Settlement checklist before your auction – Soapbox Support Center

With the Auctions app, a handful of settings quietly change what a guest reads on their checkout statement and on the receipt you email them. None of them prompts you, and most only come to light when a guest writes in about a figure. Work through this checklist before your auction opens.

Each setting below has an app-wide value under Auctions → Configuration → Checkout & Settlement, and each auction can override it under Settlement Configuration on its Details tab. For what every field does, see Configuring checkout and settlement settings.

Important: Leaving a field blank means "use the app-wide value", but entering 0 is a real setting. A Sales Tax Rate of 0 turns tax off for that auction even when your app-wide rate is 6.

1. Give every item a fair market value

This is the one setting on this list that lives on each item rather than on the auction, and it is the most common cause of a statement that reads wrongly.

With a value: the guest's line reads "Fair market value $75.00 · tax-deductible $125.00", and the item is taxed on that value.
Left blank: the line reads "Fully tax-deductible", the whole amount is shown as deductible, and the item adds nothing to the sales tax.

Check the fair market value on every item before you open. See How sales tax, fair market value, and deductible amounts are calculated and the Auction item field reference.

Note: Display FMV as Priceless changes only what bidders see on the item page. Checkout still uses the fair market value you enter.

2. Set your sales tax rate and label

Sales Tax Rate is charged on the fair market value of won items and fixed price purchases, never on pledges or fees. Sales Tax Label is the name the guest sees on the statement and receipt, so change it if "Sales tax" is not what your jurisdiction calls it.

3. Decide who covers the processing fee

Cover Transaction Fees is Off, Opt-in or Mandatory, and Fee Percent sets the rate. Both start at their app-wide defaults, which are Off and 0.

Off: the guest sees no fee.
Opt-in: the guest sees a cleared checkbox, "Cover the N% processing fee so 100% of my payment goes to the cause."
Mandatory: the fee is added to card payments, and the guest sees a Processing fee row.

A Fee Percent of 0 charges nothing and says nothing, even when the mode is Mandatory. Fees apply to card payments only, never to cash or check.

4. Choose whether receipts show fair market value

Show Fair Market Value on Receipts starts at Yes. It adds Fair market value and Deductible columns and a For your tax records statement to the emailed receipt. The guest's checkout page shows those figures either way.

5. Decide whether items are held until payment

Require Payment Before Release starts at No. Set it to Yes and an item belonging to a guest who still owes money shows as Held on the Fulfillments tab and cannot be marked picked up or shipped until they pay. The guest's statement then says their items are held until payment is complete.

6. Write your collection instructions

Collection Instructions tell guests where and when to collect what they bought. They appear on the guest's checkout once it is paid in full, and on the receipt — but only for guests who have an item to collect in person. Copying an auction clears them, so write them again for each event.

Fixed price items are listed for collection only when Track Fulfillment is set to Yes. See Choosing which fixed price items are tracked for pickup.

7. Settle how your team will collect

These do not change what a guest reads, but they decide what your team can do on the night:

Setting	Default	What it decides
Settlement Mode	Batch review	Whether your team can charge saved cards for many bidders at once. Manual turns batch charging off. Nothing is ever charged automatically.
Allow Offline Payments	Yes	Whether your team can record cash and check payments.
Require Card to Bid	No	Whether a bidder needs a card on file before bidding, either for every bid or only at or above the Card-to-Bid Threshold Amount.
Resend Cooldown (Minutes)	30	How long to wait before sending the same bidder another checkout link. 0 turns it off.

If you plan to charge saved cards, also check that your bidders can have one: a saved card needs a linked user account, and the site must take payments through Stripe. See What you need before you launch an auction.

8. On the night, let the Checkouts tab catch up

A guest gets a checkout only once they owe something — a won item, a fixed price purchase or a paddle raise pledge. A guest who only made a donation never gets one.

On a large auction, the Checkouts tab brings up to 50 bidders up to date each time it loads. A partial list is not a fault. Reload until the Bidder checkouts count stops changing, and do the same before you charge a batch.

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