Run the club’s money

A family's trust in the club is won or lost on money. The family who pays should see it recognised straight away, the family who owes should be asked once and clearly, and your treasurer should be able to stand up at committee with figures that match the bank statement. Finance in the admin sidebar is where that happens day to day, and Settings → Payments is where the club gets set up to be paid at all.

One principle runs through all of it: families pay exactly the price you set, whichever way they pay. Card, Apple Pay, PayTo and bank transfer all charge the same amount. The cost of processing a payment is the club's expense and comes out of the club's share.

Your first season running the club in Clubhouse? Money is the start of it, but the whole stage is getting the club ready for its first round. This is the order it goes in, and each step is covered below or on the page it links to.

1. Connect the club bank account and enter the receipt details. Until the account is connected, families can't pay by card. See Get the club ready to be paid.
2. Confirm the prices with the committee: the club default deposit here, and each programme's deposit and season fee in Modules & Programs.
3. Offer bank transfer, if you want it. It's optional, and it costs the club nothing. See Match bank transfers.
4. Appoint your MPIO and set the Working with Children dates, in Keep the club FNSW-ready.
5. Check the reminder times before the first training night, under Tune the reminders.
6. Approve the first fixture change when the league moves a match, in Keep the season running.
7. Leave the training pattern to your technical directors. Each squad's weekly nights are theirs to set, in Set up training for the season.
8. Send the member survey mid-season, in Run member surveys.

Until the first family pays, Finance has nothing to show: Transactions reads No payments yet, Payouts is empty, and Xero reads Xero is not connected. Each of those links to the page for that job.

Each job in Finance has its own page, and each one comes round at its own point in the year.

• Before the first offer goes out: set up. The bank account, receipt details and prices, on this page under Get the club ready to be paid.
• When the season fee is ready: ask once. Every family with a balance is asked to pay it, and only the ones who fall behind are reminded. That's Collect season fees.
• When a family needs longer: agree a plan. Some families settle a plan with you in person. Set up a payment plan with a family puts it in Clubhouse and tells them their dates.
• Every week: confirm what landed. Bank transfers wait for you to match them against the statement, in Match bank transfers.
• Any day: a family rings about a payment. Find it, refund it or resend the receipt, in Look up and refund a payment.
• Each month: close the books. Check each Stripe deposit and post it to Xero, in Post payouts to Xero. Then read the Summary and take it to committee, below.

• The club's senior administrators connect the club's bank account in Settings → Payments. Until that's done, families can't pay by card and nothing reaches the club.
• Agree your prices with the committee before any offers go out. The club default deposit is set in Settings → Payments, and each programme's deposit and season fee in Settings → Modules & Programs.
• If families will pay by bank transfer, the club's senior administrators enter its account details in Finance. Match bank transfers shows where.
• Decide who looks after the money. The people who run the club's accounts can open Finance already. To open it for another staff member, go to their staff record: the Access tab, under Additional access.

Everyone who can open Finance sees every figure, every family's payments and every export. Anyone else who opens it is told Finance is restricted, with who to ask.

Moving money is narrower. Refunds, confirming bank transfers, recording a payment, correcting a date, resending a receipt and posting to Xero stay with the people who run the club's accounts. Staff given Finance through Additional access don't see those buttons.

They can still message families, though. Ask families to pay and Send payment reminders on the Debtors tab are open to everyone with Finance access, and so is mapping accounts on the Xero tab. Grant Finance to people you'd trust to contact every family about money, not only to read the figures.

Settings → Payments holds the club-wide setup, and it's kept to the club's senior administrators.

• Club bank account. Connect bank account starts the Stripe setup. Allow about 10 minutes and have your ABN and bank details ready. If you stop partway, the card shows Setup incomplete with Resume setup. Then Stripe is verifying your details, which usually takes a day or two, and finally Payouts active. Manage on Stripe is there if the account ever changes.
• Receipt details. The club's legal name, ABN and whether you're registered for GST. These appear on every parent receipt, so get them right before the first payment.
• Retention deposits. The Club default deposit (Families pay exactly this, however they pay) and the Acceptance window: how long a family has to accept and pay after an offer is sent, from 7 to 28 days.
• Season fee balance. The Balance due date, whether Payment plans are allowed and which splits (2, 3 or 4 payments; a split is never offered below $50 a payment), and Auto-pay for families who want each payment taken from their card on the day. Turning auto-pay off pauses every scheduled charge at once. The due date locks while any family is on a plan built around it.

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Each programme's own Deposit and Season fee sit with that programme in Settings → Modules & Programs, and a season fee can't be set above the Football NSW maximum. Event ticket prices are set on each event.

The words families read around an offer live in Settings → Offers & Release Messaging: the offer emails and texts, the reminders, the release letter and your retention policy. Any admin can read them. The administrators who can edit them do it with Insert detail to drop in things like the player's name, and Reset to default is always there.

Because the club carries the processing cost, a card payment brings in a little less than its headline price. A $1,500 deposit paid by card reaches the club as about $1,474.20. Bank transfers cost the club nothing.

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You have two fair choices. Absorb it as a running cost, which is how it shows in Finance and in Xero. Or re-price: under a $1,500 club default deposit, Raise to $1,526.25 to cover card costs lifts the price so the club still receives $1,500 from a card payment. That raises the price for every family whichever way they pay, which is what makes it a price rise and not a fee for paying by card.

Never charge more for card or less for bank transfer. If you want more families on bank transfer, tell them it means the club keeps all of their money. Who pays the card fee, and how should we price? has the full cost table and the reasoning to take to your committee.

Finance opens on Summary, the one-page answer to "how are we going?". Choose the period at the top: This month, Last month, This quarter, Financial year to date, Last financial year or All time.

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• Needs attention appears at the top only when something does: payments that failed and weren't paid another way, with the amount still owed, and payouts not yet posted to Xero, with Post now beside them.
• Collected is the number that matters: what actually reached the club after processing costs and refunds. Families paid, Processing cost and Refunded sit beside it so you can see how it was made up.
• On its way is money that hasn't landed yet and isn't counted above: bank transfers families say they've sent (Awaiting transfer, with how old the oldest is and a Reconcile button) and the Next payout into the club account.
• How families paid shows the mix of payment methods and what each cost the club, with a line saying how much PayTo and bank transfers saved the club in card fees over the period.
• If the club is registered for GST, a GST card shows GST collected, GST on refunds and the net for the period, with Export BAS CSV. As the card says, it's a summary to check your BAS against, not a substitute for your accountant.

In the example above, one failed $900 payment is waiting to be followed up, and one family's $900 bank transfer is waiting to be matched. The failed payment is found in Look up and refund a payment, and the transfer in Match bank transfers.

At the bottom of the Summary, Take it to the committee has two downloads for the period you've chosen:

• Board pack (Download PDF): a one-page summary a committee member can read without a Clubhouse account.
• Every payment (Download CSV): every payment in the period as a spreadsheet, for your accountant or auditor.

Until families start paying, the Summary shows a sample report and both downloads are switched off.

• Every fee families see matches the price the committee signed off.
• Needs attention on the Summary is clear, and nothing on Reconcile is older than your last statement.
• The Debtors list is short and mostly Current.
• Your treasurer takes their figures from Finance and Xero, not a spreadsheet they keep on the side.