Set up your club

Every coach, player and family in Clubhouse works inside the club you set up. Get the programmes, the club details and the reminder timings right in the first week, and nobody downstream has to think about them. Get them wrong, and the mistakes turn up in every fixture, calendar and reminder that follows.

Clubhouse arrives with your season already loaded from your league records: squads, fixtures and results. So most of this week is checking and switching on, not typing in.

Opening Clubhouse for the first time? This is the order the first week goes in. Each step is covered below or on the page it links to.

1. Confirm the club details: the crest, colours and name your league records brought in. See Work through the setup guide.
2. Switch off what you don't run. Every programme in your league records arrives switched on. See Switch on the programmes you run.
3. Check your squads and players against your own records, in Build your player register.
4. Invite your coaches and managers, in Get your staff on board.
5. Fill the gaps in parent contacts and invite your families, under Get every family signed in.
6. Set the club details everything leans on, starting with the default venue. See Set the club details everything leans on.
7. Senior programme? Choose who signs contracts before the first offer, in Configure player contracts.
8. Make it official with the setup guide's last step, which points you at the season in front of you.

If the setup guide's Check your squads and players opens on No squads yet, your league records haven't come through: Bring in my roster pulls them in.

• Sign in on a computer. Go to dashboard.clubhouseapp.com.au, choose the Club Staff tab and sign in with your email and password. Settings work on a phone, but they're easier on a big screen.
• Know what your account can change. Programmes, modules, club details, billing and integrations are kept to the club's most senior administrators. If a setting on this page isn't in your menu, ask whoever set the club up on Clubhouse.
• Have to hand: the crest and colours exactly as they appear on the kit, the club's contact email and phone, and the address of your home ground.

The home page opens with the club's weekend: live scores while matches are on, This Weekend or Last Weekend results once they're in, and a summary of the fixtures coming up, headed This Weekend, or Next Weekend once this weekend's matches are on the scoreboard. When something needs your decision, a banner sits above all of it. The one you'll see most is fixture changes waiting for approval, and it says why it matters: "Parents won’t be notified until you approve." While a campaign the club has entered, such as the Australian Championship, is under way, it takes over the home page until it winds down: the club's own match and the group tables, in place of the weekend's results and fixtures. Every administrator sees it; those who can't open its programme see it without the links into it.

The sidebar holds the club-wide tools: Players, Matches, Calendar and Compliance, plus Staff if your account manages the club's staff. Open a programme and the sidebar switches to that programme's own dashboard, squads, training and matches. Club-wide outside a programme, programme-deep inside one: that's the whole navigation model. Your name at the bottom of the sidebar opens Settings, Help & Support and Sign out, and the bell beside it opens your notifications. The portal answer has the full map.

A newly activated club opens on a welcome screen, "Harbourview FC is officially on Clubhouse", confirming the season is already loaded. If colleagues signed up for the club alongside you, it lists them under Bring your colleagues with a Give admin access button each. Then Let’s get started.

From there, a Set up your club button sits on your dashboard counting the steps left ("4 steps to go"). It's a checklist, not a hurdle: as its own footer says, "Everything in Clubhouse works while you set up — the guide is here whenever you want it." It shows only to the administrators who can finish it, and only while setup is in progress.

dashboard.clubhouseapp.com.au

— enlargeExpand

1. Confirm your club details. Check the imported name, crest and colours, then Yes — that’s us.
2. Check your squads and players. Go through each squad against your own records and Confirm this squad. If your league records bring in players you didn't have, Check for new players pulls them in.
3. Invite your coaches and managers. The list comes from your team sheets. Tick who should get access and select Send invites, which counts them. Staff get an email and team managers a text to their mobile. Before anything goes, Clubhouse shows how many of each, the email and the text word for word, and anyone left out. It sends when you select Invite 12 people (the count is yours), and Not yet sends nothing. Get your staff on board shows the email, and coaches carry on in Your first week as a coach.
4. Add parent contact details. This ticks itself off once nine in ten players have a parent mobile on file. If your club will never reach that, We have the contacts we need finishes the step.
5. Invite your families. Ticks itself off when the first family signs in, or confirm with Our families are sorted. Build your player register covers the invites.
6. Make it official. The last step depends on when you joined: Get set for the season ahead before the season, Run a match day here during it, or Open next season once it's finished. Each points you at the real work, then Mark as done.

— enlargeExpand

When all six are done, the button reads All done — take a look and the guide retires.

Do this before anything else, because everything hangs off it. A programme that isn't switched on doesn't exist anywhere in Clubhouse: no dashboard, no squads in a picker, no fixtures.

Open Settings and then Modules & Programs. The page has two sections.

dashboard.clubhouseapp.com.au

— enlargeExpand

Football Programs lists each programme your club can run, with a switch each. The change is immediate. Turning a programme off asks you to confirm, because "This takes effect immediately for everyone": its coaches, players and families lose its dashboards straight away. Nothing is deleted, and switching it back on brings everything back.

Clubhouse sets up every programme your club enters, with its squads, fixtures and results. If one you run is missing from the list, tell Clubhouse through Help & Support rather than working around it.

Each programme also has its own Settings button. This is where you decide how deep that programme goes:

• Live match tracking: Off — briefing and squad only, Basic — score and phase, or Full — line-ups, events, and stats. Only Full records line-ups and match events, which is where player minutes and match stats come from.
• Individual development plans, Medical, Session planning for this programme, Daily wellness check-in, Strength & conditioning and Retention, grouped under Program modules. Medical decides whether families and coaches can report injuries for the programme; it can't be switched off while the programme has open injuries. Session planning is the programme's drill and session library, on unless you switch it off. Retention includes the deposit and season fee for next year's places.
• Strength & conditioning decides whether training blocks can be published to the programme's squads. It holds the programme's load monitoring, GPS player tracking, Session effort ratings (sRPE) and Wearables recovery, which can only be switched on while it is on. It can't be switched off while any of those are on or a training block is published; the card says which. Testing phases are club-wide, so switching one programme off leaves them alone. Switched off for every programme, the S&C section leaves the menu, testing included, until one is switched back on. Nothing is deleted.
• Reminder timings, where one programme can override the club-wide times.

Platform Modules sits below. The Admin, Parent and Coach portals are always on. Match Intelligence is yours to switch, and the change waits until you select Save Changes.

Settings is grouped into Account, Club, Billing and Integrations. Walk the Club group end to end before the first schedule goes out.

• Club & Brand: the name, crest and colours families see in the app.
• Club Details: the club's contact people and phone, and the support email that replies to club emails come back to. Below that is the Default Venue. Every calendar entry and printed training plan that doesn't name its own ground falls back to it, so set it first.
• Training Schedule: each squad's weekly sessions. The calendar builds every session from here.
• Club Notifications: the times match and training reminders go out, and which automatic messages run.
• Committee & Governance: the constitution, AGM date, terms and committee make-up. The first visit offers Upload your constitution (a PDF Clubhouse reads for you) or Skip and configure manually.
• Player Contracts: signatories and the agreements players sign when they accept an offer. See Configure player contracts.
• Audit Log: who changed what and when, searchable by person.

Your technical directors look after Key Documents, the coaching philosophy behind development plans, and Club Identity and Technical Framework, which Clubhouse turns into the documents FNSW grades (Write your club's football identity). The Club settings answer covers what each setting changes.

None of this is needed to start. Under Integrations:

• Video brings in match footage from a Veo camera, your own uploads, YouTube links and live streams. Uploads and YouTube are Always on, because "You don't need a camera to use video".
• Catapult brings in GPS data. Sign in with the Catapult One team (coach) email and password; a player's own login has no squad sessions to sync.
• Klaviyo syncs player and parent contacts for email and SMS campaigns, using your Klaviyo Private API Key, and builds a segment for each programme and age group every season, including next season once its squads exist. See Where are my programme contacts in Klaviyo?.
• Xero posts each Stripe deposit into your accounts, if the club takes payments through Clubhouse.

Billing & Subscription holds your plan, payment method and invoices. On the free plan the dashboard says so, "You're on the free plan. Subscribe to unlock coach portals, parent invites, and more", with View Plans.

Under Account: My Profile, Change Password, Calendar sync for your phone, Notification preferences, and Compliance, where your own Working With Children Check lives if your role needs one. Sort yours before you chase anyone else's.

If you connect an AI assistant to your account, anything it proposes waits on your dashboard for your approval. Nothing is applied without you.

• Every programme you run is switched on, and nothing you don't.
• Each programme's live tracking level and reminder timings match how it really runs.
• The crest and colours in the app match the kit, and the default venue is your home ground.
• The setup guide reads All done — take a look, or you know which steps are waiting and why.