How do you pay for league play tournaments?

[TCal]

Hi!

My current area league consist of 10 women’s clubs (15 to 150 members each club) who play one a month.  The process to pay for tournaments is for each interested participant to give the fee to a club rep (there are 10 club reps) and the club rep mails a check into the Treasurer.  

The Treasurer then manually processes/tracks and pays the course.  
 

Several of us would like to revamp this process.  Any thoughts on solutions that could work? 
 

The Treasurer is against P2P options which as Venmo and feels that any of those options would result in fees.  We play 12 times a year with around 80 players and cost of about $80 a tournament.  Cash prizes are paid at end of year for any tournament winnings. 

Would love to know what others are doing.  We are incorporated but not a non profit.  Been around since 1947. 

[GolfSpy SAM]

22 minutes ago, TCal said:

Hi!

My current area league consist of 10 women’s clubs (15 to 150 members each club) who play one a month.  The process to pay for tournaments is for each interested participant to give the fee to a club rep (there are 10 club reps) and the club rep mails a check into the Treasurer.  

The Treasurer then manually processes/tracks and pays the course.  
 

Several of us would like to revamp this process.  Any thoughts on solutions that could work? 
 

The Treasurer is against P2P options which as Venmo and feels that any of those options would result in fees.  We play 12 times a year with around 80 players and cost of about $80 a tournament.  Cash prizes are paid at end of year for any tournament winnings. 

Would love to know what others are doing.  We are incorporated but not a non profit.  Been around since 1947. 

Hi! Welcome (first of all ) ! 

  According to a quick Google search, if you use a standard transfer, "There is no fee to send money using your Venmo balance, debit card, or bank account. However, if you use a credit card, there is a 3% fee."  Seems to me that this would be the easiest way to get everyone on the same page and have them "tracked" so as to see who's paid and who hasn't.  Considering that there's quite a convoluted setup in play here (you, Person A, pay Person B, who in turn pays Person C...), this would simplify (at least in theory) all of that.  

  I believe if you use something like PayPal, you can choose a "Friends and Family" option and also not pay a fee.  

  Granted, it does eliminate the ability to pay using a credit card, but from the sounds of it, that was never an option anyway.

  It's interesting to see they're not super open to the idea of using a portal to simplify the process - I would wager that a large percentage of the people who are paying would be willing to have the small percentage fee (whatever that might be) added to the cost of the tourney for ease of use, but...I'm also aware that financials are a tricky thing for a lot of people, and that extra $1-2 per tourney can add up.

  Anyone else have any ideas here? 

[TCal]

Thanks for that insight.  Here are the Treasurer’s objections:

#1 - not all members have or use P2P accounts 

#2 - If our bank has a service allowing direct payments into our bank account, there will likely be an administrative fee by Venmo and the bank which will add to account tracking by the Treasurer 

#3 - Using Venmo will increase the time and add additional steps to perform the Treasurer's collection of fees and related accounting

#4 - one must use personal Venmo account for this multi-club/league transactions

Would love more insight.  

[GolfSpy SAM]

15 minutes ago, TCal said:

Thanks for that insight.  Here are the Treasurer’s objections:

#1 - not all members have or use P2P accounts 

#2 - If our bank has a service allowing direct payments into our bank account, there will likely be an administrative fee by Venmo and the bank which will add to account tracking by the Treasurer 

#3 - Using Venmo will increase the time and add additional steps to perform the Treasurer's collection of fees and related accounting

#4 - one must use personal Venmo account for this multi-club/league transactions

Would love more insight.  

I'm not sure #2 is actually correct, as transfers to/from bank accounts using Venmo is free, but I'm not sure that eases their worry much, lol

  Here's what our local staff guru (who runs events for the club that he works at, for what it's worth) @Golfspy_CG2 had to say when I queried him:

"The best way is to invest in a tournament software you cam spread out the cost by charging each player a few dollars for it. A good one will so everything from registration to weekly matches/pairings score games for you like SkinsPayment is usually set up to go to a stripe account if not run by a course that already has a  cc account.  GolfGenius is the gold standard but might be out of their price range.  Birdease is good as is Event caddie"

Not sure that helps, really, but having planned and run many, MANY events at his club, I'd trust the info.  I know this isn't EXACTLY the same thing, given that it's not one golf course hosting (or at least that's the sound of it), so I'm not sure there's a better workaround.  But I know that out here in Cali, I've done a lot of events through GolfMoose, and they have a pretty simple website setup where people register, pay online, and everything's booked via the website.  You show up for the day of the event, they have your info, and you're all set.  SOMETIMES, they'll have us pay at the clubhouse, and we're simply RSVP'ing through the website. 

Again, not sure any of this is ultimately helpful, but it seems to me that there's not really a way to do it without changing some things up, and it sounds like the treasurer doesn't want to change something that's working, even if it's a pain in the butt for everyone else involved.  

 Curious to see if anyone else has experience with something like this, though.