What Is A Silent Auction And How Do They Work?

Silent auctions can take time to organize and execute successfully. In the past, it would take some non-for-profit groups and charities years to collect items and organize events. Today, with the help of our free online auction app, you can create a silent auction in minutes and raise thousands of dollars for your charity!

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Bid Beacon Payment Guide

Bid Beacon - The Complete Payment Guide

You can accept payments through our app when the auction is complete!

Don’t miss out again on participation because someone forgot to take out cash or bring their cheque book. By accepting payments through the Bid Beacon app, people can choose the convenience of digital payment, which will also help to reduce the payment scramble at the end of the auction. 

In this guide, we will cover the different payment options and how to set them up seamlessly in the app to make your auction a complete success. 

Table of Contents

Full Flexibility

Choose Your Payment Providers

How to Configure Payments in Bid Beacon

Auction End Guest Experience

Auction End Admin Experience

Full Flexibility

Enabling online payment gives guests the option to pay for their items through the app by digital means, but they can still pay in person with cash, cheque, or credit card payment.

Our payment integrations use the best practices of the various payment providers. No credit card information is passed through, or stored on our servers. handled by fully PCI compliant Stripe, which handles payments for giants like Kickstarter, Shopify and OpenTable.

Some auction sites take a percentage of your auction sales, whereas we only charge a flat fee to enable the payment option. Stripe, like any payment provider, does charge processing fees.

Choose Your Payment Providers:

Accept credit card payments through fully PCI compliant Stripe, which handles payments for giants like Kickstarter, Shopify and OpenTable.

Not all users have credit cards, and PayPal is a popular alternative for handling online payments beyond just with credit cards.

Already popular because of easy to use card readers, now you can use Square to accept payment from within Bid Beacon!

How to Configure Payments in Bid Beacon:

Bid Beacon lets you accept payments from your guests through a few different payment providers. Each has their own setup procedure on their end, but how they are configured within Bid Beacon is the same for each. You can configure as many as you like. If more than one is configured, users will be prompted to choose which one they want to use.

Each provider has both Live/Production keys, and Test/Sandbox keys. The final auction payment will always only use the keys you have entered into the Live/Production fields in Bid Beacon.

Payment providers can be configured on your account profile, so you can easily use the same payment configuration for future auctions. A payment provider must be configured on the auction under ‘Manage Online Payment’ in order to accept payment from guests when the auction ends.

  • Click ‘Edit Profile’ and scroll down to select ‘Configure Payment Providers’ to configure payment providers on your user account.
  • If you’re in an auction with Online Payments enabled, you will have a side menu tab called ‘Manage Online Payment’ to configure payment for this specific auction.
  • If you fill in payment configuration on your profile first, then opening the auction payment config will prompt you if you want to copy profile values over.
  • Tap on the key you wish to enter, and then paste in the key. Make sure you are putting the correct keys in the right fields.
  • Once you have payment providers configured, you can test using the ‘Test Online Payment’ button at the top. If you have multiple payment providers, you will have to choose which provider you wish to test.
  • Each payment provider has their own section that can be collapsed. Each has live and test keys. When the auction ends, only providers with live keys configured will be presented as options to your guests.
 

How to Set Up Stripe:

  • Create a Stripe account
Nonprofits may qualify for discounted payment processing fees. If your organization has non-profit status, email sales+nonprofit@stripe.com or visit this support page for more information.
 
  • Click ‘Developers’ -> ‘API Keys’
  • Toggle to switch between live and test keys

Important!

New stripe accounts look a bit different than below. Secret key will be hidden with something like sk_live_…XYZ. It seems the only way to actually get the secret key is to create a new secret key or roll a key. And only then can you see the key. Be sure to copy it somewhere safe so you have future access to it!

If you roll your key, you specify how long until old key expires. So if you roll it, be sure to update the key in Bid Beacon to the new one.

How to Setup PayPal:

  • Create a PayPal account in order to accept payments, you must upgrade to a business account which takes a few days.
  • Login to the developer dashboard at https://developer.paypal.com/ and click your user name at top right and select ‘dashboard’
  • Click ‘My Apps & Credentials’ if you are not taken there automatically.
  • Create an App and name it something relevant to your auction
  • Paypal has Sandbox keys for testing, and Live keys for accepting actual payments. You must use live keys only
  • Ensure you select Live keys on the paypal app list page:
  • Click into your app
  • Find your Client ID and Secret (you need to click ‘Show’ to reveal your secret):

How to Setup Square:

  • Create a Square account
  • Login to the Square developer site and go to the dashboard at https://developer.squareup.com/apps               
  • Click ‘Create your first application’
  •  Then type in a name, i.e. your auction name, and check of the terms of service box

 

– You should now see your application as below. Click ‘Open’ to go in and get your keys

  • At the top of this next screen you’ll Sandbox and Production, you must select production!
  • In the green box is the access token you’ll need to copy into Bid Beacon payment configuration page
  • Next click on ‘Locations’ in the left side menu
  • Again, be sure you have Production selected
  • Then copy the Location ID into the Bid Beacon payment config page

Auction End Guest Experience:

  • When auction ends, guests can view their winnings   
  • Their winnings are conveniently displayed as subtotals   
  • Guests can see if their items are marked as paid/picked up   
  • They can find an auction admin to make payment in person, and they mark item as paid   
  • Or they can click ‘Pay $ Now’ to pay by credit card through the app, and the item is automatically marked as paid

Auction End Admin Experience:

  • When the auction ends, admins can click ‘Manage Pick Up’
  • Winnings are conveniently subtotaled by guest  
  • Items can be marked as paid and picked up individually or for all items a user paid for   
  • Paid/Picked up items are moved to a ‘Complete’ tab to streamline closure