Six Ways to Help Your Team Stay in the Black This Season!

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As September approaches it's time to start preparing for next season, be it creating your team's next online registration and training new board members, or implementing new policies and purchasing the latest workout equipment. Change is never easy, but it can really help teams to grow. This year, we want to help you implement the team management changes that are proven to help your team's finances to stay in the black. 

One of the biggest areas where we see teams get in trouble is with collecting dues and fees. Outstanding dues and collecting meet fees are places where your team's finances can start to hover in the red. Here at TeamUnify we have come up with a few tools that can help limit the amount of outstanding debt your team has. Let's explore the best practices and tools you have in your TeamUnify system.

REQUIRE A CREDIT CARD ON FILE WITH YOUR ONLINE REGISTRATION 

Use your online registration system to collect the credit card information and update the account on the site for monthly billing.

Best Practice: In Online Registration set your registration to limit payment to credit card only and then require payment information to be saved for future Autopay use. Setting up your registration with these parameters allows you to capture up-to-date and viable payment information at the beginning of the season.

 

CONNECT OUTSTANDING BALANCES WITH UPCOMING REGISTRATIONS

When an account has an unpaid balance in the Billing system, you can set your registration up to automatically connect the account's outstanding balance to their annual registration dues.

During the registration process, your accounts will be able to view what their outstanding balance is and proceed if they agree. 

 

ADD FINANCIAL RESTRICTIONS FOR MEETS

One of the best ways to ensure your accounts are up-to-date is to restrict meet declarations.

Best Practice: For the first 30 days of your introduction of the Payment Processing system, use the 30-day restriction to limit account charges from growing. 

After day 30, turn on the financial restrictions to require a payment type on file to enter a member into a meet.

 

USE ON-DEMAND PAYMENTS

Once you have required all registrants to place a credit card on file with your team, you can now use auto pay where you have the option to charge payments on demand. Helping you to charge fees when they are incurred.

  • Utilize this billing feature to create charges on the fly that automatically bill and charge an account.

  • Pay an outstanding balance or user-defined amount, and optionally create a corresponding invoice.

  • Allow parents to make On-Demand Payments as well.

  • You can even post a charge using our OnDeck mobile application right on the spot.

 

ELECTRONIC COLLECT MEET FEES BEFORE THE MEET

Taking on-demand payments to the next level, with the new billing meet fees center, you can now immediately charge meet fees to accounts with a credit card on file. This means you can collect the meet fees payments before the meet and not at the end of the month. 

Benefits of the Meet Entry Fees System area include:

  • A centralized and customizable user interface.
  • The ability to generate fees based on Rosters, Billing Groups, or Location.
  • Easily generate invoices and charge credit cards for meet fees.
  • Automated email notification to the billing administrator of a new fee batch.
  • Automatic receipt generation to accounts via email.

 

RUN A SWIM-A-THON FUNDRAISING

Want to help raise more for your team? A USA Swimming Foundation Swim-A-Thon is a phenomenal way to help add to your team's bottom line. Using TeamUnify's proven online fundraising system, teams are averaging $11,470 per fundraiser! Talk about staying in the black. Whether this is your first Swim-A-Thon or your 17th, planning, engaging and running a successful fundraiser can start today. 

THREE WAYS TO INCREASE PARTICIPATION IN YOUR NEXT USA SWIMMING FOUNDATION SWIM-A-THON:

  1. Weekly prizes to drive engagement.
  2. A raffle the day of the event where tickets were based on athlete fundraising.
  3. Weekly emails to parents on how the funds will be spent.

These are just a few of the areas that TeamUnify can help you to streamline your team's finances. With these best practices in place, we know your team will find itself in the black from registration to championship meets. If you would like to explore other areas that could help your club, please email info@teamunify.com and we will connect you with your team's customer success representative.

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