Stop collecting the way you did in 2015
Checks at practice, a payment app in the treasurer's name, a spreadsheet of who owes what: it works until it does not, and it does not the first time someone asks where the money went. Online collection tied to registration means the payment, the roster and the waiver are one record, the money is in the organization's account, and nobody has to remember who paid.
The test of a good setup is simple: can a new board member see, in one screen, who is registered, who is paid, and what is outstanding, without asking anyone?
- Payment happens inside registration, not after it
- Money lands in an account the organization owns
- Who paid is visible without a spreadsheet
What online payment processing actually costs
Card processing is not free anywhere. Standard card rates in the US run about three percent of the transaction plus a small fixed amount per payment; the exact figure depends on the processor and card type, and platforms sometimes add their own fee on top of the processor's. Read both lines: the processor's rate and the platform's, and ask whether the platform charges per team, per player or per transaction on top of that.
Two things to watch: platform fees that scale with your size (per-team or per-player pricing gets expensive as you grow), and payout schedules that hold your money longer than the processor needs to.
- Know the processor rate and the platform fee separately
- Ask about per-team or per-player charges
- Ask when payouts arrive and who holds the money in between
Who pays the fee: you or the family?
Either works; hiding it does not. Many organizations pass the processing fee to the family as a small line at checkout, others build it into the price. Passing it through keeps the sticker price honest and lets a family paying by check avoid it if you allow that; building it in is simpler and feels fairer to some boards. Whichever you choose, state it before they pay and keep it consistent across programs.
What families object to is not the fee; it is discovering it.
- Decide once: pass through or absorb
- Show it before payment, every time
- Same policy across every program
Payment plans, deposits and the balance-due problem
A deposit with a balance due later feels generous and creates a second collections job. If your fees are large enough that families need to spread them, use automatic payment plans: the family agrees to a schedule at registration and the system charges it. You see who is current; nobody sends reminders by hand.
Set the last installment well before the point where non-payment costs you something (the schedule publishing, the uniform order). And decide in advance what happens when a plan fails: a grace period, a message, then what.
- Automatic plans, not manual deposits
- Final installment before the money matters
- Failed-payment policy written down
Refunds, credits and the policy you publish
Write the refund policy before you take the first payment and show it at checkout. Most operators use a simple structure: full refund before a date, partial until a later date, none after, with injury and relocation handled by credit rather than cash. Credits keep the money in the organization and are easier to administer than refunds against a card.
Whatever the policy is, apply it the same way to everyone. The board member who makes an exception in April is the one explaining it in October.
- Refund policy at checkout
- Dated tiers, stated plainly
- Credits for the hard cases
- No exceptions you would not make for everyone
When you get paid, and where
The money should land in an account the organization controls, on a schedule you can see. With a direct processor account (Stripe is the common one), payouts arrive on a rolling schedule a couple of days after each charge; you can see every payment, fee and payout in one place, and your accountant can too. Avoid arrangements where a platform holds your funds and pays out on its own timetable, or where the money passes through an individual's account.
The board should be able to answer, at any time, three questions: how much came in, what did it cost to collect, and where is it now.
- Your own processor account, in the organization's name
- Rolling payouts you can see
- Every payment, fee and payout in one report