Managing your finances is crucial for running a youth sports club or league. Thankfully, you don’t need to be an accountant to tackle club finances, especially with an integrated platform like SportsEngine HQ. Here are three tips on how to get a better handle on your organization’s finances.
1. Create a budget to plan for expenses
Before collecting a single registration, all clubs and leagues should have a solid budget in place for the calendar year. This budget should include line items for your entire organization’s operations. Include items like sanctioning fees, facility fees, staff salaries, equipment, marketing, and any other costs you can anticipate for the coming year. Leave some room for unexpected expenses, just in case.
Once your budget is in place, it will guide you on how much to charge for registration fees and how much money you may need to raise in the coming year to close the gap.
Consider sharing your plan with board members and your players’ families. Giving the families some background knowledge can provide them with peace of mind and insight into what their registration fees are truly paying for.
2. Automate payments
With your budget in place, it’s time to start collecting registrations and team fees. Depending on your system, this can be as simple as sending out a link for families to sign up and pay. Still, there are a few ways to make the brunt of participating in youth sports even easier for your families.
Give your participants a way to pay their fees with an installment plan instead of one upfront payment to spread the payments over time.
With SportsEngine HQ, you can create custom payment terms to work within family budgets and allow them to select an option that fits their needs quickly. This will make your sport more accessible and enable more families to participate.
3. Track every dollar and cent
After collecting team fees, be sure to track every dollar coming in or out of your organization down to the penny.
Use a spreadsheet for a quick and easy tracking system, or get more advanced with accounting software like QuickBooks. If you want to streamline your processes, get a club management platform to help, such as SportsEngine HQ.
SportsEngine HQ has various financial reporting tools that can make tracking simple. The newly enhanced payout report allows you to dive into all of your payouts, filter by specific dates, show your customer payment history, and more. There’s also an activity report that allows you to view and export all of your organization's invoicing activity within a given date or a date range. This includes invoices, payments, refunds, voids, and credits.
Whatever path you choose, tracking expenses is vital for managing your organization’s financial activity. By constantly monitoring, you can dial in your spending and even find places where you’re saving money to inform next year’s budget.
Get your finances in order
Managing your finances is all about proper planning, organization, and simplifying processes for the families you’re serving. With these tips, you’ll be on your way to financial success.
