The Best Way to Organize Your Youth Sports Team Fee Collections

Team fee collections are a big part of managing a club or travel team. Different sports have their own ways of organizing the collections process depending on the size of the club or team and how their budgets are set up. If you’re part of a club with a lot of different teams, it’s important to find the method that works best for your specific needs.

Whether you’re doing it for the first time, or you’ve been managing collections for years and are wondering if there’s a better way, there are several factors to consider. To help you decide which is the best method for your team, here are a few different models that youth sports teams use and the pros and cons of each.

One Person Handles All Collections for the Entire Club

It’s possible to delegate all the collecting to one person if all the teams in your club are similar in cost structure, travel locations, and the number of tournaments they attend. A lot of volleyball and ice hockey clubs organize their collections this way. This method works best if you already know what your team fees will be in advance.

The biggest benefit to this method is that it’s very simple to set up. One person does all the budgeting, so they don’t have to coordinate with anyone else. You always know who to ask if you have any questions about the club’s collections status, and there’s a single point of contact for parents of the kids across all the different teams.

On the other hand, it is a lot of work for that one person. They have to do all the budgeting and collecting for a lot of teams. It’s a full-time job, which means that you’ll have to hire someone to do it. If you don’t have the funds to pay someone or don’t know your expenses in advance, this may not be the best method for your club.

Each Team Handles Its Own Budget and Collections

If the teams in your club have a lot of differences in their budgets, it may not be feasible for one person to organize them all. In this situation, it’s better for each team to be in control of its own budgeting and collections. The club has obligations like providing insurance and a central bookkeeper, and each team has its own responsibilities including collecting team fees and paying club dues.

With this method, individual teams have more autonomy and can decide for themselves how to set up their budgets. They are in charge of how many tournaments they want to go to and how much they want to spend each season. They also won’t have to pay to hire a full-time finance manager, which is better for all volunteer organizations that don’t have as much money. This method works well for teams who don’t necessarily know what all of their expenses will be ahead of time.

The downside is that each team will have to recruit a team treasurer and manager every year and train them. Oversight and accountability is more difficult and you’ll definitely need to set up a centralized process to make sure everyone knows their responsibilities and to who they need to report.

The Bottom Line

Every club is different. What works for one may not work for another due to variations in size, number of teams, and cost structure. Finding the best method for your club will make the collections process run much more smoothly and save you a lot of time and hassle.
Regardless of which method you choose, Snap! Spend can help automate your collections and make things much easier for both parents and team managers. Learn more at Snap! Spend.