There are two main changes that are being rolled out to the processing fee effective on all new registrations after Nov 19, 2017.
- Zone4 will no longer round the processing fee to the nearest dollar. For the past 15 years, when applying percentage portion of the processing fee Zone4 would round that amount to the nearest whole dollar. We originally felt this made things simpler for clubs and registrants, but over the years we’ve noticed more confusion caused by the rounding. It also prevented clubs from being able to calculate precisely what their fees would work out to. Eliminating the rounding will mean processing fees will include dollars and cents now so you’ll see for example $2.78 instead of $3. We feel this is more transparent and predictable in the long run.
- Registrations for races now assess an online processing fee of $0.50 / person on top of the standard processing fee. This is to cover usage of the Zone4 timing software. In 2016, when officially launching the new timing software we wrote that we would be re-introducing the slightly higher fee for races as for other registrations.
Before 2011, Zone4 charged $2/person + 3% for online registrations tied to our old legacy windows-based timing software. This higher processing fee for races (compared to club membership) accounted for the higher support cost of race timing. With the move to the universal web based registration system in 2011 for both club membership and races, the $1/person + $1/transaction model used for memberships was used for all registrations. As a result, no support costs for the timing system were charged for several years. Full details on timing system hardware and software pricing can be found here: https://help.zone4.ca/kb/timing-pricing/
FAQ
We host a free race where we don’t charge any fees online. Does this mean use of the timing application is free?
Yes, when the racers are imported from a Zone4 registration form that does not charge any fees, we will not charge any processing or service fees. We feel strongly that if the club isn’t charging any money for an event, that we shouldn’t either. Lots of clubs have time trials and fun events and do not charge money for them. We want to make club’s lives easier and our online registration process that flows directly into the timing software is a huge time saver for clubs. We want to encourage clubs to have more races, more time trials, and more fun events so we welcome clubs to use both our registration and timing software for all your events.
If you are uploading racers into the timing system from some other registration platform, standard import fees will still apply.
Does the $0.50 apply to races timed in the legacy software?
Yes, the fee is charged at registration time regardless of which software you choose to use for the timing. But multiple races can be created from the same registration (such as a weekend provincial cup series) and the $0.50 is paid per-registration and is not tied to how many races are built from that data.
How is it determined if the registration is a race that should charge the fee?
Zone4 automatically determines if the registration is a race based on the copied template or race template. When the registration is sent for “Request for Approval to go Live” Zone4 staff reviewing the registration will make a determination if the registration is a race. Note that in the future, only registrations that are races can be turned into races in the timing software.
What if the Zone4 timing software isn’t being used?
Zone4 staff will make a best effort to apply the fee only to registrations that will use Zone4 timing but it is the club’s responsibility to inform Zone4 before approval if the registration has been automatically identified as a race when the timing software will not be used.