Running the shoutout cash station

If your competition sells shoutouts, some fans will pay by card from their phones — but plenty prefer cash. The cash station is a table with a volunteer, a tablet, and a cash box.

Who can run it: the host, a Co-Host, or a Volunteer Coordinator (staff roles).

The station has two screens that work together on the same tablet (or two tablets):

The volunteer cash queue

The Volunteer Cash Station page is the money screen. It shows:

• Awaiting Payment and Paid So Far totals — including the dollars collected, so the cash box should always match the screen.
• A Phone Submission Code box.
• The list of Unpaid Shoutouts that can still be collected. Rejected messages are removed from this list and its count; do not collect for them.

The queue also has Announcements for the host's Staff and Public messages, even before shoutouts are enabled. Updates leave the payment and code-lookup controls in place. Messages need a connection and clear if the connection fails or your staff access expires. Open announcements opens a separate reader tab and works without JavaScript. Staff messages do not appear on the fan-facing walk-up kiosk.

Two kinds of customers arrive:

Fans who typed a shoutout on their own phone and chose to pay cash. Their phone shows a 6-digit code:

1. Enter the code in Phone Submission Code and tap Look Up Code, or tap Review Batch beside one of the fan's phone messages.
2. Review every message, band and the full total. One code covers all of this fan's unpaid eligible phone shoutouts for this competition. Rejected and already-paid messages are excluded; messages awaiting moderation are labeled.
3. Take that full amount and tap Collect $X for N shoutouts. Payment is recorded for the complete displayed list at once. There is no option to pay only some messages.
4. Check the Payment received receipt. A repeated confirmation or an older code for the same settled batch shows the original receipt and does not collect again. Later submissions receive a new code.

If the same fan has submitted more messages since paying, the old code's receipt shows a highlighted notice, This fan has N unpaid messages under code XXXXXX, with a Review and collect link. Follow it before telling the fan they are paid up.

After you tap Collect, the receipt says Recorded just now when your tap took the payment. If it says Already recorded earlier by another station, someone else collected first: do not take cash twice, and return any cash you took.

If a fan adds a message, moderation changes, or the price changes before confirmation, no payment is recorded. Review the new complete list and total, then confirm again. A confirmation expires after 10 minutes; reloading the same list does not extend it. Phone code lookup and batch confirmation need a connection and are not queued offline. If cash was already taken when a confirmation is refused or the connection fails, check the receipt after reconnecting and ask the host to resolve any difference before collecting more money.

A fan can recover their code using My cash shoutouts on the schedule in the same browser. If their fan session has expired or the browser changed, a code they saved still works at the authorized cash station. Older individual codes remain usable. A walk-up code continues to mark that single entry paid; review phone batches first.

Walk-ups who typed their message at your table (below): find their message in the Unpaid Shoutouts list and tap its Mark Paid button as the cash changes hands.

The walk-up kiosk

Tap Open walk-up kiosk to flip the tablet into fan-facing mode — a simple form with no menus or buttons a stranger shouldn't press. Hand the tablet to the fan:

1. They fill in Band (or "General — any band"), To, their Message (140 characters max), and From, then tap Submit Shoutout.
2. The screen says "Please hand the volunteer your cash."
3. Take the cash and mark the message paid from your queue screen. The kiosk resets itself for the next person after a few seconds — no tap needed.

Bad stadium Wi-Fi is fine

When you set up the tablet, open the station screens while it's online — that morning is fine — and leave them open through the event; consider installing MusterSheet on it so the station is one tap away at setup. With the screen open, if the network drops, the kiosk says "Saved Locally" and keeps taking shoutouts — it resets itself the same way, and they upload themselves when the connection returns. Check the station after reconnecting: a payment attempt for a message rejected while offline will be refused. Refer any cash already collected for that message to the host.

Recently Paid shows the collection time, even after a message is read or moderated. Older receipts without that timestamp show their last update time.

End of the day

Tap End-of-Day Report on the queue screen for the cash reconciliation: what the system says you collected versus what's in the box. Count, record, and hand both to the host with a clear conscience.

Read or rejected messages retain their payment records. Paid So Far uses recorded collection amounts, including paid messages later rejected; a price change does not alter an earlier collection. Repeating Mark Paid or entering the same code again preserves the original receipt and does not record another collection. The end-of-day report assigns receipts to the venue-local collection date, so later moderation does not move that cash to another day when a collection timestamp was recorded. Older receipts without a collection timestamp use their last update date; records without a paid amount use the event price as a fallback.

Fans see the moderation policy before submitting or continuing payment: payments for messages rejected for foul language or other inappropriate content are not refundable. Rejection keeps the record and does not issue a refund.