Every club treasurer knows the bank statement with forty lines that say something like ‘SUBS JAN’ and no name. Collecting subs online fixes that, but only if the way you collect matches the way your sport charges. A cricket club with a spring season sub has different problems from a swim club billing by the term or a gym club on monthly rolling plans.
This guide covers the shapes subs come in, the three ways members can pay, family discounts, arrears, payouts and the treasurer’s month-end. It is written for UK clubs of every sport. We build club software, and we say near the end where that helps and where it does not.
Subs come in different shapes
Before choosing how to collect, write down how you actually charge. Most clubs use one of these, and many use two:
- Season subs: football, cricket, rugby, hockey and netball usually charge one sub per season, often with a match fee per game on top. The season sub is a lump sum families feel, so many clubs let people spread it monthly across the season.
- Termly fees: swimming lessons, gymnastics and dance usually follow the school term, because the venue is hired by the term too. Simple to explain. The cost is a cash and admin spike at the start of every term, and a gap over the holidays.
- Monthly rolling: a set amount each month, all year, until the member cancels. Common for swimming squads, martial arts, climbing and fitness. The club gets steady income and families budget once.
- Pay-as-you-go: a price per session, typical for casual badminton, walking football and drop-in classes. Easy to start, but nobody is committed, so price it so that regulars do better as members.
Card, Bacs Direct Debit or standing order
Standing orders cost nothing, and you get what you pay for. The member sets the amount and the date, so a price rise only lands when every member edits their own standing order, and a missed payment only shows up when someone reads the statement. That works for fifteen adults. It does not work for eighty juniors.
Card and Bacs Direct Debit both run through a payment processor. The club never sees or stores bank or card details, and the platform collects on schedule and tells you when a payment fails. The difference between them is timing and the protections the member has.
Most clubs end up using both. Bacs Direct Debit suits the regular monthly sub, where a few days’ wait does not matter. Card suits anything due now: the termly fee for a block that starts on Monday, a tournament entry, a new kit order. Members who only have a card, or who join halfway through a term, can still pay on the day.
| Card | Bacs Direct Debit | Standing order | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who controls the amount | The club | The club, with advance notice to the member of each collection | The member |
| When the money is confirmed | At the time of payment | About 4 business days, or about 7 for the first collection on a new mandate | Whenever the member’s bank sends it |
| Good for | One-off fees, termly fees, kit and anything due now | Regular monthly subs | A small adult club with one fixed price |
| Watch out for | Expired cards, so build in a reminder to update them | Members can claim a refund under the Direct Debit Guarantee with no time limit | Old prices and missed months that nobody notices |
Family discounts and hardship
Siblings are how junior clubs grow, so most clubs offer a family rate. The common versions are a percentage off the second and later children, or a capped family price for a household. Pick one and apply it the same way to everyone. For example, 10% off the second child and 20% off the third: on a £30 monthly sub, a family of three pays £30, £27 and £24, so £81 instead of £90. A discount that depends on who asked the treasurer is a discount that causes arguments at the AGM.
Agree a hardship route as well, and keep it discreet: a reduced rate or a pause, agreed by one named committee member, with no need for the family to explain themselves twice. If you are a registered CASC, this is not optional. HMRC’s guidance says a CASC whose membership costs run above £520 a year must make provision for members who cannot afford more.
Write the arrears policy before anyone is in arrears
Payments fail for dull reasons: an expired card, a new bank account, a quiet account on collection day. Most get fixed when the member is told. The problem is the few that do not, and the volunteer who then has to raise it at the side of a pitch. A written rule, applied to the committee’s own children as well, turns that into a club decision rather than a personal one.
Put the rule in your membership terms and publish it. A version that works for most clubs:
- First failed payment: the member, or the parent, is told straight away and asked to update their details. Stripe retries a failed Direct Debit up to twice within 30 days.
- Still unpaid after 14 days: a personal message from the treasurer or membership secretary.
- Two payments missed: the member sits out training or selection until the account is settled, unless the hardship route applies.
- Leaving: a member who leaves with money owed gets one written request, and the committee decides whether to write it off.
Payouts and the treasurer’s month-end
Check where the money goes before you sign up to anything. With a processor such as Stripe, collected money should be paid into the club’s own bank account on a rolling schedule, a few days behind collection. Avoid any setup where the software company holds the club’s money and you have to ask for it.
Payouts arrive as one lump per payout, not one line per member, so the treasurer needs to match each payout to the payments inside it. In Stripe’s dashboard, each payout lists the payments it contains, and you can export that list to CSV. A month-end then looks like this: tick each payout on the bank statement against its export, check the total matches your subs report for the period, and file both. With collection, discounts and refunds in one system, that takes an evening at the year-end rather than a weekend.
One more thing catches new treasurers out. A processor usually takes its fees before paying out, so a payout can be smaller than the subs collected in it. Record the gross subs as income and the fees as a cost, rather than booking the payout figure as income, so the year-end accounts show what members actually paid.
We build OurClub: where software helps with subs, and where it does not
Declared interest: we build OurClub. If your club has one price, twenty adult members and a treasurer who enjoys the spreadsheet, standing orders may be fine for years. Software starts to earn its place when there are several prices, juniors, families and a committee that changes every few seasons. Here is how OurClub handles the shapes above, so you can check it against your sport:
- Subscriptions bill weekly, fortnightly or monthly, and a member’s plans fold into one bill per cycle. There is no termly or annual billing interval. Clubs with termly or season fees either spread them monthly or send the fee as a one-off quick payment, which the member pays by card.
- Members pay subscriptions by card or Bacs Direct Debit, whichever the club has switched on. Shop items, tickets and quick payments are paid by card.
- Household discounts give a percentage off by the number of family members covered. Admins can approve each suggested discount or let it apply automatically. Subsidies cover an individual member.
- Members change plan themselves in the app. An upgrade starts straight away and the member pays the prorated difference. A downgrade starts at the next billing date. A pause keeps the member’s place without charging them.
- When you change a plan’s price, each member is told automatically and pays the new amount from their next payment date.
- When a payment fails, the member and the club’s admins are emailed and the payment is retried.
- Money goes from Stripe straight to the club’s bank account on Stripe’s rolling schedule. Club reports export as PDF, CSV or Excel for the treasurer.
On cost: OurClub has no monthly fee and takes no card at signup. Clubs pay one all-in rate from 3.25% of what they process, with card fees included, and lower bands as volume grows, so a quiet summer costs less. Clubs registered before 1 November 2026 keep the founding rate. Whatever platform you look at, ask to see what happens when a payment fails and what the treasurer’s month-end export looks like. Those two screens decide how much volunteer time collection takes.
