How to choose
club management
software

What club management software covers

Most member clubs need three things from it: the members, the courts and the money. A club that runs more than one activity usually needs the rest of the clubhouse too.

What almost every member club needs

• Members: applications, households, membership types, renewals and what each person owes.
• Courts: bookings under the club’s own rules, with guests and closures.
• Money: invoices and payments recorded against each member, with GST shown correctly.

What a club with a clubhouse also needs

• The bar and functions: a till with member accounts, and function enquiries, quotes and deposits.
• People: rosters for staff and volunteers, and coaching terms and rolls.
• Competitions: ladders, leagues and draws, with results.
• Telling members: emails, texts and the club’s website.

Each of these a club runs in a separate tool is another login, another copy of the member list and another subscription.

Start with your club’s ten jobs

A system is judged on the jobs your office and volunteers do every week. Before you look at any system:

• Write down ten jobs, the ones done most often, and who does each.
• Count every system and spreadsheet the club uses today, what it costs a year, and who holds its login.
• Ask your association what it needs from the club each year, and whether that needs its own system.
• Agree who decides: one person leads the choice and the committee approves it.

Work out the cost of a full year

The cheapest subscription is not always the cheapest year. Ask every supplier for each of these, in writing:

• The subscription for twelve months at your club’s size, and what happens as membership grows.
• Set-up: who brings your records across from the old system, and what it costs.
• Fees on payments: whether any fee is a share of what members pay the club.
• Text messages and add-ons: what each costs.
• The tools still needed: everything the club would still pay for alongside it.

Add them up for each system, and put the totals side by side.

Payments, GST and the treasurer

Ask how money comes in, and how the figures reach the treasurer and the accountant.

• How members pay: card online, direct debit, bank transfer or at the counter, and which of these the system takes today.
• GST on every invoice: if the club is registered for GST, invoices and receipts show it correctly.
• The BAS: the treasurer gets the figures for each period, not a spreadsheet to build.
• The bank: statements matched to the payments recorded.
• The accounts: how the figures reach your accounting software, by a connection or an export.

Your members’ records and privacy

The club is responsible for its members’ details, whoever runs the system. Ask:

• Where they are kept: in which country, and with whom.
• Who sees what: a coach or convener sees only what their job needs, and the committee decides.
• Juniors on public screens: how names are shown on screens and public pages.
• Leaving with your records: whether the club can download everything it holds, at any time, and in what form.

The people who will use it

Most of the people using it are volunteers, members and casual staff, on their phones.

• On a phone, with nothing to install: members book and pay, staff answer their shifts, coaches take the roll.
• Learnt in an afternoon: a new volunteer can do their part after one session.
• Help when it goes wrong: who you contact, when they are there, and a written list of what it does not do yet.
• Shown on your own jobs: ask to see your ten jobs done, not a general demonstration.

Compare systems side by side

Score each system on your ten jobs: 0 if it cannot do the job, 1 if it does it with effort, 2 if it does it well. Put the full year’s cost beside the score, and the system that does your jobs best for a cost you can explain is usually clear.

Common mistakes

• Choosing from a feature list instead of the jobs the office does.
• Comparing subscriptions but not payment fees, texts and the other tools still needed.
• Changing in the six weeks either side of renewals.
• Leaving one person holding all the knowledge of the new system.
• Not getting the club’s records out of the old system before its contract ends.

When you have chosen, the committee’s changeover checklist covers the move.

How Sports Club OS answers these questions

Sports Club OS is club management software for member clubs, built at a club in Melbourne.

• One system: members, courts, the bar till, functions, rosters, classes, competitions, GST and emails, on one member list.
• A fixed price for your club’s size: billed yearly, with every feature and nothing taken from takings. Ask for your club’s price.
• Your records, any time: an administrator can download everything the club holds.
• What it does not do yet: online card payments, direct debit and a Xero connection are not available yet.

Sources

1. GST registration for not-for-profits, Australian Taxation Office

Related: The committee’s changeover checklist · Website content management for sports clubs · Sports club management software