I am the auction coordinator for our local Christian school. I have been in charge of the auction for the past four years. In the past I have had to catalog over 500 items by hand as they have been donated. Then I would transfer the item's description to a bid sheet and then type them into a catalog to be used the day of the auction. On the day of the auction, it was then necessary to again hand write the bids onto individual bid cards and then sort the cards by bid number into a numbered box. When the customers checked out at the end of the auction, each of the individual cards were added together. This was time consuming and caused long lines at checkout. Following the auction thank you notes had to be hand written and addressed to thank all businesses for their donations.
This year I was introduced to the GrateSoft AuctionPro software. I am amazed at the time it has saved me from start to finish. All of the information is entered into the program ONCE, and then the program uses it to help you organize and complete your auction! This software has improved our event! I highly recommend the use of this software to organize and maximize the outcome of any benefit auction. I look forward to even more benefits that will come from using it again next year.
Michelle,
As a side note: After using this program for the auction, Michelle also used the program to organize two to three hundred soccer players on many different teams. She did this by creating a group for each team and then adding the members to that group. She also tracked the entry fees and payments of each player and switched players from one team to another with ease. She was very excited about all the time that she saved by using GrateSoft AuctionPro for this project that she used to track on paper.
My wife and I used to split the bid cards and manually write down the bidders information on paper. Now with a swipe of their drivers license and a couple of clicks all fields are filled in and a bidding number is printed! Check out is awesome! We would use a calculator to tally all the bid cards to get the total for the bidder, the program tracks everything. Any questions, the bidder can confirm their purchases on their printed receipts! Long, slow lines are a thing of the past! Easily cut wait times in half! Training and tech support was outstanding!
Mike,
The experience I have had working with this software has been wonderful. I have entered "customer" data, entered "auction items", worked at the check-in desk to print the auction bid sheets, and ran check-out with this software. This software is easy and very thorough! It makes everything so much easier and lets you be professional, organized and better equipped to grow your benefit auction or whatever business you plan on using it for! I feel that this software will be the best purchasing decision you make and will save time at checkout for you and your "guests". You will be professional and organized in the planning, implementing, and finalization of your event.
Sherri,