Most families stopped carrying cash years ago. The change at school events is not that parents want to pay by phone; they already do everywhere else. The change is that schools have run out of reasons to be the last place that needs a twenty. This is a plan for making the switch in one season, and for handling the handful of people it would otherwise leave out.
What cash actually costs you
Cash looks free and is the most expensive way a school takes money. Someone has to make change, count the box, reconcile it against the paper ticket roll, and drive the deposit to the bank. Two volunteers at the gate become one plus a phone. The count that took forty minutes in the athletic office after the game becomes a report that already exists. The bag of money that used to sit in a desk drawer overnight stops existing. And the line at the gate moves faster, because scanning a ticket takes a second and making change takes ten.
The revenue side is real too. Rounding up for the program, buying the second hot dog, adding a season pass: all of it goes up when the payment is a tap rather than a search for bills.
What changes at the gate
Tickets sell online before the game, with no fan account, and the family shows a QR code that a volunteer scans from a phone. For the family that arrives without a ticket, a sign at the gate carries a QR code that opens the same store; they buy on their phone in the line and are scanned thirty seconds later. For anyone who wants to pay a person, the volunteer takes a tap-to-pay payment on the same phone and hands back a ticket on the spot.
Passes work the same way. A season pass in the wallet scans like a ticket, and the athletic office can see who is using it.
What changes at the stand
The concession stand takes tap to pay on a phone, or on a card reader if the volunteers prefer a device. Items are set up once (the menu rarely changes), so the volunteer taps the item and the parent taps the card. Every sale is tied to the game it happened at, which is the thing a Square account can never tell you: what sells at football versus basketball, and whether the stand actually made money after supplies.
The people cash still serves
Some grandparents, some visiting fans, and some families will show up with cash, and a school should not turn them away. Keep one cash lane at the gate for the first season, staffed by the volunteer who likes it, and enter those sales into the same system as a cash payment so the report is still complete. Most schools find the cash lane handles a small share of the gate by the second month and retire it the next year. The stand can do the same with a small float.
Communicate the change the way you would any other: on the schedule page, in the newsletter before the first home game, and on the sign at the gate. "Buy tickets here, scan to enter, cards and phones at the stand" is enough.
Making the switch in one season
Start with one sport's home games. Set up the ticket types and the stand's menu once, train the gate volunteers for ten minutes before the first game, and keep the cash lane. After the first month, look at the report: tickets by type, stand sales by item, net per game. That report is the argument for the next sport, and for the business office, which stops receiving a bag and starts receiving a line item.
---
In Admittee: the Admittee Onsite app scans tickets and passes, takes tap to pay or reader payments at the gate and the stand, and records cash so the report is complete. Card-present concession and merchandise sales carry a fee of 2.8% + $0.20; tickets sold at the gate 5% + $0.75. See Event day.