registrant count

I'm not sure if this has been addressed in the forums before, but I did not see it while searching.


In the past, I made a custom event registration form (shopping cart style) that worked great for 10 years or so. We recently moved to the cloud with BBNC, so that removed all of our custom parts. This fall we did our Homecoming and Family Weekend (our two biggest events) in BBNC and they were very difficult to process/report on in the backend. We have found some ways we could simplify them for next year, but we have still identified some issues with reporting in the new test event we created.


Basically, if I am a registered user of BBNC, and I register for an event (picking a few pricing units), then add my spouse and two children. I then process the event registration into RE. When I view the list of participants on the event, it shows a total of 9 people registered (bottom left of status bar). I can't even tell how RE is getting that count. Myself would be 1, then my spouse would be 1, then each child should be 1. I personally registered for 4 items, my spouse for 4, and my children for 2 each. Any combination of those does not equal 9 total. 


Can someone help me understand how this total is calculated, and then how to avoid this fiasco?


Thank you,

George