Silent Auction Pro

Excellent Event Planning Software!

Kommentare: We are a hypothermia shelter that houses 12 guests during the coldest months of the year, and have a fundraising gala every 2-3 years. At the beginning of our planning process for our February 2020 gala, we wrestled with the question “Do we really need an auction and event planning package for our little event?” At the end, there was no question that Silent Auction Pro was a HUGE reason why our event went so smoothly and exceeded our fundraising goals!

Vorteile:

I cannot say enough good things about our experience using Silent Auction Pro. Some of the key things that we liked: Event Coach. From the beginning, we were assigned an event coach ([SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN]), and she proved incredibly helpful in both understanding Silent Auction Pro as well as anticipating what other issues might come up before, during, and after our event. She checked in regularly, and was available even on weekends. Training Videos. Silent Auction Pro has a large number of training videos on YouTube that were very helpful. Admittedly, they seemed difficult to understand when I viewed them before we actually signed up, but once I was on Silent Auction Pro and able to play around, they made much more sense, and proved very helpful. Pricing Structure. At first, it seemed expensive to pay $800 and still give up 2% of our proceeds to Silent Auction Pro. However, the 2% is only out of auction proceeds, and not things like tickets or sponsorships. That kept the 2% cost down to under $300, for a total cost of $1,100. Comparing that to the many, many hours of time saved, the ability to start the auction before the event, ability to easily sell tickets, and all the communications tools made it worth the money many times over! Usability. While I would not call Silent Auction Pro the most user-friendly website in existence, it is user-friendly, and with a minimal amount of practice it becomes very easy to get around. The reports are also very useful and easy to generate.

Nachteile:

There were a few very minor bugs, but that was it. I didn't care at all for WorldPay, which is one of the two credit card processors that Silent Auction Pro works with. They had horrible customer service and wanted to know WAY to much personal information about me in order to open an account. But that isn't Silent Auction Pro's fault ...

Great Auction Software, Superior Customer Service!

Kommentare: They are always there to help. The software is pretty easy to use and navigate. I can't imagine doing my events without Silent Auction Pro. Very professional and easy to work with.

Vorteile:

Their customer service is outstanding. Not only is it the best in the industry, it is the best anywhere. Today customer service is so horrible. You rarely get a live person to talk to. Companies don't give out customer service numbers. They expect you to use chat or send in a ticket and they will respond via email. Customer service is dead in this country. It is not that way with Silent Auction Pro. They are always available, always helpful and always get you the information you need in a timely fashion. Their software is generally easy to use and has many features. There are different software options depending on your needs. The pricing reflects the complexity of your requirements and is generally very fair.

Nachteile:

They are constantly upgrading and listening to customers' needs. Some of the standard defaults are frustrating, especially the page view, where you cannot adjust it to your needs. Instead of giving you a choice, it sets a standard of 10 records per page view, and you constantly have to change it to put more than 10 records per page. We should be able to set our own defaults. Sending out emails to previous attendees does not allow us to remove those who are attending during the current year so we end up bothering those people while trying to get others to attend.

Review

Vorteile:

Not a million screens amongst which to navigate.

Nachteile:

There is a lot of repeat info on each screen. Would be great if information could be streamlined a bit.

Children's Miracle Network Topgolf fundraiser

Kommentare: Nothing but good. I did not get help from my event team so had to do things much on my own. If not for the Silent Auction platform, I would be in rehab now.

Vorteile:

Everything I needed plus outstanding customer service. I had a couple of needy moments and when I reached out to support, I received answers very quickly.

Nachteile:

When creating an auction item from a donation, the system did not advise me what the next auction item number would be in the sequence. However when I entered a number that was already used, I was presented with an error messaage stating it was a used number. If I was more dilligent, I would have kept a list of numbers as I used them, but for us lazy folks it would be nice if the sytem displayed the last used number.

Family Promise of Montgomery County Loves Silent Auction Pro

Kommentare: The Staff does an excellent job coaching you throughout the entire event process; from setting up the event, creating tickets, posting auction items and ultimately closing out the event. A very patient, professional and knowledgeable staff that is excited to help at all times...

Vorteile:

Silent Auction Pro helps make your event stay on track. The software does a wonderful job keeping up with your money and donors which is extremely important in the non profit word.

Nachteile:

Need an export to QuickBooks tool (which I hear is in the works)!

We love Silent Auction Pro!

Kommentare: SAP has been fabulous for us! It is very easy to navigate. Entering and editing our silent auction items is very easy and actually fun! The personal support from a couple of SAP teammates has been invaluable. Highly recommend.

Vorteile:

We have used Silent Auction Pro (SAP) for three years for our small-ish nonprofit. Donations to our organization go through SAP and we use them for our annual silent auction.

Nachteile:

Can't think of anything. I have never had a glitch with SAP.

Church of the Little Flower

Kommentare: Easy to use and nice, professional end result

Vorteile:

Misty and customer service were with me throughout the Auction even over the weekend and in the evenings.

Nachteile:

Reconciling accounts! Many of the donors are also bidders.

Initiative makes ALL the difference. 10/10!

Kommentare: I was very impressed by the Silent Auction Pro team. The initiative makes ALL the difference.

Vorteile:

I liked the personal nature of the customer service team. They were ALWAYS available. Coming from someone hosting their first-ever fundraiser, I felt so relieved to have their support. They checked in often, highlighted things I had missed, reminded me of deadlines, and personally helped throughout each specific process. Thanks team!

Nachteile:

User-friendliness, customer service team, reports, easily accessible data, and overall layout of site.

Very Powerful, not very pricey.

Kommentare: Online auctions require good software. SAP meets the challenge and excels at paper bidding and live auctions as well, integrating the results into common invoicing/check-out. Our experience has been very good.

Vorteile:

On-line bidding and automated event invoicing/check-out. Friendly, competent support staff.

Nachteile:

To be maximally effective, email addresses and cell numbers need to be captured, for ALL guests at registration/ticket purchase. Most 'registering' users do not have this info (or refuse to enter it) for their guests making it a chore to hunt down before the event, or binding up check-in. Credit cards on file is also difficult, but at least is not mandatory. Don't have any good suggestions, though, except maybe allow guest names (only) during registration.

Great Experience

Kommentare: Staff is great to work with and Silent Auction Pro is a great resource to improve revenues into your accounts

Vorteile:

Easy to operate, simple and carefree, the program is flexible to accommodate your wishes.

Nachteile:

Without alot of emails or Facebook contacts its difficult with out buying into names list.

Great product

Kommentare: As an online auction service for our non-profit fundraisers this program is excellent. We have had great experiences with this company, and they are always on hand for support throughout the process.

Vorteile:

Silent Auction Pro is very easy to use and has a wonderful auction catalog set up that allows for multiple quality images and formats. Their support staff is amazing and very helpful.

Nachteile:

Silent Auction Pro really works well, and I don't have any current improvements that I would note.

Silet Auction Pro

Vorteile:

Silent Auction Pro makes check in for our attendees, entering auction bids, printing list of auction winners, notifying auction winners, and checking out winning bidders very easy.

Nachteile:

When checking attendees in, it would be nice to be taken back to the beginning screen. It would be nice in all the functions to be taken back to the beginning screen for that function. I did not always find that to be true.

Software is Extremely Easy to Use

Kommentare: I loved working with Silent Auction Pro. Their support is phenomenal. Most of the people you talk to were involved with a PTO which is how they got started working with Silent Auction Pro so they were extremely helpful especially since I am using this software to raise money for our PTO.

Vorteile:

I loved that the bidding, sign up, and communication was extremely easy to use. It was as easy as providing a link or QR code to get families signed up for the online bidding. Then the bidding itself was easy and engaging because you will get notified on items you are actively bidding on to tell you if you have been outbid which keeps you actively engaged in the auction! You can also set a max. bid and bid increment and the system will bid on an item for you. In the set up process Silent Auction Pro makes it extremely easy to communicate with your bidders. You can set up email and text notifications in advance so you don't have to worry about sending the day of or before your event. You can schedule out these notifications for the month, etc. leading up to your event.

Nachteile:

It was a little difficult making sure everything looked ok when you switched donor items over to auction items. It usually pulls over details you have in your donor item, but you need to go through and make sure fonts and everything look the same so when people are viewing your auction items everything looks consistent.

Tremendous system for making charity auction easier to set up

Kommentare: Set up and run the event solely from volunteer committee without having to contract with other services for ticketing or check in/out. Handle high volume auction and attendee counts with smaller committee.

Vorteile:

Donation entry was intuitive and loved that we could pull up items donated before so that we didn't have to retype everything. Demo environment allowed us to get committee members up to speed quickly and also allowed us to practice on some creative set up to meet our auction needs. Ticketing feature offered a variety of ticket options, some only displaying with a promo code, and love the addition of the asking for the email address for a ticket purchasers' guests - made it simple to reach all attendees with the marketing tools. Allowing the ticket purchasers to select the meal, or any other item we programmed made the table/catering coordination easy. Marketing features to promote the event to our attendees as well as help them feel connected to the event that was a couple months away. We set up an online auction the week before our event and people loved it! The online auction was open to the public so it allowed parents to share with friends and family that weren't planning on attending. We posted the event auction items on the online auction as previews to entice bidders to attend to get a chance at the rest of the silent and live items. Reporting is good, check in/out is all on one page, the system performance is great. Loved working in system even from our smart phone browser to check on things, make changes etc. any time, any where. Customer support was outstanding!

Nachteile:

Special characters aren't allowed in donation title so we had to change once they got loaded as an auction item. Special characters in the description like " for inch threw off the formatting of the data export to excel. Reporting is good, but would have liked a few more reports or the ability to create ad hoc reports. We found one report provided this item, but another report provided this item so we had to export to excel and do look up functions which is tedious to do each time. Would like more options for formatting of bid sheets, and also would like to see some additional options with displaying, leveraging the "Donation Tag" feature which is critical for us as our teams need to be identified. Would like filters on lists as well.

Silent Auction Pro - Good, but with some significant reservations

Kommentare: Southern Gateway Chorus used Silent Auction Pro (SAP) to manage our Gateway Gala for 2016, our major fund-raiser of the year. We found much to like about it, but also a few things that could stand improvement. The best thing about SAP is its people and the support they provide. They were right on top of everything. I never waited more than an hour for an answer to a support question. SAP also provides a very nice flow for managing donors and donations, and turning them into auction items. We were also impressed with the ease of checking guests in and out and providing them with paddles and invoices. Data entry for auction results is also well-thought-out, and quick and easy (with the exception of the Fund-a-need auction type - more below). Less useful is SAP's process for managing prospective guests. SAP conflates donors and guests as "Contacts". This means that if a person is both a guest and a donor, there is potential for duplication. SAP has a process for managing duplicates, but the outcome of the choices that you make in that process are not always very clear. Southern Gateway sells many of the tickets to our event through person-to-person contact. We did not find a good way to handle these sales in SAP. We wound up having our list of guests imported, and then using SAP to assign bidder numbers to them. SAP also does not deal well with groups of people (such as couples) who want to register using one credit card and bidder number. Its documentation, and its support personnel, stress the need to have each person have his or own contact record, phone number, email address etc. This is unnecessarily cumbersome. One kind of auction, which SAP calls "Fund-a-need", is not very well handled. It requires that you create multiple phony "donations", and then turn them into phony "auction items". Data entry for these auctions is cumbersome and error-prone. We wound up with a number of duplicate entries, which had to be manually resolved. This should be an easy software fix. Finally, SAP requires that you create a merchant account with Vantiv if you want to accept credit cards, and another account with American Express if you want to accept their cards. This process is not simple. You are also required to use card readers that you rent from SAP. Southern Gateway has a preexisting merchant account, and card readers, from Square. It would have been much easier if we could simply have used that account.

Vorteile:

Capturing information about donors and donations Creating auction items from donations Checking guests in and out, and providing them with invoices Bid entry (except for Fund-a-need)

Nachteile:

Handling reservations and guests, especially couples and other groups Formatting bid sheets - very little control over this format Handling creation and bid entry for fund-a-need Requirement to create a merchant account with Vantiv

Thumbs Up

Kommentare: We've really enjoyed working with them. Last year, we had to completely switch to an "all on-line auction" last minute. The support we received was excellent. It was our first time to use them and they truly helped us with the process. If you don't use the software year round, it can be challenging when you pick it up again however, they took us through it again this year. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] has been the best customer rep and event coach we've had and hope to continue to have. Her knowledge and mot of all her attitude truly makes a difference. You feel you have a partner and not just a provider. It was like have a "concierge service" which made it easier to use for us. Events are very challenging to execute specially when we do them tight budgets and limited staff. They made the process pleasant and easy for us and our customers/donors. They listened to our suggestions and have adapted some of these in the system. Overall, the features, service and support we receive from SAP are definitely worth the switch and the cost.

Vorteile:

Customer Support/having an event coach and cost.

Nachteile:

Some reports are not exportable. Some features can be enhanced to make it more user friendly but the staff are very helpful. They are very open to taking suggestions and continue to enhance their system. I have found that continued use and their enhancements have made the program more user-friendly.

Good just got better

Kommentare: We've been using Silent Auction Pro for the last two years, and each time they have gotten better and better. Their support team is outstanding, always available to help, and always willing to walk you through whatever you need. They are also extremely receptive to feedback and have implemented features that we've asked for in the past. We have been very pleased.

Vorteile:

The online auction is an amazing feature. The catalog is easy to navigate and manipulate on the back-end. On the front-end, it gives a great view and an amazing user experience. The online bidding is very streamlined. It's easy to place a bid. I especially love the option to place a max bid, where you can have the software bid for you.

Nachteile:

The menu items can be confusing at times. When looking for something in particular, it can be hard to know which menu item to look under. Things like "Edit Group," "Edit Event," "Auction Admin," and "Auction Day," can seem very similar and it's hard to tell what exactly falls under what.

Great tool to have. Change is it's Middle Name!!!!!

Kommentare: As a former systems engineer (in my previous career), I found the system to be easy to work with. There are a few things I think should be in different places, but it is just my preference. Support is everything!!! If you are lucky enough to get [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] as your support person, you will be just fine!!! She talked me "off a few ledges" the days leading up to the event. Things we usually do in person (and for cash) had to now be done through the system. Rethinking is the name of the game right now and [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] helped me iron out all the issues we had to rethink!!!

Vorteile:

The ability to change! In this year of constant change, we were stopped 48 hours before our Auction was to take place in March of 2020. We were never able to hold an in-person option but we were able to switch all the data we had already entered to go from live to on line with just a few quick and easy steps! we finally held the Virtual auction in November 2020.

Nachteile:

We did not take a picture of every item in a basket, just the combined basket itself. That was fine for the main page. the drill down page listed every item in the basket but the individual pictures did not exist so the item said No phot to Display. We ran out of time to take all the pictures so we dealt with it. I would've preferred it to at least show the basket from the main page. Zoom capabilities only existed when a user drilled down. This is usually not an issue since our silent auction is in person...… just not this year! [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] gave me great ideas to deal with the virtual aspect of our auction to try to make it as personal as possible!

Using SAP for silent auction for a Non-Profit group.

Kommentare: Saves us so much time. Used to use excel and mail merge to create bid sheets. Then had to enter results into a shared Sheet. Checkout took a lot longer since had to search the sheet. Also never had an online presence before so this gives us access to more people.

Vorteile:

Using this tool enables us to reach more people. I also like that checkout takes a lot less time and the customers like getting a receipt. The ability to print and check all the items from a donation or auction item perspective is so helpful when setting up. I also like the email feature so we can send messages to our patrons and Thank you notes to our donors. The ability to text winning bid status is fun too. Having the patrons credit card information helps make check out a breeze even if they are not present at the time of close out of the auction.

Nachteile:

Minor glitches with downloading to excel if you use that option. Easy to clean up though. There is a lot to learn to get going with the software but once you understand it, it is easy to use and the customer service is excellent.

Windsor Farm Elementary PTO Silent Auction Pro Review

Kommentare: Silent Auction Pro provided an ease and professional quality to our annual auction we had not previously enjoyed. In years past, our annual elementary PTO Fundraiser and Silent Auction was a tedious process. We would create our Bid Sheets and Display Sheets on separate programs. We would have another person create our event programs. Our donations would be logged in an Excel Spreadsheet. We would have ticket sales go through the office secretary. It wasn't seamless and it wasn't efficient. The checkout process at the event was also a mess as we didn't pre aucthorize credit cards and would have weeks of clean up trying to collect money from bidders who left without paying. Silent Auction Pro from the moment we received our first donation and our first ticket sale to the end of the auction provided a new ease and professional quality. The software is an Auction Administrators best friend as it tracked everything needed to make the event successful. We are a PTO of an elementary school and each year our auction makes a net profit of anywhere between $25-28,000. This year we had our most successful auction and I do believe it was because Silent Auction Pro freed up some of the time we used to spend on data entry. I was able to essentially run this auction by myself with the help of Silent Auction Pro. with over 300 auction items. I would highly recommend the program. The customer service was wonderful as I had many questions with this being my first time. It is an efficient tool to run a successful auction and event and I look forward to the opportunity to use this program again.

Vorteile:

Easy to use, great customer service, able to manage all needs in one platform.

Nachteile:

n/a

Great product

Kommentare: Silent Auction Pro completely changed the way we ran our annual silent and live auction. It took us out of the time-consuming task of tracking everything by Excel worksheets and allowed us to focus more on the actual fundraising.

Vorteile:

We used this software to transition from using Excel worksheets (SO time consuming) to check people out from a live auction, to swiping credit cards and capturing their info for faster checkout. We were able to track our history of donors and popular items, and streamlined our request process to focus on what bidders really wanted. Selling tickets to the event became a much easier process as well. The software was intuitive, and the customer service was great.

Nachteile:

While we loved our experience with Silent Auction Pro, we eventually felt we needed to switch companies to a platform that allowed for public searches of online auctions, rather than requiring a link and approval from an Auction Chairperson. We switched to another company in order to take advantage of a large and searchable/public auction community. However, that switch has cost us much more money. Instead, a strong marketing campaign on social media would bring the extra bidders without paying the more expensive subscription fee that the other company charged us. I will encourage the next Auction Chairperson to use Silent Auction Pro.

Silent Auction Pro is one of the Finest in the field!

Kommentare: I have worked with many different digital platforms in the nonprofit sector over the course of 10 years and I can absolutely say that SAP is my favorite. The platform is fantastic and the customer support is five-star all the way! I'm am relieved to have found a ticketing/bidding/tracking platform/business that actually listens to me and can help me with "sudden issues" so quickly and thoroughly.

Vorteile:

The ease is creating various tickets, quickly, to match my clients impromptu requests is a bit plus!

Nachteile:

My biggest issue was with the reports but to be very honest I was rushed into managing the client's event and I didn't have time to explore customizing the reports so I don't think this observation is totally accurate. I will be able to spend more time with reports this time around.

Really Good Auction Program

Kommentare: Once you play around with the program, it seems to be pretty user friendly. And what you do not know how to do or are having trouble with, there are lots of tutorials to lead you through the process. Plus the support staff is excellent and amazingly helpful.

Vorteile:

A good way to track all donations and purchases. There are many features which make this very easy. The check-out system is pretty user friendly and works well. The support staff at SAP are great to answer questions and lead you through the process.

Nachteile:

The first ticket purchase by a buyer only allows for the purchasers name, and does not let you reassign the name to someone else right away – you have to go back in and readjust. It worked but is a little bit clunky. A lot of data entry. As we were using this for the second time, some bits were easier as we could pull from past donors info. The bid sheets selected the donations that were entered first, which were not always the biggest selling points when bundling Setting up the bar tickets was a bit messy. Would be nice to be able to pull more specified reports from the program. Customize the report formats.

Great Auction Software

Kommentare: This was my first year personally using the software to set up the auction, and I received incredible customer service throughout the process. I worked primarily with [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN], but everyone I spoke with was polite and helpful. Not sure if it because there weren't as many auctions happening due to COVID, but I felt I had the support needed to be confident setting up the auction. We also needed some help during and after the auction, and we were well taken care of.

Vorteile:

We use this software for our yearly school auction. This is now our 4th year using it. One of the huge benefits is being able to use contacts, logos, donation descriptions, etc. from previous years. It really saves time if you have the same donors year after year. That being said, it does take time to set up contacts, donations and auction items initially, but you know you'll have everything saved for next year. Also, we got lots of compliments on how nice the auction looks and how easy it is to bid. I agree!

Nachteile:

It took me a little time bit of time to learn where things are and how to use the tools. I don't know if it would be worth the time to set everything up if you weren't planning on using the software for more than once.

Sheboygan Service Club

Kommentare: Silent Auction Pro is a powerful tool for fundraising events. Login is smooth for past members and new members of the organization. Once you're on the site for some time, it's neat to see all the various ways data can be sorted and viewed. Mobile bidding was an interesting transition for our group and guests, but I think it will become smoother every year. The software has made tasks for the auction and operations team smoother every year with the saved data. It was great to see our member's work real-time, so we knew where we were at for auction items and ticket sales. It's also great to have the data saved in one spot from year to year.

Vorteile:

Silent Auction Pro helped our auction and operations team see data (auction items, ticket purchases) on a real-time basis. Previously, we relied on spreadsheets and emails, and version were easily confused and confusing. It was also great to tally up totals at the end of the evening quickly to make a grand total announce while all guests were present.

Nachteile:

This was our organization's first time using mobile bidding and it was received with mixed reviews. It was confusing for some to login if they didn't receive an email. We will collect emails at registration next year to make it smoother. The QR codes on the items were great, but most guests did not already have the app on their phones. It was difficult, at times, to scroll through items. Lastly, it would be great to have a cross reference for "baskets" by individual. We weren't sure why the numbers continued from 2015 rather than starting fresh for the new event.