How do families pay a retention offer, and what if they pay outside the app?

Paying the deposit is how a family accepts a retention offer and secures next season's place. This article covers the ways they can pay, what to do when the money reaches the club some other way, and whether the balance can be spread. For the offer itself — sending it, the deadline, and reading your board — see How do retention offers, payments and deadlines work?

At checkout a family can pay the deposit by:

• Card — Visa, Mastercard, and whatever else your club accepts
• Apple Pay / Google Pay
• PayTo — a direct debit from their bank account, authorised in their banking app
• Bank transfer — shown when your club has enabled it on Settings → Payments. The family is given the club's account details and a payment reference. Their place is secured once the treasurer matches the transfer against the bank statement, so it is not instant — but it works without any card at all.

Every method charges the same amount — there is no card fee added at checkout, and no discount for paying by bank transfer. See How do card fees and pricing work?.

A parent hands over cash at the canteen, or transfers the money and never returns to the app to say so. Either way the board keeps reading Offer sent and the reminders keep going out — while the club is already holding the money.

Open Manage on the player's row and choose Record payment received. Pick Cash or Bank transfer, check the amount, and record it. Clubhouse then does exactly what it does for a card payment: the offer is accepted, the deposit appears in Finance, a numbered receipt is emailed to the family, and the board shows Deposit paid · cash.

A few things worth knowing:

• For cash, you must say who took it. There is no bank line and no card record behind cash, so the name you enter is the club's only record of who was holding the money. It stays on the payment in Finance and in the treasurer's export.
• A part-payment is allowed, and does not secure the place. Record what they gave you — the money goes in the ledger, the remainder stays owing, and the offer stays open until the deposit is paid in full.
• If the family has already declared a transfer, Clubhouse will stop you and point you at their declaration instead. Recording it a second time would put two payments against one credit in the club's accounts.
• Recording a payment emails the family a receipt, so don’t try it out on a real player. It can’t be undone from the board — your treasurer can refund from Finance.

Your treasurer has the same tool from the other direction: Finance → Banking → Reconcile → Record a payment finds the charge by payment reference or by player name, which is what is needed when a transfer arrives with no reference at all.

Cash is still the method to discourage — it has to be counted, banked and trusted to a person. If a family can’t pay online, the tidiest path is the bank transfer option: they tap it for their payment reference, deposit the cash at a branch with that reference, and it reconciles like any other transfer.

Some families say yes and agree to pay another way: monthly payments, or a date agreed with the club. Open Manage on the player's row and choose Mark accepted, payment to follow. Their place is held, offer reminders stop, and the family is not sent anything. The full season fee opens as a charge on the player's Fees tab, and it is counted in Finance once the offer is accepted. The same action is on the player's Fees tab for whoever looks after the club's money, so the person the family agreed the arrangement with can act on it.

Open the player's profile, choose the Fees tab and press Set up instalment plan. Choose monthly or fortnightly, then how many payments (monthly uses the counts your club allows; fortnightly allows 2 to 8; either way they have to fit before the balance due date) and the date of the first one (today, or up to 31 days away), then check the schedule. Review and send shows exactly who will be told and the message they will receive before anything is sent.

• The family is told straight away. They get a push and an email with every date and amount, and the plan appears on their Fees page. Their offer page then points to the plan instead of asking for the deposit.
• A family with no app login or email can't be sent a plan. Add a contact on the Contacts tab first.
• If the message fails to send, the plan is saved but stays unseen by the family until you send it. The Fees tab shows Send plan to family so you can try again.
• You can set up a plan while the fee is provisional. It splits the estimated fee, and the family is told it is an estimate. Once FNSW confirms the cap, the club updates the plan to the confirmed figure and tells the family again. Until then the family can't cancel or change the plan, and autopay stays off.
• Monthly or fortnightly. Monthly plans use the counts your club allows. Fortnightly plans can have 2 to 8 payments, exactly two weeks apart, and the last one has to fall by the club's balance due date.