Event date vs purchase date: how to report ticket sales

The short answer

There are two honest ways to add up a month of ticket sales. By event date counts the events held that month, with every ticket sold for them, whenever it was bought. By purchase date counts the tickets bought that month, whatever day their event is.

Use event date to judge how your events did. Use purchase date to see what came in and when. A good report lets you switch between them, and says which one you’re looking at.

Why the two numbers differ

Say your December gala goes on sale in October. Early birds buy in October, most people buy in November, and a few buy at the door in December.

• By event date, all of it is December’s: the gala happened in December.
• By purchase date, it’s spread across October, November and December.

Neither is wrong. They answer different questions, and mixing them up is how a treasurer and an organiser end up with two different totals for “last month”.

When to count by event date

• Judging an event. How did the gala do? Every ticket for it, in one place.
• Comparing events or months. This March’s workshops against last March’s, without early sales leaking into the wrong month.
• Paying people per event. A venue split, a performer’s share or a sponsor report usually follows the event.
• Monthly numbers that stay put. Once the month’s events are over, its figures stop changing, apart from refunds.

When to count by purchase date

• Cash flow. What came in this week, whatever it was for.
• Checking a promotion. Did the newsletter on Tuesday sell tickets on Tuesday?
• Pacing a launch. How fast is the next big event selling?
• Matching money received. Payment processors pay out by when the money was taken, not by when the event runs.

If you keep books, ask whoever does them which they need. Many want both: one to judge the events, one to match the bank.

Watch for these traps

• Events over several days. Decide which month a three-day course falls in. Counting it in any period that has one of its days is the usual choice.
• Refunds. A refund in January for a December event belongs with December by event date, and with January by purchase date only if you count refunds by when they happened. Know which your tool does.
• Booking fees. Leave out fees the buyer paid, or your sales look bigger than what you keep.
• Subscriptions. A subscriber’s ticket to each session may be free, with the money in their plan’s payments. Count those separately, by the day each was paid. See how to see subscription income alongside ticket sales.

How to switch on One Ticket

1. Choose Reports in the app.
2. Pick a period: This month, Last 7 days, Last 30 days, Last 90 days, Last 12 months, All events or Custom dates.
3. Beside it, choose Count sales by: Event date (where you start) or Purchase date.

Under the figures it says which you’re looking at: “Counted by event date” or “Counted by purchase date”. By event date, an event is in a period that has any of its days, with every order for it. The figures, the Events table, Extras sold, the Export CSV file (its name ends in “by-event-date” or “by-purchase-date”) and Email this to me all follow your choice, and the choice is part of the page’s address, so a saved link keeps it.

Sales over time is always by the day each order was bought, because it’s a timeline: it shows when money came in, day by day, week by week or month by month. Sales are ticket prices after discounts and refunds, without the booking fees buyers pay.

Every period and both ways of counting are on every plan, including Free. The Reports guide has the details.

Related: How to export your event revenue to a spreadsheet, When do I get paid for ticket sales? and What should a post-event report include?