Payment processing behind Tessitura

What Tessitura is, and who runs it

Tessitura Network is the platform arts and cultural organizations run their audience on: the box office, the membership and subscription base, and the fundraising relationships that keep the doors open. Museums, performing arts centres, orchestras, theatres and other non profits across North America run it, and because it holds ticketing, membership and giving in one place, it becomes the system of record for everything a patron does.

That makes the payment layer behind it more than a card reader. Every ticket, renewal and gift passes through it, at the counter, online and over the phone.

Where Windcave fits

Tessitura integrates with Windcave for payments. Windcave is a gateway and terminal platform covering attended, unattended and ecommerce acceptance, so a box office counter, an online sale and a donation can run on one payment layer behind the same Tessitura configuration.

Kubera is a registered agent of Windcave and Canada's Windcave deployment specialists. For Tessitura organizations, we are the deployment and support partner for that payment layer, in Canada and the US.

What Kubera deploys

The deployment has three parts: the acquiring agreement that settles the money, the Windcave gateway configuration that connects it to Tessitura, and the terminals at the counters where patrons pay in person. We board the acquiring, configure the gateway, stage and deploy the terminals, set up reporting, train box office and development staff, and run the cutover with no downtime, so a season on sale keeps selling while the change happens behind it.

What a Windcave deployment adds

For a Tessitura organization reviewing its payments setup, a Windcave deployment brings additional features and functionality. Secure payment links can be generated for invoices, donations and phone sales, with 3DS2 security and tokenized card storage: a donor or a group buyer pays through the link, and the card is held as a secure token for the next renewal or gift instead of arriving as numbers written on a PDF form. It gets credit card information out of your emails and out of your filing cabinets.

For online payment page customization we work in conjunction with Jigsaw, an approved partner in the Tessitura ecosystem. Support comes from the Kubera team that did the deployment, in English and French.

In English and French, in Canada and the US

Tessitura organizations sit on both sides of the border, and Quebec organizations work in French. We deploy and support Windcave in English and French, for Tessitura organizations in Canada and the US, from a Canadian base. For a Tessitura organization in Quebec, that means the deployment, the staff training and the ongoing support run in French. For an organization that would otherwise work with a distant vendor directly, that is a deployment partner who answers in your language and stays through the support that follows go live.

What to read on your current statement

A cultural organization produces an unusual statement. Ticket sales cluster around on sale dates and performance nights, memberships and recurring gifts renew on stored cards, and donations arrive in amounts a retail statement never sees. Each of those has its own transaction profile, and a blended agreement prices them as one.

Send a recent statement. We read it line by line and come back within 1 to 2 business days with what you are paying and whether the structure fits how the organization actually sells and raises money. Where the current agreement is already the right fit, we say so.