Frequently Asked Questions

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Simply send an email or call to request a quote or to book live captioning for your event.

Include the following: 

• date and time of booking
• duration of event
• whether you'd like remote or on-site captioning
• event description
• any questions

Access Captions will respond promptly with availability, a quote or booking confirmation.

Prior to your event, Access Captions will request prep material (event info, run sheets, speaker names etc.) and liaise with you and AV tech (if applicable) about caption delivery to suit your specific needs.

Call or email Bernadette for friendly and personal guidance. Unlike large captioning organisations where a sales manager (or bot) will take your booking, here at Access Captions you deal directly with the stenocaptioner herself.

Bernadette will discuss your event with you and guide you through the process of providing live captioning. She understands the complexity of event planning and ensures clear and professional communication, reliability, proactive troubleshooting when required, and high-quality work.

As an owner/operator, Bernadette genuinely cares about the service delivered and takes a personal interest in every job.

As early as possible! Professional live captioning, like Auslan interpreting, is in high demand.

Access Captions is a small business and stenocaptioner Bernadette personally manages and captions all bookings, so please book well in advance to ensure your event can be covered.

If your event is large (such as a conference), it may require more than one captioner. In these instances, Bernadette draws on highly skilled steno colleagues for assistance.

Access Captions sends their live captions to a unique web link provided for your event (this can be password-protected).

You can display the captioning at your event in various ways:

• as a full screen of text on a large monitor
• underneath/above a slide presentation (similar to TV captions)
• via a QR code for audience members to view on personal devices
• embedded into a livestream
• simply sharing the link with audience members

You provide Access Captions with video and audio of your event, usually via Zoom, Teams, or similar. It's important you have a reliable internet connection.

Yes, Access Captions provides captioning for workplace meetings, seminars, events, job interviews and more. 

According to the Australian Government Employment Assistance Fund Guidelines (January 2025), workplace assistance (including Auslan and live captioning) "aims to maximise the ability of employees who are deaf or have a hearing impairment to find work and assist them to achieve workplace independence".

Funding for realtime captioning in the workplace is capped at a maximum of $13,140.40 (GST inclusive) for a 12-month period. Find more info and apply at https://www.jobaccess.gov.au/.

Using a stenocaptioner for your live event captioning ensures incredibly accurate live captioning that is professional, intelligent, verbatim, and contains no embarrassing or laughable errors.

It demonstrates respect for those who rely on live captions to access and participate in your event.

Afterwards, you receive an accurate, well-formatted transcript, including speaker identification, not a jumble of incorrect words on a page.

Be aware of production or venue packages which include captioning, whether paid or free. Ask your provider how the captions are being created - human or AI?

Access Captions is a proud member of the National Court Reporters Association in the USA.

Its advocacy group, NCRA Strong, answers this very well:

"The real question isn’t whether you should caption your content; it’s how you should do it." 

"The best approach to captioning remains rooted in the human experience of the spoken word. Professionals trained to provide captions bring human sensitivities and contextual awareness to captioning that no Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) system can."

"Captions provide accurate access to the audible content on the screen. If captions present that content in ways that make no sense, the captions are useless."

"The most accurate, highest quality captions remain those captured by the human ear of trained captioning professionals to avoid the gaffes and error rates associated with speech recognition solutions."