How CN Sports FC collects an extra £12,800 a year in subs

At A Glance

Why weren't standing orders working for CN Sports FC?

CN Sports FC is a junior football club in South Shore, Blackpool, running boys' and girls' teams in the Blackpool and District Youth Football League and the Poulton and District Primary League. With 350+ members across 22 teams, it's run entirely by volunteers.

Before Club Supporter, the club's treasurer asked every parent to set up a standing order, then tracked payments in a separate spreadsheet for each team and reconciled them all by hand into a master view.

In short, standing orders put the parent in control, not the club. If a payment was cancelled, missed or set up for the wrong amount, nobody was told. When fees changed, every parent had to update their standing order themselves. The treasurer only found out something was wrong when a spreadsheet didn't reconcile.

The result was a collection rate of around 85%, meaning roughly one in seven payments wasn't arriving. The treasurer spent around three hours a month chasing missed payments, and coaches were regularly asked to follow up with parents at training, which is an awkward conversation for a volunteer coach to have on the touchline.

How Club Supporter Helped

Automated Subscription Collection

By replacing the manual standing orders with purpose built software, CN Sports were able to improve collection rates from 85% to over 98%. Club Supporter uses Direct Debits, powered by GoCardless to collect monthly subscriptions for over 350 members. If for any reason a payment failed, the platform will automatically try to take payment twice more, five days apart, and also automatically suggest remedial action such as updating bank details, none of which is possible with a generic standing order.

Detailed Reporting

CN Sports used Club Supporter to setup teams which each player is allocated to. The detailed reporting dashboard could then provide visibility into cashflow forecasts broken down by team, and all at the touch of a button rather than manually maintaining a separate spreadsheet for each team and then manually reconciling into a master view. Club Supporter also clearly highlights any payments that are in arrears so action can be taken swiftly, significantly reducing the admin burden on both the treasurer and individual coaches.

Player Registrations

A key difference after implementing Club Supporter has been how new player registrations has been streamlined via the online workflow. Parents are sent a link to fill in all important contact details, medical questions and consent and it is automatically and securely stored against their profile. This not only looks more professional than email, but it is much safer. The player details can be uploaded to the FA Whole Game System (WGS) and there is an automatic checker to ensure that both platforms are up to date, saving time and another step in ensuring the club's insurance is valid and compliant. 

Key Points:

• Automatic failed-payment retries: a failed Direct Debit is retried twice more, five days apart, the member is automatically told it will be tried again, and a Pay Now option recovers anything still missed.
• Custom registration forms: collect emergency contacts, medical information, kit sizes, consents and registration numbers. This is a much more professional process and can be pasted directly to the FA system.
• Reporting: revenue, missed payments and arrears without multiple spreadsheets.
• Club shop and fundraising: an online club shop and Grassroots Lottery fundraising generating additional revenue for CN Sports.