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.

1. Signup information: Organiser contacts EntryCentral with information about their event or membership, ideally with links to any existing forms (current or previous). Email us
2. Organiser login: EntryCentral sets up a login for the new organiser, and an online form in a testing state.
3. Testing: The sign-up form is tested and refined until the organiser is happy.
4. 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.
• Social media integration - your event launch is posted on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky. If you have suggestions, we'll consider anywhere else that we can use code to post clickable links.

Sign-up features:

• Waiting Lists for events that have reached their limit
• Pay-by-cheque (See Pay-By-Cheque, below)
• Tracker-free sign up process - we respect our users' privacy and we do not expose your customers' data, browsing and typing activity to Big Tech
• Shopping basket for buying many sign-ups with one card transaction
• Shopping Basket Discounts - where buying two or more sign-ups together qualifies the customer for a discount
• Social media integration - customers can post pre-baked "I've signed up for..." announcements
• Application sign-ups - you can review the application before payment is collected.
• 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
• Payment Plans - spread a larger value ticket over a number of smaller instalments
• Team signups
  • Relay Teams - one person signs up the whole team, assigning a person on their account to each stage of the event
  • Team Names - each team member signs up individually, identifying their team by name in your Organiser Questions
• You can decide whether customers 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
• Full compliance with British Triathlon Race Pass
• Validation of governing body membership, for governing bodies which support memberships checks
• For virtual events, customers 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
• Overselling protection - card payments can take a couple of minutes from the customer submitting their card details, while they negotiate the 3D2 step presented by their bank. Usually, the last chance for a signup platform to check whether your event is full is when they present the card details screen to you, or maybe when you have typed them in. For fast-selling events this can lead to significant oversell, with confirmed payments still trickling-in a few minutes after it's full. EntryCentral checks whether your event is full when they've typed in their card details, and also when they've completed the 3D2 check - greatly reducing the chances of oversell. Another approach we don't take is to reserve places for a customer e.g. for 20 minutes and mark it Full when all the places are reserved, but 10% of customers get distracted or don't pay for other reasons - meaning that the event shows as Full, then not Full, then Full - and so on, as reservations time-out.

Route Mapping

XCover

Card Payments

EntryCentral uses the established payment clearance house Stripe to handle customers' 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 customers 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, 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 customer, or paid by you the organiser later, or split between competitor and organiser.

For low-cost events the Service Charge is less than the cost of sending a cheque with second-class postage.

The Service Charge to the organiser for a refund is 50p, for any refund amount.

Clubs offering rolling monthly memberships can use EntryCentral to administer their subscriptions.

• Members create, review and manage their subscriptions and payments through their EntryCentral customer 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 customers 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 customer fills in a sign-up form at EntryCentral, but at checkout time chooses to pay by cheque rather than by card. The customer 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 customer 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 customer, 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 Friday 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.