Review Receipts Before Bidders See Them

Normally a receipt becomes visible to a bidder the moment a purchase lands on it, and they can pay it right away. If your organization adds fees or tax adjustments after the auction closes, that means bidders can see — and pay — a total you are about to change.

Receipt approvals solve that. With it on, new charges put the receipt into a pending state: the bidder cannot see it, cannot pay it, and cannot request a copy of it. Once a manager approves, it appears and behaves exactly as it always has.

Turn it on for an auction

Open the auction and go to Settings.
Select the Financial tab.
Find Receipts & Approvals.
Switch on Require receipt approval before bidders can view or pay.
Save the auction.

The setting applies to that auction only. Every other auction is unaffected.

What “pending” means for a bidder

While a receipt is pending, the bidder experiences it as though it does not exist yet:

It does not appear in their receipts list, or anywhere in the app or on the event site.
They cannot pay it.
They cannot email or text themselves a copy.
Opening a direct link to it shows the same “not found” response as a receipt that genuinely does not exist.

You and your team still see every pending receipt in the manager, with a Pending badge. Nothing is hidden from staff.

Approve receipts

On the Invoices screen you will see a banner showing how many receipts are waiting. It stays on screen the whole time any receipt is pending — this is deliberate, because the risk with this feature is forgetting.

You can approve:

One at a time — the Approve button on the receipt’s row, or inside the receipt.
Several at once — tick the receipts you want and choose Approve selected.
Everything outstanding — Approve all pending, which asks you to confirm and shows the combined total first.

Use the All / Pending / Approved filter to work through just the pending ones.

Adding charges to an approved receipt

If a new qualifying charge lands on a receipt you already approved, it returns to pending and disappears from the bidder again until you re-approve it. That is intentional: the bidder should never see a total that a manager has not looked at.

If someone else edits a receipt while you have it open, your approval is refused rather than applied, and you will be told to look again. This prevents approving an amount that changed while you were reading it.

Taking payment while a receipt is pending

You can still record a payment yourself — at the desk, over the phone, or from the receipt screen — while a receipt is pending. If the payment settles the balance in full, the receipt is approved automatically and becomes visible to the bidder.

The bidder cannot pay a pending receipt themselves. If they try, they are told the invoice is being finalized.

Turning it off

Switching the setting off stops new charges from being held. It does not release receipts that are already pending — those stay hidden until someone approves them.

If any are still outstanding when you switch it off, you will be warned and offered a link to review them. Approve them if you want bidders to see them.

When to use it

Good fits:

You apply buyer’s premium, credit card fees, or tax adjustments after the auction closes.
You reconcile winners against paddle sheets before opening checkout.
You want a final read of every invoice before anyone can pay.

Less useful if bidders check out live during your event and you want them paying the moment an item closes — in that case leave it off.