Frequently Asked Questions

Sign Up Forms provides easy to create, easy to track forms, registrations and payment collection for all types of events and activities.  Our easy to use features save the organizer time and effort while getting them a custom personalized look and feel. Sign Up Forms provides an enjoyable experience for those registering whether they're using desktop, tablet or mobile.

Signupfroms.com uses a responsive design. This means it adjusts to the size of your screen. It doesn’t matter whether you have a small cell phone, a large phablet phone, a tablet or desktop - it will look great! It’s easiest to see this flexibility on a desktop computer where you can adjust the width of your window. Give it a try!

No, you will not be put on any mailing list of receive any spam. If you use Facebook, we will not post on your wall, ever! This authentication login is a simple and secure way to login without requiring you to have another password.

Yes, you can use your email address. If you already have a Facebook or Google account, these provide a safe secure way of signing in (and you won't get spam!), but if you prefer, you can log in with just your email address. It's easy! Just enter your name and your email address, then check your email. You will have an email from Sign Up Forms entitled "Please validate your email address" Open the email, click the link, and you're in! You can quickly create your first registration. Other login methods for info on other methods to login. Look for a generic email registration option coming soon.

Select "Themes" at the top of the page and create a custom theme. Once it’s created, you can select it from within your event. This allows an organization to create a theme to be used on multiple registrations. Also see Advanced styling for advanced graphics options.

With an advanced custom theme about anything is possible. Under "Themes" select "Add a Custom Theme" and select "Advanced" below "name". If you don’t know CSS, contact us and we will work with you to set up a custom theme that you can use for one event or use for multiple events.

Yes, select "Custom Themes", select "Add a custom theme", under "BACKGROUND IMAGES - Body" select "Choose" to upload the background image of your choice.

You can drag and drop most items to reorder them. Look for the common sign of the 4-way arrow showing that you can drag and drop to reorder the item.

Mostly it's personal preference, but some options can perform unique functions. If you want to be able to select more than one item then use "Checkbox". The "Checkbox" type of question allows one to choose zero items (if this question is not required), one item or multiple items (as many as the list contains). If a default answer is desired use a "Pulldown" type question. Make the selected default answer the first question in the list.

"Stripe is the easiest way to accept credit and debit card payments online. With Stripe, you can create exactly the payment experience you want in your website or mobile app, and we handle everything from security to daily transfers to your bank account. You can get started immediately." - quoted from Stripe.com

Find out more at stripe.com.

You can use Stripe to accept credit and debit card payments. The set of card brands you can accept depends on where you're located: United States businesses can accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB, Discover, and Diners Club.

Whatever you choose! You'll set how your business name appears on statements when you activate your Stripe merchant account. This greatly reduces charge-backs, where people forget they have ordered/purchased something and when they see a strange name on their credit card bill, refuse payment. Now, people will see the name you choose and recognize their purchase.

Yes, You can provide a partial refund or a full refund. Go to the Registrants tab, start typing the name of the person whom you want to refund their money. Select the "Order No." on the right, scroll down and click "Edit Payment" - see image.

Type in the amount that you want to refund (full refund is the default). Click “Issue Refund”. You can enter a comment regarding this refund in the “Comments” section and select “Update Comments”.

All Sign Up Forms management fees are refunded. However, the credit card fees are not refunded by Stripe (our payment processor). For example, when issuing a full refund on a $100 order with a Stripe credit card fee of 2.9% + $.30 = $3.20, this $3.20 is not refunded to the organizer. Thus, a full refund in this example will "cost" the organizer $3.20.

If the event is free, your total cost is free. See our pricing page for other related pricing details.

Yes. Every customer receives a confirmation email with a message: "Print this email and bring it with you to the event" (or something similar). The email also contains a QR code (2D barcode) on it that can be used by event staff to instantly check-in those registrants.

QR codes (or sometimes called 2D bar codes) are really just URLs that are turned into a picture that your phone can quickly read -see image. A QR code is really just a link to a website. Using a QR app on your phone, your phone will read it and will instantly take you to that website. Sign Up Forms uses QR codes in a confirmation email to allow a person to check in to an event.

When a QR Code (or 2D bar code) from a confirmation email is scanned, one needs to be logged in to Sign Up Forms with the valid user permissions. The user that you are logged in as needs to have permission, either created the registration or assigned as a team member. If an incorrect user is logged in, the person will just be directed to the generic Sign Up Forms registration page. If you are properly logged in and you scan a person's QR code, the registrant will be "registered" to the event.

Sign Up Forms provides several options. A QR code is included in every confirmation email (see image). A person can print this receipt and the event organizer can scan the image with his phone (or have a team of people with their phones). The QR code directs the phone (or scanner connected a desktop or laptop computer) to the person’s registration page.

This same function is easily performed, and probably quicker, from a desktop or laptop computer where you type in the person's name. As you are typing in the "Search" bar, the list is reduced to what matches the text in the search bar. The organizer can then select "Attended" with their computer mouse.

Yes, under “Customize”, near the bottom is “Notification” - select the checkbox for “Email me when someone registers”. You will now be notified by email every time someone registers for your event.

Yes. Select the “Registrants” tab, type the name of any person in a group in the “Search” bar, select the “Order #” tab which will show all of the people registered with that order.

No, If required please contact the registration organizer.

Yes, From the “Registrants” tab, select the “Order No.” of the person you would like to re-send the confirmation email. Select the “Resend Confirmation Email” button.

Yes. Upload the PDF to Google Drive or Dropbox and simply add a link to the document in the event details.

Yes, Edit the pricing option. Select "Show quantity and availability options", select “Availability Dates” to set the dates that you desire to have the pricing option available.

Yes, In the “Customize” tab, in the “Pricing” section, type in the Minimum or Maximum in the “Quantity per Order” line. Example: if the minimum order is set to 2 then a person is required to register at least 2 people to get this pricing.

No. But you can show/hide questions based on the ticket type. Example: In the “Registration” section of the form, the “Show for” tab is default set to “All pricing options”. If “All pricing options” is unselected, then a list of all of the pricing options is displayed. You can now select one or more of the following ticket types for this question to be displayed in.

Select “Discounts” in the action bar, then select “New Discount”. Provide a “Name” for the discount code and a “Code” that you will provide to customers. The amount of the discount code can be specified in percentage or in a dollar amount. Under “Items” the discount code can be applied to the registrants OR products OR both. “Maximum Use” sets the number of times that a discount code can be used.

For your protection, discount codes can be used at a rate of 10 per hour. Contact us if you need to change this.

Set a discount code option of “Maximum Uses” to One. Send the discount out for the person that it’s intended for and you don’t have to worry about it being used multiple times.

Set a “Pricing” option’s “Quantity Per Order” to have a “Minimum” quantity option. The image below shows an example where the minimum quantity is set to 2. This will allow any group of 2 to 10 people to use the group pricing option.

Yes. As an organizer, one can specify a ‘deposit’ amount. As a registrant, one can then choose to pay the full amount (default), or only pay the minimum amount. If one pays the minimum amount, the financial reports will indicate an “Amount Due” for that order. In addition, as a registrant, one can click on the link provided in my confirmation email and pay the remaining balance. See image for an example. The below shows a $40 deposit permitted on a $90 order.

The registrants won't see "Pricing" - go to the "View" tab to see exactly what your registrants will see. Also, you can hide the column using a custom theme.

Yes, When they send you their credit card info, they are authorizing you to make a payment with it. But it’s always best for the customer to enter the credit card information securely online when they register. This ensures the best security for all parties and makes use of all the features signupforms has to save both the organizer and the registrant time.

Yes, in the registration form, select “Show for” to select the registration type that you want this questions to be shown for. By default a question is shown for “All pricing options”. Unselect “All pricing options” to show the other pricing options. Select the pricing option(s) which you want the question to be shown for.

The registration will read “No longer available” and the “Quantity” dropdown will be removed.

Yes, select the “Team” tab, add the person’s email address, select “Add” and “Save”. The added Team member can now help modify the registration and check in individuals. The only thing a team member cannot perform is change the Stripe account.

You cannot cancel your order directly. Use your confirmation email to find the organizer’s email to request cancellation.

The Organizer can go in and change the status to cancelled. The organizer can cancel part or all of the order and refund none of the money, part or all at their discretion. From the “Registrants” tab, select “Canceled” under the “Status” column for registrant you would like to cancel.

If your registration states that your "Registration is currently unavailable", it is probably because there is not an active registration. From the "Customize" tab, scroll down to "Pricing" and select Edit. From here, ensure that the "Hide this option from registrants." check box is not selected.

Another possibility is that there is no pricing option available at all: either Free or a Paid registration. If so, go to "Customize", under "Pricing" select either "Registration", "Donation", or "Product" to make your registration active.

If a registration has gone past the end date of the event, the registration is disabled, and one can no longer register. The event organizer can, however, still enter a person from the back-end at any time. If the event end date has not passed, an event can be made inactive by editing each of the pricing tickets. Disable each of the pricing options by selecting “Edit”, then selecting the check box for “Hide this option from registrants.” See image for an example.

From the “Registrants” tab select “+ Add”, select the quantity (“Qty”) for each of the pricing options, then select “Continue”. The following screen displayed allows the organizer to fill in all the relevant registrant’s information.

Yes, a quantity can be given a limit by selecting “Enable choice limits” on a “Multiplechoice”, “Checkboxes” or “Pulldown” type question. First click “Enable choice limits”, then enter the quantity that you want the item to be limited to. Once registrants have selected that answer that many times, the answer becomes disabled and unavailable.

The first option of a pulldown will be the “default” will be the default value. But when the question is required and the first option is blank, the user will be prompted to select an option if none has been selected.

Sign Up Forms works with:

• Google Chrome
• Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 *
• Safari
• Firefox
• Chrome on Android
• Android Browser

* Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are not supported by Sign Up Forms and may not show everything correctly or have all the functionality of modern browsers.

Yes. Hundreds? - Yes! Thousands? - Yes! Tens of Thousands? - Yes! We use Amazon S3 for our highly-scalable, reliable, and low-latency data storage and hosting.

Your information is safe and secure. In tech-speech...

Stripe, our payment processor, has been audited by a PCI-certified auditor, and has in turn been certified as a PCI Level 1 Service Provider, the most stringent level of certification available. You can confirm our certification in Visa's registry of service providers. Stripe is also a participant in the PCI Security Standards Council. All of our payment processing is handled by Stripe. Sign Up Forms doesn’t actually receive, process, or store any credit card information. In addition, all data transmission between Sign Up Forms, Stripe, and customers is encrypted over SSL.

There is a slight variation of information depending on whether you are an Individual / Sole Propriotorship or a Corporation. The information for an Individual / Sole Propriotorship includes a couple questions on your products / services which you offer and your “business”

The “business” is loosely defined as you may have a one time event or activity where you put on a class and/or selling a product. If you have an ongoing business, select between “Corporation”, Non profit”, “Partnership” or “LLC”. “Your website” doesn’t need to be a website that you own the domain to. It can be a related site. For example, if you are collecting money from your softball team for league fees and t-shirts, you may enter your softball leagues website which your softball team plays on. The EIN is optional for the “Individual” category.

Next enter your name, date of birth and the last 4 digits of your SSN to verify your identity. The credit card information included is the information which you want to appear on a person’s credit card statement. To ensure that your customers recognize the charge, you should choose a name that customers most closely associate with you. This might not be your official corporate name or your website domain, but rather the product for which you are known may be a good choice. Also see faq_card_statements for related information.

Finally, enter your bank account information and Stripe account information. When you select “Authorize access to this account”, you’re done! and will be redirected back to signupforms.com.

Stripe’s rate of 2.9% +$0.30 is very competitive, but if you have high volumes, you can get even better rates. Word from Stripe: "If you're generating >$50k / month in transaction volume, all we'd need are 2-3 months of credit card processing statements (including merchant banking, payment gateway and AmEx information) to provide you with a quick quote." Links: Stripe support, Contact Stripe

Yes, you can make an initial deposit and then make additional deposits at a later date.  This can be accomplished by setting a deposit amount in the "Allow deposit" area of the Pricing section.  The registrant will see (see image) in the Summary section a choice to "Pay full amount of $xx" or "Pay initial deposit of $xx"

A merchant account is a type of bank account that allows businesses to accept payments by payment cards, typically debit or credit cards. With a merchant account you can now have funds go directly to your bank account (either your business or personal bank account). This means  that neither Stripe* nor Sign Up Forms holds your money, but it goes to you! You don't need to request your funds to be transfered to your account, just watch it flow in on a daily basis.

*Stripe does hold your funds for 7 days before they are released on a daily basis to your account.

With any credit card transactions there is a processing fee. When you swipe your card at a store the store incurs a fee and they pass that onto the customer by increasing the price of their products. The same is true when your customer uses their credit card to register for your event, the credit card company charges a fee. Stripe works with the credit card companies to negotiate the best rates, to make sure cards being used are valid, and to take care of all the behind the scenes work so you can safely, securely, and easily collect payments for your event. 

If there is a discrepancy between the Registration cost and the Received cost, it may be because an expense was entered manually. With Sign Up Forms, one can enter a payment in manually (from the back-end) which will count as a Registration cost but not as a Received cost.

You can monitor transactions and payments into your bank account by logging into your Stripe account at stripe.com. You will need the email you used and the password you created when you set up your Stripe account.

When a user begins a registration a position is held for them. Since many orders have limits on the total quantity available, a spot must be reserved for the user while they are registering to prevent too many people from registering for a limited amount of tickets available. A position is held for 30 minutes + 15 minutes for each ticket type selected. For example: if a registration has 2 ticket types and a user selects qty 1 of each ticket type, a pending registration will be held for 60 minutes (30 + 15 + 15 min). As the time is about to expire, the user will receive a warning that they have limited time to finish their registration. If the person doesn't respond the pending order is removed and the position is now available for others to sign up for.

The best way to do this is to have one ticket and to set the ticket item to have a $0 deposit. Then, a person can pay part or all of their ticket with credit card at time of purchase, and pay the remaining amount before the event with credit card or at the event with cash or check. To enable this, select the edit icon for the pricing option. Set "Allow Deposit" to $0.

An alternative is to setup two ticket items: one with a charge and one as "Free" and in the description state that the "Free" ticket means that you register for free but need to pay at the door with check or cash. Conversely, if you select the paid registration, then you not only registered but also pre-paid with credit card.

Sign Up Forms does not have an automated output for making badges. But, one can export the information and then print labels.

From the "Registrants" tab, select "Download". Open the downloaded .csv file in Excel, Google Docs or your favorite spreadsheet program. Sort and remove columns as desired. Depending on the label you desire to make, one can print an Avery label directly from Excel or open Avery label software or another type of badge / label printing software to print your labels.

I signed up for Sign Up Forms but it's not what I was looking for, how can I delete my account. Rest assured that you won't get a bunch of spam from us. You can unsubscribe for the occasional updates if you'd like... but if you really want to delete all traces of your account then you can do that too. Go to your User Profile: when you are logged in, select your email address at the top right of the screen, in the drop down, select "Profile". At the bottom of the screen select "Delete User". Deleting your user will remove you completely from Sign Up Forms. Note: this option will be grayed out if you have a registration with Sign Up Forms in which case you will not be able to delete your account.

From the "Registrants" tab select "Download". A .csv file will download to your computer or device. Open this file with an Excel spreadsheet or Google docs to view your full list of registrants and their information.

It's super easy to set up an auto-updating Google Sheet using Signup Forms, or any CSV file on the web using the "importdata()" function.

1) Copy the URL of the Download button (right click on button, "Copy Link Address")

2) In a Google Sheet, edit a cell (usually the upper left cell), and enter "=importdata(<paste-url>)".  The Google Sheet will then import the data found at the url regularly.

It's super easy to set up an auto-updating Google Sheet using Signup Forms, or any CSV file on the web using the "importdata()" function.

If you are trying to display an image in your registration that you have linked to on the internet but it doesn't show up, this may be the issue. For best security Signup Forms is hosted over https (encrypted). Browsers will not show images that are hosted over plain http (unencrypted). Make sure to link to images that are hosted on https sites.

The fees for using a credit card are in 2 parts: 1) The credit card fees (2.9%+$.30) 2) Signup Forms processing fees which are $1 + 1% per ticket, but, merchandise has only a 1% fee (not the $1).

If you setup your entire registration as Merchandise, one can avoid this $1 fee but some of the functionality is lost as well. Signup Forms is designed to have a Ticket for each person registering and Merchandise for any item desired at the time of registration.

We know these pages don’t cover it all, and we’re eager to help answer your questions. Please contact us.