Granting the time discount: on date of registration or date of payment?

We have an early-bird registration phase for participants. What happens when participants register on the last day of the early time-discount phase, but pay their fee several days later?
Will the prices be automatically adjusted to the moment the participants pay?

(A German version of this article is available.)

For early-bird registrations (or any time discount) the date of the registration for participation is taken into account and not the date of payment.

There are several reasons for this:

• Many participants don't have much influence on the payment process and its speed, since it might be processed by the institution or company they work for. 4 to 6 weeks are "normal" for the payment process of many universities etc.
• The registration is usually a binding contract between participants and organizers. It means that the participants have to pay their fees, but it also means that the organizers cannot simply raise the fees without a legal basis both parties have agreed to.
• Using the registration date to determine the fees is common procedure for most conferences and expected by most participants.

We recommend sending reminders to participants whose payments are overdue and update their payment fees only in case your registration terms clearly state that a corresponding rise of the fees is part of the provisions.

For example, in most EU countries the time to pay an invoices is 4 weeks.
If participants don't pay e.g. within 4 weeks after registration, a raise of the fees could be appropriate.
Alternatively there is also the option to cancel (or delete) such registrations, if a payment does not arrive within 4 weeks and the participant does not respond to your reminders.

In any case, it is advisable to consider and state such a procedure clearly in the terms of registration and payment.
To change the registration terms, please go to:
Overview => Settings => Wording and Phrases
and define the phrase for the terms of registration for participation in this string: "S_PARTICIPATION_REGISTRATIONTERMS"
(Of course this has to be done before registration starts.)

In order to check for overdue payments, please go to:
Overview => User and Participant Management => List of All Registrations for Participation
From the drop-down list "Payment Status" choose any setting without payments that fits your needs and which corresponds to the terms of registration for participation (see second image).

You can also send these participants a reminder via the bulk mail functions of ConfTool at:
Overview => Bulk E-Mails => Send E-Mails to Participants

There are two ways to update the prices for early registered participants with late payments.
1. We usually recommend the method described on the following page,
as it allows you to reproduce all your changes very easily:
https://www.conftool.net/ctforum/index.php/topic,268.0.html

2. Alternatively you can also update the registration dates for all participants who no longer fall into the "early-bird" category.
Go to the list of participants and click on "Edit Registration".
In the section "Registration Date" change the date of registration to the first day of the normal registration phase. Click on "Updated prices (do not save data yet)" to get a preview of the new prices. Check the new prices and "Save Participant Data". In this case we suggest to choose "Save Participant Data and Send a New Confirmation Mail" and also include a "Supplemental Text for E-mail Message" to inform the participant about the changes in prices and the new amount due (see first image).

Please note that existing invoices and pre-printed receipts will be overwritten with the new payment details.