Running an organisation

This chapter is for organisation directors and organisation admins. It covers setting up your organisation, its public page, the people who run it, plans and fees, approval for paid tickets, how you get paid, bank details (only needed if Sympozium owes you money), archiving an organisation and deleting one that was never used. For creating and running individual events, see Running an event.

Directors and admins: who can do what

An organisation has two kinds of manager. Directors can do everything an admin can, plus the money and people side.

Task	Organisation admin	Organisation director
Edit the organisation's details, images and testimonials (Details tab)	Yes	Yes
See storage and email usage	Yes	Yes
Create events and see all the organisation's events (Events tab)	Yes	Yes
See the Operational summary on the Stats tab	Yes	Yes
Ask for approval to sell paid places (Request approval)	Yes	Yes
See the Financial summary and money on the Stats tab	No	Yes
See who the directors and admins are (People tab)	Yes	Yes
Add and remove directors and admins, and give them another role (People tab)	No	Yes
See the Finance tab: fees, money owed and anything Sympozium owes you	No	Yes
Add or change bank details (only needed if Sympozium owes your organisation money)	No	Yes
Archive an organisation, or delete one that has never issued a ticket (Settings tab)	No	Yes
Change the plan (Plan & billing tab)	No	Yes
Accept the Organiser Terms for the organisation	No	Yes
Let event admins see an event's finances (Financial visibility)	No	Yes

Admins see the Details, Events, People and Stats tabs; on People they can look but not change anything. Directors also see Finance, Plan & billing and Settings.

Create an organisation

You need an organisation before you can run events. You'll need a confirmed email address first.

Open the organisation form. You'll find it:
- straight after signing up as an organiser, where it opens by itself, or
- on your dashboard: press Get started under Run an event, or, if your dashboard is empty, press Run an event.
Step 1 of 3: enter the Organisation name (required), and if you like the address, Website URL, Public email and Phone. You can use Find your organisation's address on Google Maps (optional) to fill in the address.
Press Next.
Step 2 of 3: enter a Tagline (required, one line of up to 120 characters) and, if you like, an About description. You add a logo and images once the organisation is created.
Press Next.
Step 3 of 3: add any social links (Facebook URL, Instagram URL, LinkedIn URL, X handle).
Tick I accept the Sympozium Organiser Terms on behalf of your organisation. The link opens the full Organiser Terms in a new tab.
Press Save & finish.

What happens next

Your organisation is created and you become its director. You get an email confirming your role.
You're taken to the organisation's management page, where you can add a logo and images. At the top, Set up your first event starts the questions for a new event (see Running an event), or press Go to my dashboard.
Your organisation starts on the Free plan.

Create another organisation

If you already run an organisation, you can set up another one. Press Create another organisation on your dashboard or in your account menu. The form is the same. Your other organisations are unchanged, you'll be the new one's director, and you can switch between them from your dashboard or your account menu.

Find your way around the organisation management page

To open it, press Manage organisation beside your organisation's name on your dashboard. From any page, you can also open your account menu (your name at the top of the page; on a phone, the menu button): under Your organisations it lists every organisation you direct or administer, and pressing one opens its management page.

At the top you'll see your organisation's name and logo, and a View public page link. Underneath are the tabs:

Details: your organisation's profile, testimonials and usage.
Events: every event the organisation has created, in tabs.
People: directors and admins. Admins can see it; only directors can change it.
Stats: a summary of events and attendees, and (for directors) money.
Finance (directors only): paid ticket approval, fees, money owed and, when needed, bank details.
Plan & billing (directors only): your plan, and upgrading.
Settings (directors only): archiving an organisation, or deleting one that has never been used.

If your organisation owes Sympozium money, or the Organiser Terms need accepting, a message appears above the tabs.

Edit your organisation's profile and public page

Your organisation has a public page that anyone can see. It shows your logo, name, tagline, main image, the About text, testimonials, a Contact & find us section, your upcoming events, and any departments.

Go to your organisation's Details tab.
Change any of these:
- Logo: cropped to a square. It saves as soon as it uploads. JPG, PNG or WebP.
- Main image: cropped to a wide banner. It saves as soon as it uploads.
Images never move on Sympozium: if you upload a moving image, its first frame is saved as a still picture.
- Organisation name (required).
- Address and postcode, with the optional Google Maps search.
- Website URL, Public email and Phone.
- Tagline (required, up to 120 characters). It shows under your name.
- About: the longer description.
- Facebook URL, Instagram URL, LinkedIn URL and X handle. These show as icons on your public page.
Press Save changes at the bottom.

To see the result, press View public page at the top.

Good to know

If your organisation has no tagline or logo yet, your dashboard reminds you to add them.
If you try to leave the page with unsaved changes, Sympozium asks you to confirm.

Add testimonials

Testimonials are quotes from past attendees. Up to 3 show on your organisation page and your event pages, labelled "Shared by the organiser". Ones tied to a series show first on that series' events.

On the Details tab, find Testimonials and press Add a testimonial.
Enter the Quote and the Attribution. Use a role (for example "ST5 anaesthetics trainee"), not a name, unless the person has agreed to be named.
Under Show on, choose All events (organisation-wide) or one of your series.
Press Add testimonial.

Each testimonial can then be moved with ↑ Up and ↓ Down, changed with Edit, hidden with Hide (and brought back with Show), or removed with Delete. Deleting can't be undone, so hide a testimonial instead if you might want it back.

Check your storage and email limits

At the bottom of the Details tab, Storage and email limits shows:

Files: how much of your organisation's storage allowance you've used. This counts session files and event files. A file used on several sessions or events counts once.
Broadcasts: how many people your organisation has emailed in the last 24 hours, out of the daily limit. New organisations have a lower limit for their first 30 days.

If you need more, write to admin@sympozium.co.uk.

Add directors and admins

Only directors can do this.

Go to the People tab.
Press Add a director or admin.
Enter the person's title, First name, Last name, Post-nominals (optional) and Email.
Under Role, choose Organisation admin or Organisation director.
Add a Note (optional) if you'd like. It's included in the invitation.
Press Add.

What happens next

The person is listed as Pending, with the email address the invitation was sent to, and gets an email inviting them.
The email link opens an invitation page. If they don't have an account yet, they press Create account (using the address the invitation was sent to). If they do, they press Sign in. Either way they come back to the invitation.
They press Accept or Decline. Once accepted, they show as Accepted, with their name only, and can press Open the organisation. If they decline, they show as Declined, with the address, and drop off the list after 14 days. To try again, invite them afresh.

Good to know

The invitation must be accepted from an account with the same email address it was sent to.
One person can be both a director and an admin, but you can't send the same role twice. If they already hold the role, or have a pending invitation for it, Sympozium says so.

Give a director or admin another role

Only directors can do this. For example, to make an admin a director as well:

Go to the People tab.
Press Add a role beside the person (anyone who is Pending or Accepted).
The form says where the invitation will go: the address their first invitation was sent to, or, once they've accepted, the email address on their account. You can't change it.
Choose a Role. A role they already hold, or have already been invited to, is shown but can't be chosen.
Add a Note (optional) if you'd like, and press Send invitation.

They get the usual invitation email, and have the new role once they accept it.

Remove a director or admin

Go to the People tab.
Press Remove next to the person.

This also withdraws a pending invitation, and the person gets a short email saying it has been withdrawn. It takes effect straight away, with no step asking you to confirm. Nobody is emailed when you remove someone who had already accepted.

Only directors can remove people. Sympozium doesn't stop you removing the organisation's last director, even if that's you, so make sure someone else is a director first. If your organisation is left without a director, email admin@sympozium.co.uk.

See your organisation's events

The Events tab lists every event the organisation has created, in five tabs, each showing how many events it holds:

Upcoming: published events that haven't finished, soonest first.
Past: events that have finished, most recent first.
Drafts: events not yet published, soonest first; drafts without dates come last.
Cancelled: cancelled events, most recently cancelled first.
Templates: events saved as templates. A template that has never been published is listed here only; a published one is also listed under its own tab, marked Template.

Each row shows the event's dates, its status in words (Published, Ended, Draft or Cancelled) and how many places are sold. Press an event to manage it.

To find an event, type part of its title in the search box and press Search. If your organisation uses series, the search also finds events by their series' title. The tabs' numbers then count only the events that match. Clear search shows everything again.

With more than 25 events in a tab, use Next and Previous to move between pages. The tab, your search and the page are kept in the page's web address, so you can bookmark it or share the link with a colleague, and your browser's Back button returns to where you were.

To start a new one, press Create an event. See Running an event for the rest.

If the Organiser Terms haven't been accepted yet, you'll see "New events can be created once the Organiser Terms have been accepted." instead of the button.

Read your organisation's stats

Go to the Stats tab. What you see depends on your role.

Everyone (admins and directors) sees:

Operational summary: Events run, Upcoming events, Attendees to date and Cancellations to date.
Events: each event with its dates, how many places are sold and how many cancellations.

Directors also see:

Financial summary, for the year you choose: Total revenue, and Money owed if your organisation owes Sympozium money, or Sympozium owes you if it owes your organisation money.
View breakdown: platform fees, card processing, refunds and your share after fees and refunds.
Monthly revenue: a bar chart for the chosen year.
Money on each event in the list: its revenue, and Paid to your Stripe account.

Payments go straight to your organisation's own Stripe account, so they count in total revenue, and Stripe pays them to your bank on your payout schedule.

Accept the Organiser Terms

The Sympozium Organiser Terms are the terms your organisation agrees to as an organiser: how fees work, how and when you're paid, and what happens if your organisation owes money. You can read them at any time from Organiser Terms in the site footer.

Only a director can accept them, on the organisation's behalf. Usually this happens when you create the organisation (the tick box on step 3).

If your organisation hasn't accepted them

Until a director accepts, the organisation can't create or publish events. Events already published carry on as normal. You'll see Accept the Organiser Terms above the tabs.

Tick I accept the Sympozium Organiser Terms on behalf of your organisation.
Press Accept the Organiser Terms.

Admins see the same message with "Only an organisation director can accept them."

When the terms are updated

When Sympozium publishes a new version, directors see The Organiser Terms have been updated above the tabs, with the version number. Read the new version, tick the box and press Accept the Organiser Terms. This doesn't block anything in the meantime.

Good to know

Sympozium records which director accepted, when, and which version. Ticking the box on its own doesn't record anything: it's saved when you press the button.

Understand the plans

There are three plans. You can see the current one on the Plan & billing tab, under Current plan.

Free

For public events, and private events with the basics. £0.

Unlimited public events, listed on Sympozium, with every feature from the programme builder to CPD certificates.
Private events (invitation-only or not listed) with the basics: registration, invitations, the attendee list, check-in and series.
Ticket types for different groups, such as trainees and consultants, and a cap on the number of places.
No card needed.

You can't sell paid places on the Free plan, or use full features on a private event.

Pay as you go

For selling tickets, and for private events with full features. No monthly fee.

Paid tickets: 5% platform fee. No minimum, no monthly cost. Ticket money goes straight to your organisation, never through Sympozium.
Private events with full features: £2 for each free place booked, charged to your organisation: attendees pay nothing. Places for the event's faculty (with a session), directors, admins and support staff aren't counted. The total is fixed 48 hours before the event starts, so places cancelled before then aren't counted; places booked after then are counted when they're booked. Private events with the basics stay free.
Upgrading is free and doesn't need a card. Before your first paid ticket goes on sale, Sympozium approves your organisation and agrees with you how you'll take payment.
The money goes straight to your organisation: card payments go to its own Stripe account, which Sympozium sets up with you, and Stripe pays them to your bank on your Stripe payout schedule. There's no processing charge from Sympozium; Stripe charges its own card fees there.

For now, paid places are sold through your organisation's own Stripe account. If that doesn't suit you, email admin@sympozium.co.uk and we'll talk it through.

Organisation subscription

For education centres, societies and organisations running regular programmes.

Unlimited private and invitation-only events for your teams, with full features, within generous annual allowances.
Paid ticket sales with no platform fee, in a band to suit your organisation.
One annual invoice, easy for your finance team to approve.

To ask about it, use the Contact us to subscribe link on the Plan & billing tab, or write to admin@sympozium.co.uk.

Private events: basic or full features

A private event is invitation-only or not listed. It has either basic or full features.

Basic, free on every plan: registration, registration questions, the waiting list, invitations, the attendee list, check-in (including QR self check-in) and series.
Full features, on Pay as you go: all of that, plus the programme builder, speakers and faculty, rooms, groups, files, emails to attendees, feedback and certificates, at £2 for each free place, charged to your organisation (attendees pay nothing).
A private event with paid tickets always has full features.
On the Organisation subscription, full features are included.

For example, a private teaching session with full features and 30 free places costs £60. With the basics, it's free.

Public events always have every feature, on every plan, at no cost.

Upgrade to Pay as you go

Only a director can upgrade. No card is needed.

Press Upgrade to Pay as you go. You'll find it:
- on the Plan & billing tab, or
- next to the message you see when the Free plan stops you, for example when you add a paid ticket type or switch a private event to full features.
Read the Fees and the Commercial terms summary. The full Organiser Terms and Terms of Use are linked beneath it.
Tick I accept the Pay as you go terms above on behalf of your organisation. If your organisation hasn't yet accepted the current Organiser Terms, the box is I accept the Sympozium Organiser Terms on behalf of your organisation instead. You're only asked to accept the Organiser Terms once.
Press Confirm upgrade. It stays greyed out until the box is ticked.

What happens next

The upgrade takes effect straight away.
You're taken back to where you started (for example, the event you were editing).
Every director gets an email confirming the new plan.
On the Plan & billing tab you'll see "You're now on Pay as you go", and what paid tickets still need: Sympozium's approval, and card payments set up through your organisation's own Stripe account (see below).

Good to know

If you're an admin, the upgrade message tells you which directors to ask.
Moving back to the Free plan isn't something you can do yourself. Contact admin@sympozium.co.uk.
The Pay as you go terms have a version number, shown above the fees. Sympozium records which version your organisation accepted, when and by whom. The Plan & billing tab shows the version accepted, with a link to read the terms.

When the Pay as you go terms change

When Sympozium publishes a new version of the Pay as you go terms, directors see a message at the top of the organisation's pages: "The Pay as you go terms have been updated". (If no version has been recorded for your organisation yet, it says "Accept the Pay as you go terms" instead.) Only a director can accept them:

Press Read and accept the Pay as you go terms.
Read the terms.
Tick I accept the Pay as you go terms above on behalf of your organisation, and press Accept the Pay as you go terms.

The message goes once a director has accepted. Your events carry on as normal meanwhile.

Understand the fees

Attendees never pay anything extra. They pay the ticket price you set, and Sympozium's fees come out of it. Sympozium never adds a fee on top at checkout.

On Pay as you go, each paid ticket has a platform fee of 5% of the ticket price. Card payments go through your organisation's own Stripe account, so there's no processing charge from Sympozium: Stripe takes its own card fees from your Stripe balance.

Ticket price	Platform fee (5%)	You receive
£50	£2.50	£47.50
£150	£7.50	£142.50
£500	£25.00	£475.00

You receive these amounts before Stripe's own card fees.

Refunds and fees

On a full refund, Sympozium returns its platform fee to you. Stripe doesn't return its own card fee.
On a partial refund, Sympozium's fee is kept.
If a refund was caused by a fault on Sympozium's side, Sympozium repays Stripe's card fee to you (see "If Sympozium owes your organisation money" below).

Reduced fees by agreement

Sometimes Sympozium agrees a reduced platform fee, or no platform fee on part of an event's ticket sales, with an organisation. If it does, the Platform fee section of your Finance tab says so, for example "A reduced platform fee applies by agreement", or how much of a fee waiver an event has used. If nothing is shown there, the standard fees apply.

VAT

Our fees are the total you pay. Sympozium isn't registered for VAT, so no VAT is added — and if that changes, the fees shown here won't go up because of it.

Get approval to sell paid places

Before your organisation's first paid ticket goes on sale, Sympozium checks your organisation. You can prepare paid ticket types on a draft event while you wait.

You need to be on Pay as you go. You don't need to give Sympozium bank details.

Ask for approval

Any director or admin can ask:

Find the message "Paid places need a quick approval from us before they can go on sale." It appears on the Finance tab under Paid places (directors), and on an event's ticket types and publish checklist.
Press Request approval.

You'll see "Approval requested on" and the date. You can't ask again within 24 hours.

What Sympozium checks

Sympozium checks that your organisation is a genuine organiser of healthcare education. That needs any one of:

a website or social media presence that matches your organisation;
a listing with Companies House or the Charity Commission, or being part of the NHS or a university;
your lead organiser being on a professional register (such as the GMC, NMC or HCPC), with your events in their field.

We also check that your events look like genuine healthcare education. Stripe checks your identity and bank account when your organisation's own Stripe account is set up with you, so that card payments go straight to it.

What happens next

When you're approved, every director gets an email: "[your organisation] can now sell paid places". If your organisation's Stripe account isn't set up yet, the email says that's the one step left, and Sympozium arranges it with you. Once it's done, you can publish events with paid tickets, and add paid tickets to events already published. Until then, a paid event's publish checklist shows "Set up card payments". The Finance tab shows "Approved to sell paid places since" and the date.

Get paid

Your ticket money goes straight to your organisation, never through Sympozium. Card payments go to its own Stripe account, and Stripe pays them to your bank on your Stripe payout schedule.

Sympozium's 5% platform fee is taken from each payment. There's no processing charge from Sympozium; Stripe charges its own card fees.
The Plan & billing tab shows "Payments: through your own Stripe account" with the last digits of the account.
An event's Finance section says "Payments go to your Stripe account" and links to your Stripe dashboard.

If Sympozium owes your organisation money

Sympozium only ever owes your organisation money in rare cases, for example when it refunds an attendee because of a fault on its side: Stripe keeps its card fee on that payment, so Sympozium repays the fee to you by bank transfer.

That's the only time Sympozium asks for your bank details. When it happens:

the directors get an email saying so;
the Finance tab says "We owe your organisation" and the amount, and asks for your bank details if you haven't given them;
the dashboard says "Sympozium owes you" and the amount.

Until then, the Finance tab says your organisation doesn't need to give bank details.

Add or change your bank details

Only directors can see and change bank details. They're on the Finance tab, at the bottom, when Sympozium owes your organisation money (or you've given them before).

Go to the Finance tab.
Enter the Name on the account, exactly as your bank has it, so the paying bank can check it before Sympozium sends a payment.
Enter the Sort code (6 digits) and Account number (8 digits).
Press Save bank details.

For security, the sort code and account number are never shown again; only the name on the account is. To change them, enter new details and save. To remove them, press Clear bank details. If your organisation is approved to sell paid places and you change or clear them, every director gets an email saying what changed, when and by whom. If you didn't make the change, contact admin@sympozium.co.uk straight away.

If your organisation owes Sympozium money

Occasionally an organisation's balance goes below zero, so it owes Sympozium money. This can happen when your organisation has £2 charges for free places on a private event with full features.

A chargeback (an attendee's bank taking a payment back) doesn't add to what you owe Sympozium. The money comes back out of your organisation's own Stripe account, Stripe charges its dispute fee there, and you respond to the dispute in your Stripe dashboard. Sympozium's platform fee on that payment isn't returned.

What you'll see

Directors see a message above the tabs, on the dashboard and on the Finance tab: "You owe Sympozium £12.00. We'll send you an invoice, payable within 14 days." Directors also get an email showing how the amount adds up and how to settle it. An invoice can be paid by bank transfer, or by card when Sympozium sends a payment link with it.

If the invoice isn't paid by its due date (14 days after the invoice), your organisation can't publish new paid events until it is. An event's publish checklist then shows "Pay the overdue amount your organisation owes". Money owed that hasn't been invoiced yet, or an invoice still within its 14 days, doesn't stop you publishing.

Delete your organisation

If your organisation has never issued a ticket (free registrations count), a director can delete it.

Go to the Settings tab.
Type the organisation's name in the box, exactly as it's shown (capitals don't matter).
Press Delete organisation, and confirm.

This removes the organisation and all its events, with their programme, ticket types, files and invitations, and everyone's roles in it. Nobody's own account is affected: you and your team can still sign in. It can't be undone. You're taken to your dashboard, which says the organisation has been deleted.

If your organisation has issued tickets, or has had money records, a Stripe account or the Organisation subscription, the Settings tab says it can't be deleted, because its records are kept. You can archive it instead (see below).

Archive your organisation

When your organisation has finished running events, a director can archive it. Archiving hides the organisation and its events from the public, and it no longer appears on your dashboard. Attendees keep their own tickets and certificates. Its records are kept and nothing is deleted.

Go to the Settings tab.
Under Archive organisation, press Archive organisation.
Read what archiving does, and press Yes, archive it (or Cancel).

You're taken to your dashboard, which says the organisation has been archived.

You can't archive it while it has published events that haven't finished, or while there's money still to settle between your organisation and Sympozium. The page tells you which. To bring an archived organisation back, contact admin@sympozium.co.uk and we'll unarchive it. It comes back just as it was, with its events.

Let event admins see an event's finances

Event directors can always see an event's Finance section. Event admins can't, unless an organisation director allows it.

Open the event and go to its Settings tab.
Under Financial visibility, tick Event admins can see this event's Finance area (event directors always can), and press Save.

Only an organisation director can change it; everyone else sees "Only an organisation director can change this."