Free sports club software: 180 licensed members, when do dues and attendance hit a wall?

Be extremely careful with personal data protection regulations when storing records like medical certificates and IDs. If it’s unclear which country the servers reside in on free cloud tools, full legal liability falls straight on you as club president.

We tried a free sports tool for our 140-member judo club in Lyon; the system locked up right after 50 members. Then we switched to a commission-based platform focused on donations and dues for non-profits. We haven't paid a single cent in fixed software subscription fees for 2 years.

If you can't sort out attendance via software, give the coaches a shared cloud spreadsheet shortcut for each division. On training days, have them just put a minus next to absentees; you'll see full-month attendance right away.

If you go the open-source non-profit software route, make sure the mobile UI is actually responsive. If a coach has to wrestle with a desktop layout on poor gym Wi-Fi, they’ll ditch the system within two days.

No matter what software you hand a volunteer coach, they won't want to mess around on their phone in the middle of practice after 3 weeks. If you don't design the workflow to finish in as few taps as possible, you'll end up right back on paper.

in our 120-member club we tied dues directly to bank transfers and have them put the player license number in the memo field. anyone who doesnt match gets called immediately way easier than messing with spreadsheets.

When looking for free options you'll hit these three roadblocks: 1) Member caps, 2) Inability to add multiple coach roles, 3) Not enough storage space to upload medical certificates. Base your choice around these 3 factors.

Since you have registered association status, apply to international tech grant platforms that offer free tools and discounts to non-profits. You can license a lot of enterprise cloud suites completely free using your non-profit documentation.

You're right. Trying to do this alone is the most expensive way.

Of course, it varies if your situation is different.

I can't fully agree with this. When we decide without measuring, we always end up in the same place.

Every "we'll look at it later" in a meeting means unbilled work. Good luck with that.

There is something to watch out for. If acceptance criteria aren't written, when the work is done is open to debate.

If it's your first time, start small; scaling comes later. Of course, it varies if your situation is different.

I agree with this. When making decisions, write down the worst-case scenario too, not just the best.

Trying to do this alone is the most expensive way.

If you're going this route, sort this out first. Implementing a change request process doesn't slow things down, it speeds them up.

When making decisions, write down the worst-case scenario too, not just the best. Hope this helps.

I think differently. Everyone rushing into sports club software gets stuck at the same point.

Let me summarize what's been said so far. When you try to change everything at once nothing settles.

That's all, sorry if I went on too long.

correct.

I agree, and I'd like to emphasize that. If you get three different answers on a topic, the question was asked wrong.

In legacy systems, the most expensive thing is unknown dependencies. Hope this helps.

I agree with this. honestly hasty decisions become decisions you have to fix six months later.

Correct me if I'm wrong.