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How to Set Up Facility Fees and Late Fees

Fees let you charge attendees for things beyond individual disciplines — facility fees, membership fees, late registration surcharges, and similar. They're added automatically to each attendee's cart when they register, so you set them up once and Twirlmate handles the rest.

Fee types

Every fee has a kind that determines who gets charged and how often:

  • Required - Per Family: Charged once per family, regardless of how many athletes they're registering. Good for facility fees or door fees.

  • Required - Per Student: Charged once per individual athlete that a coach is registering on a parent's behalf. Good for maximizing facility fee revenue and fairly charging all individuals regardless of who handles registration.

  • Required - Per Team: Charged once per team. Good for team-specific costs like floor time or music fees. Most event organizers opt for group fees (below) though, to avoid excessive charges to groups.

  • Required - Per Group: Charged once per group even if they have multiple team entries. Good for studio-level fees.

Fees are smart about duplicates — if an athlete or team already paid the fee in a previous registration at your event, they won't be charged again.

Creating a fee

During event setup (Step 3), you'll be prompted to add fees. You can also add them later from the Fees section in your event admin.

For each fee, you'll set:

  • Name: What the attendee sees in their cart (e.g., "Facility Fee", "Late Registration Fee")

  • Base Price: The amount you want to collect. Twirlmate and credit card processing fees are calculated on top of this automatically.

  • Kind: Which type from the list above

  • Description: Optional context shown to attendees

  • Activate On: The date and time this fee takes effect (leave blank if it should always apply)

Setting up late fees

Late fees are just regular fees with an Activate On date. Before that date, the fee doesn't exist as far as attendees are concerned — it won't show in their cart and won't be charged. After that date, it's automatically added to every new registration that meets the fee's criteria.

For example: if your registration deadline is March 15 and you want to charge a $25 late fee after that, create a fee named "Late Registration Fee", set the base price to $25, choose "Required - Per Family", and set the Activate On date to March 15 at 12:00 AM.

Anyone who registers before March 15 won't see it. Anyone who registers after will have it automatically added to their cart.

Note: If you're using late fees, your event date's registration deadline must be after the fee activation date in order for people to continue registering with the late fee.

How fees display to attendees

Fees appear as line items in the attendee's cart during checkout. They can't be removed — they're required. The name and description you provide are what the attendee sees, so use clear, descriptive names. "Late Registration Fee" is better than "Fee 2".

Editing and deleting fees

You can edit a fee's name, price, kind, or activation date at any time from the fee detail page. If you change the price, the new price applies to future registrations — it won't retroactively change what anyone has already paid.

Unless you haven't collected any registrations yet, deleting a fee should be avoided, as it can affect historical registration records. Contact Twirlmate support if you need to do this.

Tips

Name fees clearly. Attendees see the fee name in their cart. "NBTA Membership Fee" tells them exactly what they're paying for. "Required Fee" does not.

Set late fee activation carefully. Double-check the date and time. If your deadline is "end of day March 15," set activation to March 14 at 12:00 AM, not March 15 at 12:00 AM.

Per-group vs. per-team matters. A $10 per-group fee charges $10 total. A $10 per-team fee charges $10 per team. For a group with three teams, that's a $20 difference.

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