SpringyNews: Putting the NEW in News

Online Payments Coming to LibCal

But wait... LibCal has been helping libraries with their Events, Appointments, Room & Equipment Booking and Hours for some time now! What do we mean -- it's open for business?!?

This news is especially exciting to share because it comes as a result of doing one of the things we do best here at Springshare and that's listening to you.

Librarians and non-library users have let us know that they often charge a fee for certain events or to book their rooms and spaces. Perhaps it's because of the type of event, the space itself (auditorium, etc.) or maybe it's tied to the reason for use.

Whatever the cause, we're happy to announce that LibCal will soon have an e-commerce component built right into the system.

Billing will be added to event calendars and spaces first; support for payments on equipment bookings will be coming soon after the initial release. If you're interested in being a test site for the initial release for payments in the Equipment Booking module, let us know!

Behind-the-Scenes with the LibCal Billing Feature

You'll find all the settings in the LibCal Admin area. You're able to identify the currency in which you want all charges to be displayed to your patrons and enter the payment processor details (Authorize.net, Paypal Braintree, or Stripe).

How do you use it?

• In the event creation screen, once the registration is enabled, a new series of fields appear including Event Cost.
• In Spaces, when you create a category, you can set billing rules that apply to all the spaces in that category.
• Once patrons are paying for events and/or spaces, Admins will have access to a full list of charges that can be filtered by source, date range, or even status (paid, outstanding, refunded).
• When transmitting credit card information online, it's imperative to use 'secure' protocols such as HTTPS. To that end, you'll be required to load your LibCal system through an HTTPS connection if you enable the billing functionality. Additionally, by the end of March 2019, we'll be moving all Springy Tools to HTTPS Required. 

The beauty is that the new Billing feature is so easily enabled and that it blends into the LibCal workflow, so there's virtually no learning curve to use it.

Admin Interface: Adding Cost When Creating an Event

Your Patron's Experience with LibCal's Online Payments

We're excited to make payment for events or space reservations seamless! Allowing your patrons to pay right at the moment of registering for the event or booking the room is next-level service that also helps your staff. Picture how your team will be able to focus on welcoming people to an event and answering questions if they could spend less time taking payments.

Springshare understands that it's important that your end users feel comfortable with the whole process. This is why LibCal's new Billing feature is a payment system natively built into LibCal -- versus pushing your patrons out to some other external site when it's time to pay. Everyone can simply channel their energies into getting excited for your event programming and into the way they'll use your rooms!