I am the chairman and a coach for a grassroots youth football club. I am looking for an easier way to collect and track subscription payments that my clubs players parents make. As it stands, we offer two ways to pay;
Full amount up front by cheque or cash for the 9 month season (September through to May)
Monthly Payments by Standing Order
The standing order process involves us giving them a form to fill out and sign, which we then take to the relevant banks to request they set this up. This can be a time consuming task, especially when new players join during the season. Having to scroll through bank statements to see if parents have paid and identifying them is challenging for us as volunteers.
A fellow coach within the club has suggested looking into using QuickFile as a way to do this. I just wondered if anyone else on here is using QuickFile for the same type of thing and if it would work?
I did try to create a free account to get a better look into it but it is asking me what type of Business we are. We are a non-profit club, so we don’t come under Charity or any of the other options. Some advice on what we should register as would be helpful too please.
We estimate to have around 250-300 players next season.
I’ll start at the beginning - creating an account. Really, you just need to select the type of account that represents your set up the closest. The main difference between the account types is nominal codes and some functionality.
For example, a sole trader would give you a Proprietor’s Drawings Account and nominals for Sole Trader Capital, whereas a limited company would give you a Director’s Loan Account and an option for Corporation Tax.
Coming on to the subscriptions. QuickFile links up quite nicely with GoCardless, which is a direct debit provider. From within your account you can send a subscriber a form, they fill it in and you can start collecting payments almost straight away. If these are linked up with a recurring invoice, most of the work will be done for you. GoCardless is reasonably priced too at just 1% (minimum of £0.20, maximum of £2.00). So if you collect £50.00 for example, there’s just a £0.50 charge - we don’t add anything to this.
There may be another user in the same situation as you. As this is a public forum, they may add their comments below. But I hope this helps!
We are a swimming club and have been using QF for 3 years now. We have approx 250+ monthly paying members and also have one-off payments for Open meets etc.
The majority of our members pay via GoCardless which is easy to setup and the members enter their details online thereby avoiding any need for the club to hold any bank details. Since Jan 2016 we take no cash or cheques and we avoid standing orders.
Maybe the only complication is setting up the client accounts when under 18’s are involved but it is not insurmountable.
With that number of players and a monthly subscription, you may have to pay QF’s minimum payment?
Enjoy