Auctria Software

Excellent Product. Worth every single cent!

Accurate accounting of the major fundraiser (other than our annual operating fund campaign) for our church. Also ability to maintain and manage accounts receivable (we don't take payment on the night of our auction). Help in recruiting volunteers for the auction - volunteer data entry is easier to come by when the data entry can be done remotely and is easy to learn. Our church is just a medium-sized one (350 members) and we cannot afford to spend thousands to have someone come in and run our yearly auctions. A yearly cost of less than what we pay is far less than the value we receive for this software. Our auctions have reached thousands od dollars in income the past two years. We are very excited about that. My ONLY concern is that should Auctria go out of business that we would lose all our data. THAT would be awful. I would hope and pray that we would be offered CSV files of all our data before it "disappeared."

Pros

Multi-user, retention of data by auction, emailing of invoices and donation receipts, and the ability to copy data from one auction to the next. Exceptional customer support and response. Our church uses this software so our auction's donors and bidders are mostly the same people. We auction items that have multiple winners (gourmet dinners, themed parties, etc. ). A few emails back and forth was all it took to get the software to handle this accurately. I searched quite a long while for a replacement for our ancient software (that was a multi-user nightmare) and I hit the jackpot when finding Charity Auction Organizer. I am a retired programmer/analyst and this software was easy to learn, has excellent Help, and the personalized support we needed. Taking awhile to get used to the newest version with Auctria, but we'll get there. Have used this product for four of our church's auctions and one other non-profit auction. We'll be using it again November 2018.

Auctria is Amazing!

Check out for our gala was always the most stressful part of the event. Auctria makes us look like pros. No more waiting in lines divided by the alphabet; any volunteer station can help any guest. There are no more piles of paper to sort and add the bids by hand. We honestly have very short lines at checkout which makes our last impression of the evening a good impression. In additions, we now have a great database of information about all aspects of our gala.

Pros

Auctria is so easy to use which is very important. My favorite feature is the amazing customer service. We've used Auctria for 4 years and Auctria makes improvements every year. They don't just make changes, they make IMPROVEMENTS. They incorporate the changes in a suttle way so we aren't completely re-training our volunteers every year, we just have to point out the new features.

Cons

The first year most of the credit cards were rejected because of the processor. The next year Auctria incorporated Authorize.net which enabled a variety of processors to work with Auctria. We used the processor we normally use for processing cards online and everything went smoothly.

Fantastic User Friendly Program

Auctria is a terrific product, and I recommend it to all of my clients and colleagues. It is a great value for the money, easy to use, and has incredible functionality.

Pros

Auctria is very intuitive, and so much easier to use than other nonprofit event softwares on the market. The database function is straight-forward and doesn't have too many layers to it, so data entry is really fast. The website, ticket sales component, donor/guest information, and night of event entry all sync together really well. It takes less than 5 minutes to train volunteers on guest registration, and the materials are quality. Any time that I have had an issue, which hasn't been often, Auctria will get back to me quickly with a solution.

Cons

The only thing I would change would be to make the display sheets a little more dynamic, so they could be individually altered. Perhaps if there were an option to download them as a Word file, it would make it easier to adjust text sizing, photo sizing, etc. Also, it would be great if Auctria had a mobile bidding component.

Faubion School PTA has had an exceptional experience with Auctria software!

Our school auction takes place every spring, does profit every year and sustains our PTA budget through the following year. We make enough to need a software system but we don't make enough to spend bookoo bucks on it. Auctria does everything we need including -*organizing and selling items *offering receipts to donors and buyers *offering customizable website that is easy to create and share *allowing for many check out options including online, in person and push text notifications *option to pass credit card fees on to buyer so that our school can keep more money for our kids. Auctria is the only software that we will use going forward and I highly recommend!!!

Pros

Easy to use and train others to use, many customizable options for sellable items, website is awesome and tutorials on creating website are very helpful, cost is the lowest in the industry which is much needed for our non-profit school event. We used Auctria at our annual school auction this year and it did everything we needed and more for a fraction of the software that we have used in the past. Hint -- there is also a way to pass on credit card sales fees to credit card users which saved us those fees. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!!

Cons

Our auction chair had a few questions and couldn't find a number to call. She emailed and got a response back in 24 hours, which is their promise. For what it's worth, our software company before this one had the same policy and cost 10 times more so I don't feel like this is a deal breaker for us.

Auctria really does do it all!

Volunteer Event Chair for the Market & Auction event for Variety in BC, Canada. We raise funds for special needs kids in BC, ranging from therapy to medication to wheelchairs and converted vans. We step in where Health Care ends to help families cope with the financial burdens of needed support for the child. When I took over as Chair of this event 4 years ago the auction item bid sheets were...and I kid you not....handled in a single Word document. 200 pages long. 1 item per page. And that was just for starters! Each item was in a separate Word doc, from display sheets to receipts to certificates. I had made a switch to a set of Excel documents with formulas and master sheets which was substantially better, but still time consuming. Much more accurate, but time consuming. Then by some miracle I found CAO while looking for something else. The more I explored what it could do the more excited I got, and by the time I met with my partner to tell her about it I was almost bouncing off the walls in joy! The following meeting with my committee I went over the basics of the program, and every time someone brought up a concern or question I was able to answer it with "Oh don't worry, CAO does that.....right here...let me show you..."

Pros

Add to that the fact that your support team responds quickly and with wonderful detail, and that you have priced it so charities can actually afford it? You better believe I will continue telling EVERYONE about how amazing your service is! Hundreds of hours have likely been saved over the past 2 years of using it, and peace of mind for the processing team is priceless.

Cons

Now my biggest problem is remembering you are now Auctria instead of CAO

We do two auctions for two organizations each year. Auctria is easy and saves us lots of time!

Shortened the amount of time needed to prepare, run and get full reports on the auction.

Pros

Quick and easy item and bidder entry. Also inputting the winning bids on items and cashing out the bidders at the end of the evening goes so smoothly for everyone. Being able to print the bid sheets for all the silent auction items saves us a lot of time from having to create our own bid sheets (we did that for many years before Auctria). Since we only use it twice a year, it takes a bit of time to refresh our memories as to how to do everything, but not as much time as doing everything manually. The many reports available are easy to use and provide clear information.

Cons

Would be nice to be able to "hide" sections that we don't use when entering information on items and bidders. We've sent a request in to see if there's a way to enter tickets (as tickets vs as items) with numbers and assign them to specific bidders.

Great Value

This software was an incredible value for the money. We use it as a fundraising tool, so volunteers are the ones using it. That meant there wasn't a lot of training time and we had to rely on each other and the user guide. While there were some bumps, given our own limitations, it was a good buy and allowed us to maximize the fundraiser.

Pros

The reporting functions were invaluable in helping us to stay on track. The printing functions just by themselves saved us hours of volunteer time that otherwise would have had to have been done manually.

Cons

I had trouble customizing the public website portion of our event. To be fair, I did not have time to reach out to customer support, who may have been able to help me. Also, the breadcrumbs at the top of the page were not actually breadcrumbs, and were sometimes confusing. It would have been nice to have some additional filter functions, as much of the date carried over year to year and it wasn't always easy to locate what was relevant to this year's event. For example the dashboard gave us the total number of bidders in the system, which was three times the number of tickets sold for the event. Finally, the import/export functions were not as smooth as hoped.

Awesome!

Pros

I retired from a career of managing a team of programmers who created software for a Fortune 500 company, plus a part of my job was choosing and implementing software from various vendors. The support we receive from Auctria exceeds any that I experienced in my 35 years in the business world. As a volunteer now for a non profit, I could not be happier with both the quality of the software and the exceptional customer service. Highly recommend!

Cons

I wish for more robust reporting. It would be nice to have the ability to create formulas in the reports. Also creating the format for communications, bid cards, displays, etc., is challenging for some of our users who do not have previous experience.

Reports need improvement.

We've been using for 3 years now and it's been helpful.

Pros

Ease of payment and bid tracking. I like how you can export data into excel. Easy to change items and bidders.

Cons

The reporting wasn't helpful. There should be a total for the reports, and without the need to export it. A total for each type(live versus silent). It only lists the values, but not the bid or payment values on the dashboard. So it would be helpful if the reporting was more user friendly.
Also, not sure if there is a bid notification feature, or if we can print a bid of so we can notify the users.

The Very Best!

I have used Auctria for several years. We are a very small non-profit and I have multiple duties in addition to development. I used a larger, better known, on-line auction company which was expensive. I looked at several sites and was very pleased with the ease of use of Auctria( it was Charity Auction Organizer Then). I loved the assistance provided at the beginning and to this date, my questions are answered almost immediately. Setting up pages is easy, easier than the more popular site I had used. The linkage through stripe has been great and easy to manage. I tell anyone who asks how pleased I am with the site and I cannot imagine why anyone would spend more money for less service. I highly recommend the site!

Pros

Ease of use. The reporting features are great. Tech assistance is quick and friendly. Love the sample pages.

Cons

Sometimes I have difficulty linking pages in a way that works for me and some design elements are difficult for me to add. With that being said, please know I am not that tech davy.

Data is Crucial to Success

As the Auction Chair for 4 years I can tell you it is VITAL to have accurate data. Having accurate data is incumbent upon the committee to choose a program that supports the auction activities from start to finish and year to year.

Pros

EASY! Easy to learn, easy to teach other volunteers, easy to review data and reports. If you have never done an auction it can be daunting, people want to help but how? With Auctria it's all in one place, with complete user guide documentation. EASY to input data for items, bidders and donors. EASY to load pictures to auction items, click copy and link. EASY to search for information- by name, number, partial description. Easy and flexible too with lots of bidding options.

Cons

I do wish we could attach to our PayPal account.

Using Auctria for our Symphony Soiree has made a huge improvement in the efficiency of our event.

Raising more money before - and during - our event; raising the bar on the quality of our event; time savings.

Pros

We like that it allows multiple users to work in it, allowing us to easily share the workload of preparing for our fundraising event.

Cons

Using the user guide to find the exact answer to a challenge. I end up having to reach out to customer support more often than not, but I do appreciate their prompt responses!

Junior League Charity Ball

This made our event so much better! We did purchase a domain name for our website name to make it easier to advertise our event. This was minimal and 100% worth it.

Pros

Auctria is simply amazing! It's extremely user friendly, and we had so many compliments on our website! We were able to display all of our silent auction items prior to the event. We even offered some buy it now items prior to the event at a higher value! Ticket and table sales were easy. We are so thankful for Auctria! The customer service was top notch. I had questions, we would send an email to Auctria and get answers back promptly. We even had links sent to us that would walk us through our questions. Super helpful!

One Very Satisfied Customer

Recently, I decided to host a one-time silent auction to benefit a cancer charity. I'd never done anything like this before. I knew I want to take bids online before the auction but had no clue on how to go about it. My first inclination was just to use Facebook, but I decided to do some Google research on the topic first. Google's most useful return was Auctria's user guide. There, I learned about "pre-bidding" and what all it entailed. I realized I needed an auction platform outside of Facebook, and, obviously, Auctria was at the top of my consideration list. What ultimately secured Auctria my business was their demo mode. I didn't have to pay for their service and merely hope for the best. I was able to use their platform before committing to purchase a license. Auctria's service was reasonably priced and user-friendly. The one time I needed Auctria's Customer Support Team, due to a bone-headed mistake on my part, they resolved the issue within minutes. My silent auction was (shockingly) a terrific success and that was in no-small-part to Auctria's platform.

Pros

Pro 1: Auctria allowed me to test their platform with their "lite license" before committing.

Pro 2: Auctria's platform offers many features, including features I did not even realize I needed until my fundraising project was underway.


Pro 3: Auctria's user guide was very detailed and allowed me to tackle practically every problem I encountered when creating my auction site.


Pro 4: When I did need to contact customer support, they responded quickly and resolved my problems efficiently.

Cons

I did not encounter a con on this platform.

Auctria rocks!

The tech support is amazing! It's great to be able to send them a question and they get back to you as soon as they can and always with a fix!

Pros

Easy roll over from previous auction items to this year! Saved me a lot of time!

Cons

Only issue is not being able to get a fix number of bid slots to be the same for silent auction items.

St. Mary School Auction

We are a Catholic school that holds an annual Auction and we have used this software for about five years. We are planning to use more of the online bidding and features next year.

Pros

We find it user friendly, we like all the reports, we like that we can create our own stationery and that more than one user can be on the program. we also like the function that it takes credit cards.

Cons

That with our firewall loading pictures can be difficult. Sizing was a problem and upload window functionality. We would have to exit and restart program.

Should be award-winning software

As a small nonprofit, the price is unbeatable. The system is robust and takes care of every aspect of gala management that we need.

Pros

I have been using Auctria since the days it was called Charity Auction Organizer. It handles every aspect of running a gala event that we need: ticket sales, seating, items to purchase (outside the auction items), donations, silent and live auction items, online catalog and bidding, and invoicing. Just a dream from start to finish. We purchase the Silver edition, and it more than pays for itself. I find Auctria.com to be far and above any other online auction/gala systems I've researched.

Cons

I wish Auctria.com were part of my existing donor database software features, but alas it is not. But there really isn't an affordable solution that acts as an all-in-one system.

Slick

Pros

Ease of use and cost effective. The software works perfectly with the event that we have every year.

Cons

I don't like that when you copy bidders you have to do it one at a time. Also that sometime it glitches.

Easy to use and BEST customer service

I use this software for all my auctions. I do about 5 auctions or more per year. I can manage each client separately without any problems

Pros

User friendly.
It makes my job easy
It's easy to train somebody new to use the system.
It's very easy to manage packaging and financials.

Cons

I cannot find anything in particular thing.
Whatever I need improvement, they always help me fix the problems asap.

Most Valuable Tool for Nonprofits!

I have only had a great experience with Auctria - the product does what we need it to, and when we do have occasional issues or any questions, The support team are super helpful! We could not be happier.

Pros

How intuitive the interface is - it's easy to piece together a functional, custom site that does what my clients need it to. Starting from scratch is not scary!

Cons

There are a few functions that don't have the capability to customize the way we want, but there are usually work-arounds that the Auctria team walks you through. And progress is usually made in future updates, so I know they listen to their customers!