
    • Have the same Ticket Attributes applied

    grouped-mode.jpg

    Values such as Price, Net Price (with tax), and Ticket Commission will be summed up and the total number of tickets accounted for. 

    If you would like to take a look at returned tickets individually, perhaps to capture a single ticket’s exact price point, switch to single item mode. 

    single-item-mode.jpg

    In this example, we can see two tickets returned. In the grouped mode, the Sum of Price is $200. In the single-item mode, we can see that the two tickets are priced differently - one ticket at $50 and the other at $150.

 

Running the Individual Ticket Returns Report

When running your Custom Report, follow the steps in How to Run a Report and additionally set the parameters as follows:

  • Run the report using the Criteria Set you created
  • Keep the Returned checkbox checked
  • Input dates, leave blank, or select a relative date range in the Date Returned dropdown menu
  • Run as Excel (unformatted.xlsx) or your chosen format 

 

Reading and Understanding the Individual Ticket Returns Report

Depending on what output metrics you use, the type of data shown in your Report will vary.

When using the Ticket Attributes metric, it’s important to note that if you have other Ticket Attributes besides Refund Type and Return Reason, the report will output all active Ticket Attributes. If you don’t want to include all Ticket Attributes, we suggest deleting or hiding the columns in the Excel spreadsheet. Ticket Attribute columns will be reported as Add Ticket Command followed by the name of the specific Ticket Attribute.

If you include metrics with values such as Price or Commission, note that these values will reflect the prices and commission values at which the tickets were purchased and returned but won’t reflect how much of those values were applied to exchanges, refunds, or account credit. The only indication of where this value is applied is the Refund Type Ticket Attribute. For full transaction information, we suggest running an Accounting Report such as an unformatted Payments & Activities Report.

Based on our example custom Individual Ticket Returns report, take a look at the sample data and see if you are able to read the report and understand the following:

Note: Dates are in US format year-month-day and prices in USD.

  1. On what date did Mrs. Kim Doe return their tickets? What did they do with their refund?
  2. From which event did Ms. Kathy Flournoy return their ticket?
  3. How many tickets did Ms. Jessica Davis return? What is the average price?
  4. Whose tickets were price adjusted?
  5. Who refunded their tickets for cash?
  6. Who returned their tickets 2 days after purchasing them?

individual-ticket-returns-report-output.jpg

    1. On what date did Mrs. Kim Doe return their tickets? What did they do with their refund? Mrs. Kim Doe returned their tickets on August 8 and made a donation.
    2. From which event did Ms. Kathy Flournoy return their ticket? Ms. Kathy Flournoy returned a ticket for "The Tempest." However, we don’t know what new event they exchanged their ticket for.
    3. How many tickets did Ms. Jessica Davis return? What is the average price? Ms. Jessica Davis returned four tickets at the average price of $45 (Sum of Price $180 divided by 4 tickets).
    4. Whose tickets were price adjusted? Mr. Barry Daniel’s tickets were price adjusted.
    5. Who refunded their tickets for cash? Mrs. Andrea Hamilton returned their tickets for cash.
    6. Who returned their tickets 2 days after purchasing them? Ms. Jessica Davis originally bought tickets on August 9 and returned them on August 11.

 

Segmenting Customers who Made Returns

In addition to reporting on individual ticket returns, you can also create Customer Lists and segment on customers who have made Ticket Returns using the custom Attributes you have created.

For more information, follow the steps in Global and Local Segments using your custom Attribute as the Criteria.

 

Further Reading

To continue learning about Reporting, why not check out the following articles:

You can find more articles on running and configuring Reports in the Reporting section of the Support Centre.