About EntryCentral
EntryCentral is an online entries and club memberships system based in the UK, for any mass-participation event or club. Launched in 2003, we have securely processed millions of sign-ups and memberships for thousands of events and clubs.
For organisers
Simple. Secure. Low cost
Providing secure and simple low cost online entry for entrants and organisers is what we do best. We securely manage over twenty thousand event registrations and club memberships every month, from triathlon to motorcross and from Orkney to Cornwall. We continually improve our service based on feedback from you.
EntryCentral is ideally suited to any event or organisation seeking public sign ups. We offer competitors and you the organiser an easy to use, secure and industry-beating low cost online entry system for races, club memberships or indeed for anything requiring the applicant to fill out a form with their personal details.
With hundreds of events available to choose from, visitors to EntryCentral entering one event often enter several in one transaction.
Simple Setup
Our easy to use system removes the bulk of your administration with a simple set-up process and features designed to help you manage your data.
- Signup information: Organiser contacts EntryCentral with information about their event or membership, ideally with links to any existing forms (current or previous). Email us
- Organiser login: EntryCentral sets up a login for the new organiser, and an online form in a testing state.
- Testing: The sign-up form is tested and refined until the organiser is happy.
- Launch: Organiser launches the form for public sign-ups.
EntryCentral key features
We offer the following management features as standard.
Data management features:
- A database for all sign-ups, not just online sign-ups. (See Paper Forms)
- Organisers control their own events and memberships at EntryCentral, through their own personal organiser login.
- Set up teams of organisers
- Configurable sign-up forms. You may ask any number of additional questions specific to your event, over and above the usual name, address etc. required for all events
- Customised sign-up process including: event logos, early-bird pricing, and optional charity involvement
- Series – filling in one form allows one-tick sign-up to other identical events in a series, instead of filling in a form for each one.
- Festivals - groups of sub-events in the same location on the same day that can optionally share one allocation of slots.
- Callbacks - If you have your own database we can notify a URL of your choice about new signups and any subsequent changes to them.
- Weekly financial settlement, paid directly to your nominated BACS details, with an accompanying statement of activity.
Sign-up features:
- Waiting Lists for events that have reached their limit, with deferred card payments.
- Pay-by-cheque (See Pay-By-Cheque)
- Shopping basket for buying many sign-ups with one card transaction
- Shopping Basket Discounts - where buying two or more sign-ups together qualifies the user for a discount
- Organiser Questions - In addition to standard personal information you can setup and manage the following question types:
- Simple Text with format checks
- Multi-line Text (e.g. 'Please list your medical conditions')
- Selection Lists
- Reusable and Unique discount codes
- Dates and Times
- Checkboxes and Checkbox Groups
- Early-bird sign-up fees e.g.:
- £10 until 1st May, £15 until 1st June, £20 until closing date
- First 50 places £10, £15 for the next 100, £20 for the rest
- Hot Tickets – we can ease frustration and panic for fast-selling events by giving users ample time to complete sign-ups and pay for them, once they've reserved a slot.
- You can decide whether Users with accounts can review/manage their own sign-ups, with an optional Organiser approval step and optional Organiser Admin Fee:
- If they change their minds about one or your organiser questions e.g. an event t-shirt
- Change Person for the sign-up
- Transfer sign-up to another of your events
- For virtual events, users with accounts can manage their activity log with evidence towards your virtual challenge
- Direct Debit subscription club memberships
- Bulk withdrawals and payment card refunds, processing around a thousand refunds in a minute
Route Mapping
Illustrate your routes with one or more, directional, coloured map routes.
Routes can show different sub-events (e.g. 10k and fun-run) or different stages of the same event (e.g. swim, bike, run).
Upload your GPX files from Strava, Garmin etc, then label and colour them as you wish.
XCover
XCover is the new name for Booking Protect
Event participants sometimes face unavoidable reasons why they can no longer take part in your event: illness or injury, vehicular mechanical breakdown en route etc. Sometimes sign-ups can be expensive, or far enough away on the calendar, that participants want to insure themselves against the risk - or perhaps think twice about signing-up.
Event Organisers can sometimes feel obliged to refund people who become unable to participate, despite having no legal obligation to do so.
EntryCentral has linked up with XCover to offer refund protection as part of the sign-up process. The insurance step is largely transparent to organisers - EntryCentral will collect the premium and forward them to XCover, and in the event of a claim the participant will contact XCover. If you allow it, you'll see the refund protection step while you are testing your event and in the email receipts, but that's about it. If you allow it, EntryCentral will offer this to your participants at 8% of the sign-up value.
Organisers using XCover can get rid of most of their own refund policies, retain their revenue, and decrease the associated administration.
Card Payments
EntryCentral uses the established payment clearance house Stripe to handle users' payment card details. The following card types are accepted:
- VISA
- VISA Debit
- VISA Electron
- Mastercard
- Maestro
Stripe implements Verified By VISA and Mastercard SecureCode for added protection on cards that are registered with these schemes.
In addition, we use Stripe's implementations of following intermediary payment methods. These allow users to e.g. pay with their thumbprint
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
Service charges for card payments
We offer a low-cost service charge. 4% or £0.50 (whichever is greater) on payments and refunds, VAT-inclusive. So items or £12.50 or less have a 50p service charge, and items more than £12.50 have a 4% service charge.
Examples:
- £5 entry fee, 50p Service Charge
- £10 entry fee, 50p Service Charge
- £30 entry fee, £1.20 Service Charge
EntryCentral charges can be surcharged directly to the user, or paid by you the organiser later, or split between competitor and organiser. Smaller upfront surcharges to users results in more card payments, and less work for organisers.
For low-cost events the Service Charge is less than the cost of sending a cheque with second-class postage.
Events with more than 1500 entrants may be able to negotiate better rates, please get in touch for more info.
EU Payment Services Directive 2018
EntryCentral is one channel you can use for accepting sign-ups for your event, you can also for example use other agencies and accept sign-ups offline. It is the organiser's responsibility to ensure that all payment methods they offer for their events come to the same final price, after any/all Service Charges have been applied.
Direct Debit payments
Club Memberships
Clubs offering rolling monthly memberships can use EntryCentral to administer their subscriptions.
- Members create, review and manage their subscriptions and payments through their EntryCentral user account
- Organisers can get an automated list of current subscribers, and manage their membership list
- Members can choose to pay on 1st or 15th of each month as they prefer, perhaps to match payment of their wages
- New members can pay an initial payment on the joining date to bring them up to the first subscription date:
- Full subscription amount
- Pro-rata subscription amount based on number of days remaining
- Another amount (including zero)
- Organisers can choose to review each membership application before any payment is initiated
Service charges for Direct Debit club memberships
3% + 25p (VAT inclusive) per payment, payable by the organiser
Other payment methods
EntryCentral acknowledges that some users will not want to enter their card details onto the internet, no matter how secure the system. As alternatives to card payments, we support two other ways for your customers to sign-up:
Pay-by-cheque
The user fills in a sign-up form at EntryCentral, but at checkout time chooses to pay by cheque rather than by card. The user is given a unique number to write on the back of a cheque, and the address of one of your organiser team to whom it should be posted. This feature is optional for each event or membership.
Service charges
Organisers can choose not to support pay-by-cheque for each event or membership. The user types in all their details on EntryCentral, has decided to pay-by-cheque, and has sent you a cheque with a unique reference. Confirming receipt of the cheque completes the sign-up.
£0.50 per confirmation is charged by EntryCentral to you the organiser.
Paper forms
Organisers can distribute paper forms, and when they are returned, the organiser can log on to EntryCentral and type in the entrant details from paper forms. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but it helps to keep all your data in one place, and if there's an email address we'll send an email receipt so you can acknowledge the sign-up for free.
EntryCentral can replace any existing database you have.
Secure
Security is paramount at EntryCentral.
The EntryCentral Guarantee
Our charging structure allows you financially risk-free use of EntryCentral. If you choose to surcharge the EntryCentral charge to the user, don’t do any refunds, and switch off pay-by-cheque, your use of EntryCentral costs you nothing.
Settlement
EntryCentral will issue a statement of financial activity every Monday for the previous week’s activity, and will settle directly to your nominated bank account on the following Monday using BACS. The statement details income and charges for each of your events/memberships. We don't require you to manage another costly relationship with any third-party services such as PayPal or Stripe.