How to switch club management software without losing members

The billing handover, because it is the part that bites

Pick a single switchover date and build everything around it. The old platform takes its final collection on the 1st; during that month members set up their payment on the new platform; the new platform takes its first collection on the following 1st. One system owns any given month. Nobody pays twice.

Members authorise the new payment once - card or Bacs Direct Debit - and the old mandates simply lapse when you stop collections. Announce the date in the same breath as the new system, because the first question every member asks is about their money, and the answer needs to already be on the page. Keep the old platform alive but not collecting for a month afterwards as the safety net, and check its notice period before you announce anything: some platforms want 30 days and there is no cheaper way to learn that than by reading the contract.

One club we spoke to had done this journey the hard way, twice. First on standing orders, where members quietly kept paying old prices and ignored the messages about it, which made conversations at the mats awkward; card payers were no better, because an expired card simply never got updated. So the club moved to a Direct-Debit-only platform - which fixed collection and cost them members, because some only had a card and others resented signing up to yet another system. What they actually wanted, and eventually got, was one move to one platform that takes card and Direct Debit both, with a fee structure simple enough to explain at the desk.

Before that: export everything while you can

Do the export while the old subscription is live and support still answers. You want members and contact details, active plans and prices, the timetable, grade and belt history, waivers and policy acceptances, and any waitlists. Most platforms export CSV per section; if yours will not export something, screenshot it. Grade history is the one that hurts to reconstruct later, and it is also the first thing a member looks for in a new app - a blank belt record reads as the club losing their years of work.

Build in draft, check the awkward records

Set the new platform up fully before any member hears about it: plans mapped price for price, timetable rebuilt, grading syllabus modelled, policies uploaded and republished so members accept them at first login and nobody trains uncovered. A platform that runs in draft while you do this (OurClub does) keeps a half-built club invisible.

Then hand-check the records imports get wrong: family accounts, paused members, anyone on a legacy price. Ten minutes here saves the awkward emails later.

Telling members: late, short, once

One email, one link, one date. Send it after everything is built: the club is moving, here is where you join, your payments move over on this date. Coaches get the same message a week early so the answers at the desk match the email.

A third of members act in the first week. The rest are not ignoring you; they are on the mats twice a week and their inbox is where emails go to rest. Chase from the class register, in person, and the long tail closes in a fortnight.

What switching to OurClub looks like

Declared interest, briefly: our importer brings across members, plans, classes, events, grading syllabus, shop items and waitlists from an export, the club sits in draft until you launch, and the import help is free. There is no monthly fee while you transition, so a careful month-long move costs nothing extra. The switching page has the detail.