Managing finances, sorting spreadsheets, and making trips to the bank is one of the toughest parts of running a volleyball program. But you have to make sure that each parent pays on time so your teams can register for tournaments, order apparel, reserve facilities, and get the season rolling.
Collecting all of your payments online can save hours of work, reduce frustration for parents, and ensure that you have all of the player fees collected on time.
In this post we’ll give you a few tips to collect online payments for your volleyball club.
Create a Website with an Online Registration Feature
To get started quickly on collecting payments online, a website with online registration capabilities is your best bet. A website not only helps you register players and complete the rest of the tips in this post easily, it can also be a great way to store information and promote your volleyball club online.
Creating a website for your volleyball club may seem like a tough task, but with an easy to use website builder, it can be done quicker than you may think.
Encourage Parents to Pay via Credit or Debit Card Online for Club Volleyball Season
Parents will prefer to pay via credit card for large purchases like club fees. It’s much easier for them to track payments and earn rewards points on their credit card.
Still have some parents that want to pay with cash or check? That’s ok, just handle those situations separately.
The parents that request to write a check can be handled on a case by case basis, but for the most part you should encourage to pay online with their preferred card. If you give everyone the option to pay with cash and check you’ll have a lot of parents wait until the absolute last minute to pay, and create much more work for yourself.
When you process payments online, receipts can be sent to parents automatically for their records.
Enforce a Due Date for Parents to Make Their First Payment
Many parents will kick the “payment can down the road” as long as they can. Be sure to list player agreements and payment terms on your website, and communicate to parents your fee structure before they commit to a team. Most volleyball clubs require that the first payment be made for the club season by November 30 – this will help you budget for your season, and lets you know for sure that a player will be participating.
You can also use this initial payment as a deposit, and to serve as the official reservation of that player’s spot on the team.
Help parents understand that it’s important that they make their first payment on time. Without the parents making their payments on time it puts your club in a difficult budgeting situation and prevents your teams from being able to effectively plan for the months ahead.
Sure, you’ll have a couple of parents that request specific payment terms – and you can accommodate them when necessary.
This will be you midway through the club season if you don’t have specific payment due dates for club fees.
Allow Parents to Pay in Three Automatic Installments
Not every parent will want to pay in full for your entire season at one time. But, don’t allow parents to pick and choose when and how much they want to pay. You’ll wind up with dozens of parents with different payment balances, and it will be nearly impossible to keep track of who owes what.
Simple installment plans can give parents the option to split up their payments in 3 or 4 chunks over the first couple months of the club season. List the payment installment options on your club website well in advance of the season so parents know what to expect.
Many clubs require the first payment be made by November 30 and charge in installments in the following months.
Charge the Same Amount for Each Team to Make the Online Payment Process Super Easy
Plenty of club directors make the mistake of charging complex fees to each team, or pricing each of the teams different prices. Overthinking your fees just creates more questions from parents and adds more work to the plate of the club staff.
Don’t make life hard on yourself by charging slightly different fees for each team in your club. If each team is within $100 or so in total cost, just average the fees out and charge each player the same fee for the season regardless of team.
This makes your life much easier for your staff and doesn’t nickel & dime the parents. When in doubt, keep things easy.
Send Payment Reminders via Text and Email
The last thing you want to be doing during your season is chasing down parents in the parking lot at practice trying to collect payments. Parents are super busy with their full-time job, taking care of their kids, and other priorities in their personal lives. Make sure you make things easy on them by sending friendly reminders with important updates like payment due dates.
Use an online system to send friendly text and email reminders about payment due dates. Include links to your online payments system so parents can easily make their payment from their phone or email.
Send reminders to parents a few times in the weeks leading up to your payment due dates.
