ROLLER + Groupon integration

Groupon is an online marketplace that promotes limited-time discounted offers, helping venues like yours attract new guests — especially during off-peak periods. Guests purchase deals through Groupon’s platform, then redeem them at your venue using ROLLER.

This guide shows you how to set up and use the Groupon integration with ROLLER.

Groupon is currently available to venues located in the US, UK and Germany.

What you can do with the ROLLER + Groupon integration

Integrating Groupon with ROLLER allows you to:

• List your products in ROLLER on the Groupon website/app.

• Manage capacity and pricing directly within ROLLER for Groupon bookings.

• Schedule availability for specific ticket types in ROLLER, automatically reflected on Groupon.

• Redeem Groupon tickets at POS using the same process as other ROLLER bookings.

• Track Groupon redemptions and external payments using ROLLER Analytics and reports. Note: revenue is only recognized after voucher redemption in-venue at POS.

• Sync sales updates automatically between ROLLER and Groupon (may take up to an hour to update).

Each ticket variation must be configured as tax-inclusive in Advanced options. This is a mandatory Groupon requirement for correct integration.

Quick summary

Supported ROLLER product types and features

Groupon products are configured as regular products in ROLLER with a few additional settings. Currently, the product types and features are:

Product descriptions or images from ROLLER. Add these directly in Groupon.

Getting started with Groupon

You must have an account with Groupon to get started with this integration. 

You must first:

1. Decide which ROLLER products to offer on Groupon.

2. Negotiate pricing and terms with a Groupon rep.

3. If you don’t have a contact, connect through Groupon’s partner site or ask ROLLER Support.

Once you have completed the above steps, it's time to set up your Groupon products in ROLLER.

Step 1: Create Groupon products in ROLLER

Set up your Groupon offerings as session or standard pass products in ROLLER, including ticket variations, prices and availability.

Each product's ticket variation must be set to "tax inclusive" in its advanced settings. This is required by Groupon for the integration to work correctly. If your venue normally uses tax-exclusive pricing, avoid including other items in Groupon bookings, as all items in the transaction will be treated as tax-inclusive.

1. From Venue Manager, go to Products > Create product.

2. Select a new session or standard pass for your Groupon offer.

3. Configure the product with variations, prices and availability.
   If you are a HQ venue, you can create Groupon offers as HQ products and then add them to individual managed venues, just as you would with other products. 

4. Set each ticket variation to be tax inclusive. Groupon requires that your ticket prices include all taxes. You must do this in the advanced options of each ticket.

   • In the product settings, select the ticket variation.

   • Select Advanced options (1) to reveal the ticket's tax settings.

   • Select Tax override (2), then select Tax inclusive (3), for the tax rate you want. View the standard pass example below. You won't be able to select Item is sold on Groupon until you configure the ticket price to be tax inclusive. 

Step 2: Configure Groupon-specific ticket variation settings

An administrator staff level is required to edit Groupon-specific fields for ROLLER ticket variations.

1. In the session or standard price product, select the ticket variation.

2. Select Advanced options.

3. Select Groupon >  Item is sold on Groupon. You won't be able to select this option until the ticket type is configured as tax-inclusive (Groupon requirement). Refer to the above section for details.

4. Complete the following mandatory fields from Groupon products:

   • Sale price – The price the item is sold for in Groupon

   • Original price – The value of the item before the Groupon discount. This shows as a strikethrough price on the Groupon checkout.

   • Merchant price – The amount your venue is paid by Groupon. This value is used in ROLLER to report external payments and should match your agreement with Groupon to ensure accurate financial reporting.

Step 3: Share ROLLER Groupon product IDs with Groupon

ROLLER product IDs must be shared with Groupon for products associated with your deals.

Find these in Venue Manager > Settings > Integrations > Groupon.

Step 4: Additional configuration

• Disable date selection (standard pass only)
  This removes the calendar on the Groupon checkout for standard pass products. When selected, Groupon creates bookings with a booking date corresponding to the day of the transaction and should be used for passes that are valid within a specified date range from the purchase date.

• Report Groupon merchant price as revenue
  This will use the Groupon merchant price (the value paid to you, rather than the value paid by the guest) as the reported external payments received and revenue value in ROLLER.  

Modify products being sold through Groupon

Once your products are live on Groupon, any modifications to the product name, pricing and availability in ROLLER may take up to one hour or more to sync through to Groupon.

Guest's view on Groupon checkout

The ROLLER fields and settings that are displayed on the Groupon checkout are:

• Ticket names and prices (not product name; this is configured in Groupon)

• Groupon-specific settings

• Available dates/times

When a Groupon deal is purchased, the guest will receive a confirmation email from Groupon that contains their ROLLER booking ID.

This can be scanned or typed into the ROLLER POS search field to locate and redeem the booking on entry to your venue.

Redeem Groupon bookings at POS

Groupon bookings are fully integrated into the ROLLER platform and behave like any booking.

Booking details

• Groupon bookings contain guest details and the tickets purchased, just like regular bookings.

• You can view, manage and interact with these bookings in Venue Manager or at POS.

Redeeming at POS

Staff must redeem Groupon bookings at ROLLER POS using the same process as for any other booking.

Staff can also:

• Assign waivers to guests

• Add extra items to the booking (eg food, merchandise, upsells)

• Capture guest details if not already completed

You must correctly redeem Groupon bookings at POS as this information will be sent back to Groupon. If the booking is not redeemed, then it may be eligible for a refund if the guest asks for one, as Groupon have a very liberal refund policy. All refunds are managed by Groupon.

Redeem flexible-use passes sold on Groupon

Standard passes sold through Groupon can be checked in just like any other booking in ROLLER.

However, if a Groupon standard pass functions more like a general-use voucher, where guests can turn up and choose a session on the day, you’ll need a way to assign them to a specific session time to manage capacity.

To manage flexible-use passes, create a $0 session pass product in ROLLER. This lets you allocate guests into scheduled sessions while tracking capacity.

Here’s how it works:

1. Create a product in ROLLER with:

   • A session schedule (eg jump times or activity slots)

   • A price of $0 (since the guest has already paid Groupon)

2. At POS:

   • When the guest arrives with their Groupon pass, search for their Groupon booking, and redeem the booking.

   • Complete the $0 booking to assign them to a session. No additional payment is required — they’ve already paid Groupon.).

3. Now the guest:

   • Is allocated to a session

   • And your capacity limits are respected

Report on Groupon sales

When a guest purchases a Groupon, it creates a booking in ROLLER. These bookings appear in ROLLER reports, but there are key differences in how the payment is recorded.

Because the payment is made through Groupon — not through ROLLER Payments — the transaction is recorded differently depending on your venue’s configuration.

There are two ways ROLLER can record Groupon transactions:

1. API integration with Groupon:

   When Groupon is connected to ROLLER via API (bookings created automatically when guests purchase on Groupon), payments appear under the API Channel with Cheque as the payment method.
   These are bookings created and prepaid through the Groupon integration.

2. Manual POS Groupon method:

   When venues use a manual POS method (no API integration — staff select “Groupon” as a payment type at POS), payments appear under the POS Channel with Voucher as the payment method.
   These are bookings entered manually at POS when guests present their Groupon voucher.

This ensures Groupon sales are correctly separated from other transactions, such as credit card or cash payments.

Report specifically on Groupon transactions

To report specifically on Groupon transactions (external Groupon payment received - not recognized if your venue is using accrual accounting):

• Open a report like Detailed Transactions and filter by Voucher to identify Groupon transactions.

• Use the filter and select "Voucher" as the payment type.

Report on Groupon sales numbers

To track Groupon-related sales volume and net revenue, use the Detailed Product Sales report in ROLLER. This report gives you full visibility into Groupon product performance and payments received via external platforms.

1. Use the Detailed Product Sales report (Reports > All reports > Detailed Product Sales).

2. Use the Product filter to select only the Groupon-specific products you’ve set up.

3. Add the "External Payments" column:

   • Right-click in the table, choose External payments, and view how much Groupon has paid your venue.

   • Select “External Payments” to display the payments received via Groupon (not via ROLLER Payments).

4. You can now view for the selected timeframe:

   • Number of tickets sold through Groupon (Quantity sold).

   • Total amounts received from Groupon redemptions (External payments).

   • Total tickets redeemed at POS (Quantity recognized).

5. Save as a custom view (optional but recommended):

   • Select the down arrow next to the report title.

   • Then, save the view to reuse this configuration later, without reapplying filters or re-adding columns.

Tax is always inclusive

If tax is applied to a Groupon ticket, the sale price for tickets in Groupon will always be tax-inclusive, regardless of your venue's default tax setting.

To enable this, you must configure each ticket’s tax settings individually in the ticket's advanced options, as this cannot be set at the product level.

You won't be able to set up the integration without setting each Groupon product ticket variation to tax-inclusive in ROLLER. Refer to the section above to see how to do this.

For example, if you set a $10 Groupon ticket with a 5% tax rate, tax is backed out from the $10 (ie $9.52 + $0.48 tax).