Set up ticket deferral
Ticket deferral is the process of temporarily recording revenue from ticket sales in an deferred revenue account until the revenue is realized. In this context, deferred revenue refers to payments received for tickets that have been sold but not yet redeemed for entry. When a customer uses the ticket for admission, the corresponding amount is moved from the deferred revenue account to the achieved revenue account in Business Central, reflecting the completion of the revenue-earning activity.
The Ticket Defer Revenue Insight section in the Role Center provides a centralized view of deferrals. This section helps you track the number of failed or pending deferrals, enabling proactive management.
Setup in Business Central
To set up this feature, follow the provided steps:
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Search for Ticket Defer Revenue Profile and choose the related link.
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Create New and populate the necessary fields:
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Click Actions in the ribbon, followed by Setup Job Queue.
The job queue is created. -
Navigate to the Ticket Type administrative section and assign the relevant Defer Revenue Profile Code to applicable ticket types.
Individual ticket items can be excluded from deferral on their item cards. -
Navigate to the Ticket Item List administrative section, and open the Ticket Item Cards of the tickets that belong to the selected ticket type.
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Either make sure the Defer Revenue checkbox is selected or unselected, depending on whether you wish the individual ticket items to be deferrable.
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Navigate to the General Posting Setup administrative section and select the relevant Gen. Prod. Posting Group from the list.
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Populate the following fields in the posting group:
- Sales Account - enter the ID of the unearned revenue account.
- Achieved Revenue (Ticketing) Account - specify the account ID if only certain posting groups support ticket deferral.
Note: If all posting groups support ticket deferral, you only need to configure the Achieved Revenue Account in the Ticket Defer Revenue Profile.
Selling the ticket on POS
After the setup has been completed, you can sell tickets on the POS or test the deferral process:
- Open the POS, enter your Salesperson Code, and press OK.
- Select Ticketing, then choose the event or service for which you want to sell tickets.
A pop-up window for making the reservation is displayed. - Fill in the reservation details, select the number of tickets, and press OK.
- Press Go to Payment, and complete the transaction.
Processing deferrals in Business Central
After a ticket sale, you can monitor and manage deferrals in Business Central:
- Search for Ticket Requests and choose the related link.
The list of created requests is displayed. - Select a ticket request line corresponding to the POS-purchased ticket item, then click Navigate in the ribbon, followed by Ticket Revenue Deferral.
The Ticket Revenue Deferral Overview window is displayed.
Ticket Revenue Deferral Overview
The Ticket Revenue Deferral Overview window displays the deferral status of the selected ticket request. The deferral process is managed in stages, reflected in the status values:
- Registered - indicates that the ticket has been purchased.
- Waiting - the POS entry or sales order has been posted, and the Amount to Defer is applied. The system waits for the ticket to be used.
- Pending Deferral - when the ticket is used, this status is set. At the scheduled time, a background job transfers the Amount to Defer from the original sales account to the achieved revenue account.
- Deferred - the deferral process is complete, and the revenue has been recognized.
- Unresolved - this status occurs if the job queue reaches its maximum retry limit without successfully completing the deferral. In this case, manual intervention is required to resolve the issue.
- Immediate -assigned to tickets that are issued free-of-charge.
- Deferred (Forced) - applied when a ticket has expired and can no longer be used, but the revenue is still posted.
Note: In most cases, deferral actions are carried out automatically by a scheduled background job. However, the Defer Revenue and Defer Revenue (Batch) actions, located under Process in the ribbon, is available for manual use if necessary.
