Toowong Football Club

Brendon Boss
President,
Toowong Football Club

About Toowong Football Club

Toowong Football Club is a small club on the outskirts of Brisbane City with a proud tradition of football dating back to 1921. The Club’s primary aim is to provide children, women and men of all ages with the opportunity to enjoy the ‘world game’ at a local level. Skills development, teamwork, commitment, fair play and fun are all key elements of the Toowong Football Club ethos.

toowongfc.com.au     

 

Challenges faced

Volunteers have always been at the heart of Toowong Football Club’s management and operations. However, the Club had become acutely aware that the manual processes, the volume of work at peak times of the season, and auditing responsibilities were proving overwhelming for volunteers. Trying to track individual payments into the Club, and recover debts or chase late payments without formal systems in place, was complicated. Manual systems were open to error and could be challenged, providing unnecessary stress for the volunteers who were so generously donating their time.

 

PaySmart provided an ideal customer payment solution for us because we aim to be accessible to everyone in the community, and for many people and families, paying a lump sum for their membership is impossible. With PaySmart, members are able to pay their fees over time so it’s great for them, plus it means we’re not spending all of our time chasing payments—it’s a win-win.

 

Client Perspective: PaySmart Solution

The PaySmart staff—both our Business Development Manager and the support staff—were great throughout the entire process of getting us up online with the direct debit billing system. We started off signing up our members using a manual direct debit form, but we’ve recently worked with PaySmart to create an online form tailored to our Club. This has been a game changer in what was formerly a fairly large administrative process. Not only has the process been digitised, but it now also sits in the hands of our members who enter their information directly into the online portal. PaySmart provided great online and people resources to support us through the establishment of a direct debit billing option for the Club.

The Results

Working with PaySmart has definitely helped us claim back administrative time. We’ve gone from a ‘ma and pa’ style of operation, to running the Club like a real business. While volunteers will always be a really valued and necessary part of our Club’s operations, we’ve been able to relieve the pressure on them, as they’re no longer required to track manual payments and follow them up. Our cash flow position has also benefited. While we still have a large number of members who pay up front, we also have a growing portion of memberships being paid by direct debit. The reporting systems attached to these payments are excellent and provide a really accurate insight into where we’re at each month. But most importantly, having a direct debit billing system has given our Club the opportunity to grow and to include those members who may not have previously been able to join when an up-front payment option was the only option.