Questions and answers
Small zoos, gardens and aquariums: questions, answered
bindro sells timed admission for a small zoo, garden or aquarium: every open day is cut into arrival slots, each slot holds its own stock per ticket type, and a visitor picks a date, picks an arrival time and pays on one phone-sized page. A donation rides on top of the admission and carries no platform fee, a membership number typed at checkout is checked against the attraction's own roster before a member price is given, the gate scans with no signal at all, and the shop and café till records takings the platform never holds. Money reaches the attraction two days after the last session of the event it was sold under, never before.
Reviewed: 2026-08-09
What attractions ask
What ticketing system suits a small zoo or garden?
One that models an open day as arrival slots rather than as a single daily number, and that runs the gate when the signal drops. bindro cuts each open day into slots holding their own stock per ticket type, verifies a member price against your own roster, adds a donation that carries no platform fee, and scans from a signed door list with no network. It is built for a site under about fifty thousand visitors with nobody whose full-time job is ticketing; a large zoo with turnstiles and a membership department wants an enterprise platform.
How do I run a Christmas light event at a garden?
Run it as its own event with its own arrival slots, separate from daily admission. That gives the evenings their own capacity, their own tiers and their own payout, and keeps a wet Tuesday in the day operation out of the evening grid. Two consequences to know before you publish: an annual pass sold against daily admission does not admit at the light event, because a pass covers the sessions of its own event only, and the whole season pays out once, two days after the final evening.
How do attractions manage annual memberships?
Not in bindro, and this is the most important limit on the page. bindro never sells, renews or bills a membership — there is no recurring charge in the product, no renewal reminder and no membership record beyond a roster you type in yourself. It does two things: it verifies a membership number at checkout against that roster and charges the tier's member price if the number is current, and it can sell an annual pass as a ticket tier. Whatever administers your scheme today keeps administering it.
How do I put a whole season of daily admission on sale?
Create an event for the period you want to be paid on — a month is the usual answer — and generate an arrival grid across its open days. The generator takes a date range and a list of arrival times and creates a session for each combination, each with its own pool per ticket type. Do not put the whole year in one event: bindro schedules one payout per event and only once that event's last session has ended.
When does the money from today's admissions reach my bank account?
Two days after the last session of the event those admissions were sold under — not two days after today. bindro releases one payout per event, and the scheduler will not admit an event until every session has ended, which is what stops you being paid for a visit you have not delivered. A month-long event therefore settles two days after the month's last open day. This vertical is low risk with no reserve withheld.
Can I sell an annual pass that admits all year?
Yes, as a ticket tier flagged as a season pass. It is bought through the ordinary checkout at the ordinary server-derived price, issues one credential, and that credential admits at every session of its event, and counts once per date however often it is scanned that day. The scope is the event: if you model the year as monthly events, a pass covers only its own month, so an annual pass belongs on an event whose sessions span the year.
Does an annual pass take a place in a timed slot?
No, and it is stated as a limitation rather than left to be found. The pass tier has its own pool, which bounds how many passes you sell, and a pass consumes no seat at any date it admits to. So the admissions sold for eleven o'clock on the first warm Sunday in May are not the people who will arrive at eleven. Size busy slots for the pass holders you expect on top.
How do member prices work if bindro does not sell memberships?
You set a member price on the ticket tier and keep a roster in the console; the checkout does the rest. When a visitor types their number into the membership-number field, the price is re-derived on the server inside the money transaction — member price for a current member, list price for everyone else — and the order line records why it was cheaper. An unknown, lapsed or revoked number is refused at that field and no order is created.
Can I import our membership list?
No. The roster is typed into the console one member at a time — name, number, expiry — with no CSV import, no sync and no API for it. For a few hundred members that is an afternoon; for several thousand it is a real reason to choose something else, and we would rather you knew before migrating than after. Only a digest of each number is stored, so nobody can read your list back off the screen.
Can visitors add a donation to the conservation fund?
Yes. A donation box sits on the checkout details step, the amount is bounded at ten thousand dollars, and the gift is added to what the visitor pays without entering the platform fee base or the tax base. The whole gift therefore reaches you: the fee is charged on the admission only, exactly as it is not charged on collected tax. The gift is stored apart from the subtotal, so a report can always tell admission from giving.
Do donors get a tax receipt?
Yes, once your registered charity number is on file — and nothing goes out before it is. File the number and a receipt is queued beside the confirmation for every paid order; leave it blank and bindro issues nothing rather than a receipt with a gap where the registration belongs, and the reports page tells you so. The receipt quotes the whole payment but names only the gift as deductible, and says plainly when the gift was zero.
Can I sell gift shop items and food on site?
Yes — this vertical has both a merchandise till and a food and drink till, gated separately. A manager builds the catalogue, door staff record sales, and each sale stores its price, a coherent total and who sold it. Note what it is: an auditable record of money you took yourself, not a payment rail. Till takings never enter the platform ledger and never appear in a payout, because writing money bindro never held into the ledger would pay you twice.
Can we sell admission at the gate to walk-ups?
Yes. The day-of page carries a walk-up sale form with live per-ticket availability, and it is a real sale: a real hold, the same price derivation and registration rules as the public checkout, a card captured on the operator's device and a credential that scans. It decrements the same pool the website sells from, so a full slot refuses rather than oversells. Cash is the one thing it will not record as a ticket sale.
Do I charge sales tax on admission?
If your state taxes admission, yes: set the rate on the event and it is applied server-side in the one derivation the quote and the confirm share, itemised on the pay page and stored on the order. Two properties matter for a nonprofit. Collected tax is never your revenue — it lands on a tax-payable account and cannot be paid out — and it is never in the fee base. Tax is added on top, US-style; inclusive VAT is not supported.
Can I sell gift admission as a present?
Yes, as a gift card, and it is the only giftable instrument here — an admission cannot be transferred. Cards sell through their own three-step flow addressed to your organisation, the code is emailed to the recipient rather than the buyer, and the card is dated two years out. Until it is spent the money is a liability rather than your income, which is why an unredeemed card is never paid out to you.
Can I add a parking space or a keeper-talk ticket to a booking?
Yes, as add-ons with their own stock. Build a catalogue — parking, a feeding experience, a guidebook — each with options carrying their own capacity, and the checkout offers one input per option capped at what is left. Stock moves inside the confirm under the option's row lock, so the last parking space cannot sell twice and a buyer who loses it is told rather than charged. An add-on mints no credential of its own.
What do I give the board or a grant funder at the end of the quarter?
A quarterly activity report from the console, on screen and as CSV: sessions run, admissions registered, visitors attended, free places given, gross, refunded and net income, with the money lines taken from the ledger the payouts reconcile against. It has no demographic breakdown here, because this vertical's form asks no multiple-choice question to break down and the access answer is health-classed and excluded by design. It knows only about money taken through bindro, and transmits nothing to anyone.
What happens at the gate when the WiFi drops?
The gate keeps working, because the device does not need to ask. Before opening, each device syncs a signed manifest of that session's credentials; scans then validate locally with no network, appending to a local log with a device id and a running sequence. When the signal returns the log replays, first scan wins by timestamp, and duplicates are ignored. Season passes are on the manifest for every date they cover.
Can two entrance gates scan at the same time?
Yes, with one honest limit. Several devices can scan the same session at once, each with its own device id, and their logs merge on reconnect. What two offline devices cannot do is agree in real time: if the same credential is presented at the main gate and the garden gate while both are offline, both scans are recorded and the second is flagged for the console's conflict queue. Attendance counts distinct visitors, so a conflict never inflates the day.
What do I do when we close for a storm?
Close the day from the day itself and choose what happens to the money — refund everybody, credit everybody, or keep their booking for a date you will offer — which is applied to every booking on it at once, with an email to each visitor if you tick the box. It comes off sale the moment you do it, so nobody buys into a day you are not opening. What bindro will not do is decide it for you: nothing here reads a forecast. Beyond that one mail there is no message tool either — the automatic post-visit email goes only to opted-in buyers of a visit that has happened — so anything else you want to say goes out through your own channels.
What visitors ask
Do I have to book an arrival time to visit?
If the attraction sells timed admission, yes: you pick the date and then an arrival slot, and each slot has its own limited number of admissions. The arrival time is when you should get there, not when you must leave — nothing in your ticket expires at the end of the slot. If a slot is fully booked another time that day may still be open, and some attractions also sell at the gate while stock lasts.
Can I leave and come back in the same day?
That is the attraction's decision, not a rule the ticket enforces. Most zoos and gardens let visitors go out to the car park or the picnic area and return; when you come back the gate scans a code it has already seen, so the scanner tells staff it is a repeat scan rather than a new admission and they wave you through under their own policy. Your visit is counted once however many times you scan.
I am a member — how do I get my member price?
Type your membership number into the membership-number box when you book, and the member price is applied before you pay if the attraction's roster shows your membership as current. If the number is not recognised, has expired or has been withdrawn, the form tells you at that box and nothing is charged — take it up with the attraction, because the roster is theirs and bindro cannot issue or read membership numbers.
Does the annual pass cover the Christmas light trail?
Usually not, and it depends on how the attraction set it up. A pass admits at the dates of the event it was sold under, and a seasonal evening event is normally published as its own event with its own tickets — so a pass bought for daily admission opens nothing there and the gate simply will not recognise it. Attractions often price a members' rate instead, claimed with your membership number. Check the event page before travelling.
Can I change my visit to another day?
No — admissions cannot be moved to another date or handed to somebody else. There is no transfer, no date change and no credit note in this product. What you can do is ask for a refund using the link in your confirmation email, up until the visit starts, and then book again for the day you want. If you are buying a present, buy a gift card rather than a dated admission.
How do I tell you about step-free access or an assistance animal?
There is an access requirements box on the booking form — step-free routes, seating, assistance animals, quiet spaces — and what you type goes to the attraction with your booking. It is treated as health information: kept out of data exports, out of reporting breakdowns and out of any AI context, by rules the platform applies rather than staff remembering. One honest limit: excluded is not erased. What you type stays with the order.
Can I get a refund if I cannot come?
Yes, up to the start of your visit, using the manage link in your confirmation email — the link is signed to your booking, so nobody without it can act on your order. The money goes back to the card that paid; a booking paid partly with a gift card returns that part to the card. After the visit has started it is the attraction's decision. A refund never puts your slot back on sale for anyone else.
What does bindro NOT do for a attraction?
A capability this vertical does not declare is refused by the engine rather than quietly missing, so it is listed here rather than left to be discovered.
- bindro does not sell, renew or bill a membership. There is no recurring charge anywhere in the product, no renewal reminder, no membership card, no household or add-a-member logic and no lapsed-member sweep. The roster that unlocks member prices is typed into the console by hand, one member at a time, with no CSV import — and buying an annual pass adds nobody to it. Whatever runs your membership scheme today keeps running it.
- An annual pass admits at the dates of its OWN event and nowhere else. A pass is a ticket tier flagged as a season pass, so it opens every session of the event it was sold under — and a Christmas light event, a members-only evening or a summer festival run as a separate event is not covered by it. Nothing bundles two events into one entitlement, and the gate will read the pass as unknown at the other event rather than admitting it.
- A season pass consumes no slot inventory. A pass admits its holder at every arrival slot of its event and takes a seat at none of them, so an attraction with a real capacity limit — a car park, a glasshouse, an aquarium tunnel — has to size its slots for the pass holders it expects as well as for the admissions it sells. Nothing warns the gate that a busy slot is fuller than the number on the screen.
- No group product and no school invoicing. Group registration is not enabled for this vertical, so there is no group rate, no roster for a teacher to fill in and no per-place name collection, and billing on terms is a separate capability this vertical does not resolve. A school visit is a quantity of ordinary admissions on one card payment; anything on an invoice is an arrangement you make off the platform.
- No waiting list, and a refund does not put the slot back on sale. When an arrival slot is full the page says fully booked and stops: nobody joins a list and nobody is emailed when an admission is refunded. The count of what has sold is never decremented, so if you want to let one more family in, raise that slot's capacity by one rather than waiting for a cancellation to free it.
- No transfers and no date changes. A visitor who cannot come on the Saturday cannot hand their admission to a friend and cannot move it to the Sunday: this vertical resolves neither ticket transfer nor deferral, and there is no credit note to issue. The only lever is a refund, after which they book again at whatever is on sale. A gift card is the giftable instrument; an admission is not.
- bindro cannot close a day, and cannot email the visitors booked into it. Nothing in the product predicts weather, so a storm closure is your call to make. Once you make it, closing the day settles every booking on it at once and writes to each visitor if you ask — but that is the only message bindro sends: the automatic post-visit email goes to opted-in buyers of a visit that has already happened, and telling tomorrow's visitors anything else is your own channels' job.
- Re-entry is performed by the gate, not just permitted by your policy. A visitor who leaves for the car park and comes back through the gate that admitted them is scanned in again as a return, with the time they first arrived; the same credential at a different gate reads as already used and names the one that used it, which is the phone-over-the- fence case. Attendance counts each visitor once however often they are scanned.
- Cash is not a ticket sale, and the till is not a payment rail. The walk-up gate sale takes a card on the operator's own device; recording a cash admission is deliberately not implemented, because crediting your balance for money bindro never held would pay you twice at payout. Shop and café takings recorded at the till are an auditable record for your own numbers and never enter the platform ledger — that money is already yours.
- No wristbands, no staff rota and no photo sales. RFID wristbands, staff scheduling and media delivery are listed as optional for this vertical and none of them is enabled, so there is no band to bind, no shift to publish and no ride or safari photo to sell. The credential is a QR code, the rota lives wherever it lives today, and a photo concession is a separate arrangement.
- United States only, so no VAT. Onboarding offers one country, and the tax the engine applies is price-exclusive US sales tax added on top of the admission; inclusive VAT is a separate capability this vertical does not resolve, and nothing anywhere claims Gift Aid on a donation. An attraction outside the United States cannot be onboarded today, whatever its currency looks like on the page.
What else should I read?
Small zoos, gardens and aquariums: the overview
Admissions, member prices and seasonal events without the enterprise price tag.
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