For sports clubs
The club's back office, kept as well as the pitch
Subscriptions, bar takings and grants recorded under their own headings, a cashflow that follows the season, coaches' DBS checks and safeguarding records kept in date and private, and the big project tracked from first pound to last.
Free for 30 days, no card needed. Then £5 a month or £50 a year, everything included.
What makes a club's money awkward
Seasonal income, a bar that is a small business, and a junior section that brings proper safeguarding duties with it.
- Subscriptions arrive in a rush, then trickle. Most members pay at the start of the season, a few pay in instalments, and some pay at the bar. The treasurer has to know what the year will bring in before the ground rent and the league fees fall due.
- The bar and match days are a business of their own. Takings in cash, suppliers to pay, a float to keep. Mixed in with the subscriptions, nobody can tell whether the bar is making money or losing it.
- The junior section changes everything. Coaches and team managers working with children need DBS checks, the club needs a safeguarding officer and a policy, and the governing body will ask about both.
- The big project spans seasons. New nets, a clubhouse roof, a roller, a boat. Grants, a members' appeal and the club's own savings all go in, and the committee needs to know how much is left.
What The Charity Office does for a sports club
Subscriptions, bar takings and grants kept apart
Subscriptions recorded as membership income, bar and match-day takings as trading, grants as grants, so the year's summary shows each apart. Finer headings of your own - match fees, kit sales - can each have a line in the budget and be compared against it month by month.
A forecast built around the season
Tick the months subscriptions actually arrive and the months the big bills fall. The cashflow shows the lowest point of the year before you reach it.
Coach and volunteer DBS checks
Each check with its level and the date your policy says to renew, and an email before it falls due. Checks can belong to coaches and team managers as well as committee members.
Safeguarding concerns kept private
Recorded properly, with what was done and whether it was referred on, and stored encrypted. Committee members can read them; volunteer logins cannot even see that the section exists.
The capital project as a project
Set up the new nets or the roof as a project with its target. Payments towards it are marked against it, and it shows what has been spent and what is left across as many seasons as it takes.
The ground lease, the insurance and the licences
The lease or licence for the ground, the club's insurance, the premises licence for the bar, each with its renewal date and a reminder.
What it costs
£5 a month, or £50 a year
One price with everything in it: the money, the forecast, the trustees, the meetings, the compliance records, the grants and the GDPR records. No charge per trustee, and the charity is billed rather than whoever signed up, so the subscription stays put when the committee changes.
Questions people ask
Does it keep our membership list or collect subscriptions?
No. It does not hold members' details, send renewal reminders to members or take payments. It records the subscription money once it has reached the bank, as membership income.
Does it manage fixtures, teams or availability?
No. Keep using whatever you use for those. This is the club's back office: the money, the committee, the safeguarding records and the paperwork.
We are not a registered charity. Can we use it?
Yes. Plenty of clubs are not charities, and the same paperwork applies. It is written for charities, so a few words on the screens will not quite be yours, and the charity number can be left blank.
Who can see the safeguarding records?
The owners, administrators, the secretary and committee members with a trustee login can read them, and only an owner or administrator can record a concern - so a welfare officer who records them usually has an administrator's login. The treasurer's and volunteers' logins do not show the section at all.
Can the bar be shown separately from everything else?
Mostly. Bar takings are recorded as trading income and bar stock as a spending heading of its own, so the reports show both. Give the bar its own lines in the budget too, and the cashflow compares them with what actually happened each month.
Put this season in before the AGM
Start free, bring in the season's subscriptions and spending, and see the lowest month of the year before it arrives.