Chorleywood Common Youth Football Club – Admin Down 70%, Income Up £2,000

Chorleywood Common Youth Football Club

Founded in 1976, the club supports 35 teams ranging from Under 7 to Under 18 plus a thriving Soccer School for Under 5's and 6's.
With nearly 500 players, it's one of the largest and most successful Clubs in the county of Hertfordshire.

Located on the outskirts of Rickmansworth, England, Chorleywood Common YFC wanted to find a solution that would help them increase payment collection rates and move away from handling cash and cheque payments so to minimise the risk of money being misplaced. After implementing LoveAdmin they have become a ‘cashless' Club, with all money paid online and fully accounted for through the transparent reporting provided by the system.

The Challenge

Prior to using LoveAdmin, the Club was using a number of disconnected systems to manage Members’ information, payment collections and communication including Excel, paper forms and a disparate email application they pasted email addresses into each time they needed to communicate with the Parents of the Players.

Managers were tasked with handing out Player registration forms, collecting fees and on occasion, relaying messages from the Club.

Forms and money were passed to the membership secretary who typed the information into a spreadsheet, cross-checked renewal forms with last year's data and reconciled payments manually before banking the money.

With all the membership and payment information stored on the membership secretary's computer, other Club Officials that needed access to the information had to request and wait for the latest copy of the membership list to be emailed to them.

The Club also organises an annual tournament. Administration of the tournament has traditionally been ‘paper-based' with competing teams posting cheques and registration forms that require manual processing and acknowledgement.

They realised their current systems and processes could be improved with a more modern approach to their administration and sought a solution.

The Solution

To improve the Club's administration, they turned to LoveAdmin's football club management software. The membership software takes administration off the touchline and brings it online.

Parents of new Players can register their Child via an online form that's accessible via the Club's website. As they register, the Player is added automatically to the database and a personalised automated 'Welcome email' is sent.

Parents of existing Players renewing can login to a secure account and take responsibility for updating membership information, thus removing the need for the membership secretary to cross-check forms with last year’s information.

Parents can pay conveniently online and as the money comes in, it is transferred electronically to the Club so there's no risk of money being lost or being in the Managers rain-soaked pocket until the next Committee meeting. Payments are reconciled automatically and at a glance, Administrators can see who has and hasn't paid. And because the membership software comes with a built-in group email tool, it's very easy to filter on non-payers and send payment reminders.

The group email tool has also helped improved general communication as it's connected to the membership database so sending targeted, personalised emails using the latest contact information is super easy.

With all membership and payment information stored centrally ‘in the cloud', the Club can give access to the latest data to authorised Club Officials. Access to tools and information is limited to what the Official needs to see and do. And they don't have to be sitting on their home computer to access the information - they can carry out their work on the go.

To help reduce the admin involved in running the tournament, the Club has taken advantage of the built-in event management system. They now accept registrations for the tournament online. As teams register, the system stores the information processes the payment and issues an acknowledgement of registration - all without human intervention. As the tournament approaches, entrants are kept up to date with further instructions via the group email tool.

The Result

Thanks to our football club management software, the club has been able to:

• Become ‘cashless' and membership income has increased by £2,000 as a result of better collection rates
• Administrators now do 70% less admin and have the freedom to manage the Club ‘on the go'
• Parents enjoy the convenience of paying online and now pay 4x quicker than before