It’s that painful time of the year again – time to get your parents and players to pay their dues. Although this can be the most frustrating part of a coach’s job, Here’s a step by step guide to make this the easiest year ever!
Get Organised!
Step 1: Create a pay sheet
Before you even get started with chasing up payments, make a pay sheet. I find google docs to be the best tool for this purpose as it’s accessible on mobile as well. As seen in the image below, make a column with all your players on it, and include this key information: parents’ names, contact number and contact email. Here’s my template that you use for yourself
Step 2: Get physically organized
Print out the sheet you made in Step 1 and put it in a small plastic pouch and perhaps some change. You’ll want to carry this around with you all the time. Parents give you team fees anywhere, anytime. The last thing you want to do is mix up the money and forget who gave you what.
Step 3: Devise a system
Once in a while, transfer your physical note to the google doc and figure out what code you want to use to keep track of who has paid or not. I use simple red, yellow and green highlights to distinguish between late/urgent, waiting and paid players. If you experiment with the spreadsheet you’ll notice I’ve already done this for you. Typing “in”, “pending” and “late” will come up with green, yellow and red highlighted boxes respectively.
Step 4: Get a safe
As money gets handed to you bit by bit, you often won’t have the time to go to the bank to cash it in. I suggest having a secure folder or safe in your office that you can use to store your money, and then cashing in everything after everyone has paid.
Tip: Record immediately!
We’ve all been there, you pull out a wad of cash after practice and you can’t figure out who gave you what. Prevent this from happening by using the voice memo function on your phone. Create a shortcut so that you can get to it right away. Turn it on and start speaking to it, “Mary paid team fees for both her sons”. The date on the recording will tell you when they pay and you can easily listen to your own notes when you get home.
Bonus: Teamsnap
Recently, I’ve moved away from paper to the TeamSnap app. It allows you to email your whole team or just the parents to remind them to pay. Parents can pay directly to your bank account. You can also tell them about practice locations and other things which makes it extremely userful. But trust me, just the team fee function alone makes it worth while! You’ll never have to worry about losing envelopes again.
Go out there and coach without worries!
If you want to save time and reduce stress, I highly recommend downloading Teamsnap to manage your team. Check it out on the app store here.
Until next time, see you on the courts!
Keith