Essential Software To Help Smaller Football Clubs Manage Their Finances
People who get involved in grassroots football tend to do so for a number of reasons. There’s the love of the beautiful game itself; there are strong community aspects, and some people might want to develop their skills, whether on the playing, coaching or backroom sides of the game. Some enjoy the challenge of helping to run a club but very few get involved for the admin.
There’s certainly a challenge involved in balancing the books, as any armchair expert who’s ever played a football management simulation game on their PC could tell you. There’s still a big difference between making financial decisions and actually carrying out the myriad of day-to-day tasks involved in managing a small club’s finances and keeping it solvent and successful.
As anyone who has participated in non-league or grassroots football knows, the financial situations you have to deal with are a world away from the TV rights mega-deals and multi-million-pound signings that make the back (and sometimes front) page headlines. In grassroots football, in fact, the players themselves are generally the biggest contributors to club finances, through match fees and subs – at least if you’re operating on a level that does not attract paying spectators.
There may be other income streams to track and account for though, from selling advertising space at the pitch or on the club website and online assets, to fundraising efforts of various kinds. There will also be numerous outgoings, with the hiring of facilities such as training grounds and pitches usually among the largest. Kits, the costs of those websites, transport and other expenditure also needs to be accurately tracked and recorded.
This not only helps you to keep the club ticking over, but it also allows you to fulfil legal record-keeping and reporting obligations. Making Tax Digital (MTD), for example, is an ongoing scheme requiring businesses and traders to keep digital records, make regular reports and use appropriate software to submit their tax returns. Sole traders and landlords will not have to follow Making Tax Digital rules until April 2024, but all VAT-registered businesses have been required to do so from April of this year. That includes amateur sports clubs, even if they are registered as a community amateur sports club (CASC), a status which comes with a number of tax concessions and other benefits.
Finding the right software for your football club
Making Tax Digital is the biggest shake-up to the UK’s tax reporting system in decades and it’s important to make sure you’re on top of the job. It’s possible to use spreadsheets for MTD and other record-keeping purposes and this is how a lot of smaller clubs and sporting organisations have traditionally managed their accounts, especially when operating without the help of professional accountants. For MTD though, you will also need to use some kind of ‘bridging’ software that will help make your spreadsheet records compatible with HMRC’s system.
It is generally easier to use dedicated accounting software that will allow you to manage finances and connect with HMRC directly for all your reporting obligations. Even if you are a small-scale club whose finances are managed by a treasurer with limited accounting knowledge or experience, adopting a good accounting software system can make keeping track of your income and expenditure much easier. This can also help you to plan ahead, futureproof your club and even expand if the opportunity presents itself.
As well as a main accounting system, there are a number of apps and software packages designed specifically with football and other sporting clubs in mind. The FA Matchday App, developed by the FA and PayPal, is one such app that enables more than a million players at grassroots clubs to pay their match fees via their smartphones.
Payments by cash and cheques were frequently missed, with three-quarters of club officials saying they wasted time chasing late payments and a third of clubs saying that up to 40% of match fees were not collected. The app also has plenty of other features, such as allowing staff to organise training and matches, send updates to the team and select their line-up. Players can share their availability, view fixtures and track tables and results.
Other football club management software packages like LoveAdmin and Coacha can also help take the hassle out of a lot of the administrative and managerial tasks involved in running a small football club. This can include collecting fees online and sending automatic payment reminders. It’s worth noting, however, that while these can help with some aspects of managing your finances, they are not dedicated accounting software packages. In the case of Coacha though, it can integrate with leading accountancy software packages like Sage to help you keep on top of your organisation’s accounting and bookkeeping needs and comply with Making Tax Digital requirements.
Choosing the right software might not win you any matches directly, but it can help streamline the running of your club and make sure you’re in a healthy financial position. And that is a recipe for success.
