Lets dig into it.
1. THE DIGITAL HACK
Our first admin hack is, if you’re not already, seriously consider going digital. By this we mean, get all of your information on your phone, tablet and PC/Mac. Bulky paperwork/messy spreadsheets can only take your club so far. And the clubs who have gone digital sooner rather than later have been super thankful in the long run.
Aside from the obvious benefits of no longer having to carry around heavy folders/rifle through cupboards for emergency information, there are lots of other advantages to going digital:
Coacha holds all its information within the cloud and is super secure; so, you no longer have to worry about leaving your paperwork lying around. This is because your information will be held within your password-protected Coacha account.
Coacha’s servers are also backed up every 24 hours, meaning you won’t lose information, giving you piece of mind.
Coacha also gives your members extra control over their data under GDPR, meaning they can view, edit and download their data whenever they want to. This gives them extra confidence that you’re dealing with their data in the best way you can.
With features built around child protection best practice, no child will ever be contacted when they shouldn’t be. There are also additional safeguarding reporting features in the event of concern for a member.
Going digital will save you and your coaches so much admin time. Rather than being kept in various different systems/folders, everything is accessible online by all coaches. This puts you and your team in control of your club’s data, more so than you’ve ever been.
It also allows members and parents to view/amend their data so they don’t need to keep asking you or your coaches to make changes.
2. PREPARATION IS KEY
Our second admin hack is the key to getting started with cutting your admin time down. We know that coaches are busy people. How do we know that? Because we’re coaches ourselves. Many of us will work full-time as well as coaching in our spare time. In order to completely transform your club admin, you need to get organised. And the key to getting organised? Preparation.
First of all, it’s a great idea to:
• Get all of your members’ details in advance. This is so that you’re not rushing to collect everyone’s information just as the season is starting.
• Get your members to input their own details.
Coacha allows you to generate a signup form URL which you can distribute to your current and prospective members. Members submit the form and then when you next log into Coacha, all you have to do is accept them. It’s as easy as that.
The great thing about this signup process is that you can start your member data collection as early as possible and your input is very minimal. Meaning you save hours on the normal process of manually collecting details.
Members and parents also love the signup form because they can input their own data; ensuring all of their details are correct and up to date.
Coacha’s signup form has been one of the most popular features in the 2.0 update. Our userbase actually tripled when we introduced V2.0, many of them getting on board because of this feature alone.
Also, you’re able to see what date members submitted the form, so some clubs choose to use it as a waiting list…
3. GET EVERYONE ON BOARD
In order to implement real, long-term change, all of your team need to be on board. If your admin is messy and time-consuming, it may be damaging their morale. Showing that you’re trying to free-up their time and make their lives easier goes a long way.
Whatever system you’re thinking of trying, it’s a good idea to get your team to try it with you. Some people can also be hesitant to change. So, allowing them to trial the new system before suddenly rolling it out across the whole club is a good idea.
Make sure you take a free trial of whichever software you’re looking at. Coacha offer a 14-day free trial which is completely unlimited in its access.
Coacha is brilliant for involving your team as it ensures they only have access to the data they need to see. So, if you’re worried about coaches accessing information you don’t want to share, don’t be. The staff access levels are as follows:
• Administrator: The main administrator will have full access to all features within Coacha
• Coach: Coaches will have access to Members, Classes & Registers only
Allowing your coaches to have their own login details will give them more control over the sessions they’re teaching. Meaning you won’t have to organise their paperwork/registers for every session. Also, they won’t have to spend time checking over paperwork or arranging to meet you to collect/handover register s etc.
4. GET EVERYTHING ALL UNDER ONE ROOF
When you hold different folders/documents which contain your member information, things can get messy fast. It takes time to locate members, you have to physically update their information in all of the areas you hold it and it isn’t as secure as it could be.
Having one place where all member information is stored will make yours and your coaches’ lives so much easier. When everything is held in one safe and secure system, your admin time will be cut down by a huge amount. You’ll spend less time updating information held across 3/4 different platforms, your coaches will spend less time cross-checking for different information. More importantly, everyone has more time for coaching.
5. COMMUNITY IS KEY
Being responsible for the input of so much data is a daunting task. And when you’re dealing with potentially out of date information, you’re risking your level of compliance with GDPR.
You’ll have your own Member List in Coacha where each member has their own profile. You can also give members/parents access to edit their information, so you don’t have to. This means that when members/parents change address, or update their contact details, they can change their details within their system themselves. They’re responsible for their own data so you can free up the time you’d usually spend updating member profiles.
Members and parents absolutely love having more control over their own data because it means they can ensure their details are always up to date as soon as they wish. It also saves coaches so much time that they’d normally spend updating details. It’s a win-win for everyone.
6. GETTING THE MESSAGE
When there are Facebook messages, WhatsApp groups and emails involved, things can get confusing, not to mention seeming unprofessional. Also, things are tricky when it comes to contacting children. Who can and can’t you contact? But how do you put a strict procedure in place to ensure you’re always contacting the right people?
The first step is deciding on one method of contact for your athletes and your parents. This is a decision you’ll need to make and all those who want to attend your club will need to comply.
Coacha has a super sophisticated Email/SMS system in place whereby you can:
• Choose which individual/team you want to send a message to, if not the whole club. You’ll need to categorise your members into their teams/Member Groups first.
• Choose to exclude those members who opt out of receiving marketing information under GDPR.
• Most importantly, automatically redirect messages to children’s NOK if they are within certain age brackets. This is child protection best practice.
These features have saved our clubs so much time, helped them ensure they aren’t breaching GDPR rights and also reduced so much stress by ensuring no children are ever contacted when they shouldn’t be.
Plus, members and parents are assured that no children/vulnerable adults will only ever be contacted inappropriately. This has proven to enhance our clubs’ reputations by a huge amount.
7. PAPERLESS REGISTERS - SAVE TIME & THE PLANET
We know what you’re thinking, sitting down and writing/typing out 6 months-worth of register s is not fun. And we totally understand. But surely getting these sorted long in advance will give you more time within the week?
Coacha automatically generates every single register for you, until you tell it to stop. All you need to do is input your timetable information, assign a coach, attach the relevant team/group and then these register s will automatically show on the day of the class.
Coaches can then use their device to mark them as arrived. Then after the class, the members’ attendance statistics will be updated. Some of our users even lock their register , place a device near the entrance of the training space and allow members to tick themselves in on arrival.
You’ll save a huge amount of time because you’ll no longer need to sit down and sort your register s on a weekly basis. Your coaches will be able to take their register s straight from their own device and they’ll sync across the whole of Coacha. Meaning you’ll be able to log in as an administrator and view the attendance of different classes.
Members and parents also love the new level of interaction where they can sign themselves in as attending when they arrive. The digital register s bring a whole new level of visual sophistication to your club.
8. HACK: SIMPLIFY PAYMENTS & SAVE CASH
So many clubs come to us with 3/4 different ways of taking payments. They’ll have direct directs for some members, standing orders for others and cash for others. This is messy, time-consuming and not to mention stressful. We see clubs that waste hours upon hours every single week trying to figure out who hasn’t paid. We also see clubs down on thousands of pounds in earnings due to missed payments.
Picking 1 payment process to use for every single member will save you so much in both time and money. Switching how you take your payments may seem like a time consuming task but streamlining everything will give you unbelievable results in the long-run. We see it happen every day.
Coacha partners with Stripe to automate your club’s payments. Whether it’s a recurring subscription or a one-off payment, you can take it through Coacha. As Coacha knows what to expect every month, you can check your Money Dashboard for updated statuses on each payment.
This will save you so much time and stress in trying to figure out who has/hasn’t paid. You’ll also be totally informed at every point in the payment process, so you’ll never have to miss out on payments again. Plus, members/parents are so much less likely to be able to cancel their payment to your club because you’re in charge of the cancellation process. But if the member does cancel the recurring payment with their bank, you’ll be notified by us. Think of the money you’ll save.
Members and parents also love that our clubs have an advanced system that allows them to register their card details with the club, rather than having to contact the bank with the club’s bank details to set up a standing order/direct debit.
9. ELIMINATE “WHO’S PAID WHAT…?!”
Finding out who’s paid what is much easier when you have a list of who should’ve paid what, so you can compare.
As Coacha knows what to expect, it will keep you updated on every single transaction. You’ll receive a notification if a payment fails, when someone sets up their payment and if someone hasn’t set up their payment within a week of you asking them to. You can also check the Money Dashboard for transaction history at any point.
This whole process will take away the time you were once spending on tracking down payments and cross-checking with register s and allow you to take a step back from paperwork, to spend more time coaching. Each payment is matched with the member’s profile, so if you ever need to check the status of someone’s payment, you can do it within a few seconds.
10. MONEY MATTERS, DON'T MISS IT!
Having one, simple process to follow for unmade payments will make life easier for you. A text here and a WhatsApp message there won’t cut it when you have multiple failed payments. It’s good to use one form of contact for everyone to make it easier for yourself.
You could set a reminder for yourself a few days after the initial chase, to chase them again. If you don’t, you may forget. And consecutive months of this with several members could leave your club down hundreds, even thousands of pounds.
Coacha has a super sophisticated automatic failed payment process. If one of your members’ payments fails, Stripe will try to recollect the payment a further 4 times over the space of just over a week whilst notifying you along the way. You’ll then receive a final notification if the payment fails on the last attempt, letting you know it’s time to chase the member manually.
Many of our clubs have saved thousands of pounds thanks to this process. Not to mention the time they once spent having to check and chase missed payments. They love it because they don’t have to spend hours trying to figure out who hasn’t paid and then further time chasing them. We do the work for you, so you can coach more.
11. AUTOMATE PAYMENTS SET UP
When you’re handing over your bank details and asking members to set up direct debits, things can get confusing and time-consuming. Ideally, have a process in place whereby member s/parents can simply enter their own details and submit their information.
With Coacha, you can send ‘payment requests’ to member s/their parents’ emails. All they then have to do is input their own information and the payment is made/set up through Coacha, to be paid into your Stripe account. Saving both you and your members/parents time as the process is so simple. Member s love this because they don’t have to mess around contacting their bank, they just have to enter their card details and they’re sorted.
12. THE ‘MAKE CASH DIGITAL’ HACK
No matter how many times you tell people you no longer take cash, you’re guaranteed to still have that one member who turns up with their £5 for training. When this happens, it’s useful to have a process in place for recording that cash so that you don’t forget and wonder why your income is down.
Coacha has a virtual cash tin that allows you to record cash and link it with a member. This payment will then show up as a cash transaction for this member on the Money Dashboard and will export into your finance report too.
When it comes to doing your accounts, this will make your life so much easier because you have a record of all finances within one financial export. Plus, you won’t be down on cash because you forgot to record something on a Sunday afternoon training session a few months ago. Your member s will also have an accurate record of all payments that they’ve made to your club. So, everyone’s happy and you have more time and less stress to deal with.
13. TIP: BEFRIEND YOUR ACCOUNTANT
You could think your year is going awesome until you realise you’ve not got an accurate record of your finances for your accounts. You should streamline your finances so that grabbing records of them for taxes/for your accountant to deal with is easy – this will make your accountant your best friend.
You can export finances from any time period within Coacha. The export will download in a spreadsheet to display all types of payments from within that time range. You can then either send the spreadsheet to your accountant or copy the information into whatever accounting software you use.
This will save you hours in collating finance information from bank statements/spreadsheets. It will also ensure you have an accurate record so that payments aren’t being missed. It makes your club look super sophisticated to your members/parents too.
Coacha are also working on integrating with both Xero and QuickBooks to make the payments that go through Coacha filter straight into your accounting software. So, you’ll save even more time.
14. TICK TO AGREE!
You should ensure that any terms and conditions are accepted before a member starts attending classes; otherwise, what happens if something goes wrong?
Put a set process in place for these documents with a rule of member s not being able to attend class until they read and accept them.
You can attach your waiver documents to your signup form in Coacha. This means no member can submit their information without ticking to accept the terms and conditions first. This will stop member s attending your class when they haven’t agreed to the terms and conditions. It will also save you time chasing them because confirming the conditions before submission of their data is compulsory. Plus everyone is covered.
15. THE POPULARITY HACK
Wouldn’t it be great to see which of your classes are the most/least popular so that you could run more classes or focus your efforts elsewhere? Sometimes this can be shown in your class’ attendance levels. If a particular classes’ attendance is dipping, it may be time evaluate. So, it’s good to keep a continuous eye on this.
You can measure attendance by Class and Member Group within Coacha. Meaning you won’t have to spend hours monitoring individual attendance stats for specific classes. This is great because it may make you realise you need to switch classes around a little bit. This will hopefully result in improving both attendance and morale of athletes, alongside the overall level of attendance within your club.
16. BE RESPONSIVE
If members try to contact you, they should be able to get a response (within a specified time frame, of course). Make it easy for member s/parents to contact you/respond to messages you send out.
When sending emails through Coacha, the response email will be the main administrator email. So, all responses will end up in your inbox. Likewise, you can set your SMS messages to be sent from your personal number so you can receive responses.
This makes it easier for you because all of your messages will be in one place. So, when you sit down and allocate some time to respond to emails, you aren’t constantly switching between communication methods. Your member s/parents will also have clarity on the best way to contact you; and they’ll have faith in your ability to respond to their queries; only enhancing the relationship between you and your member s.
17. THE TIME-KEEPING HACK
It can be difficult to remember to do everything you say you’re going to do, especially when you’re dealing with potentially hundreds of members each day. Consider putting a ‘reminder’ system in place so that you don’t forget things.
Coacha allows you to set reminders against specific member s in terms of time, or when that member has attended a certain number of classes. You’ll receive a notification through Coacha on each occasion, meaning you’ll never forget anything ever again.
This is a brilliant hack because you’ll come across as efficient, reliable and it’ll be like having your own personal assistant! Plus, you’ll also be getting everything done, and on time.
18. TRICK: AVOID DIPS IN INCOME
Having member s leave your club can be difficult when you’re counting on their subscription fees to pay your club’s monthly bills. It’s a good idea to have a waiting list of athletes who want to join your club so that when someone leaves, you can immediately welcome someone new on board.
Coacha’s signup form acts as a waiting list too. Prospective member s can submit their information, then when the time comes to accept new athletes, you can accept as many as you need to into Coacha. They’ll also receive a ‘welcome on board’ email from your club when accepted.
This means you don’t have to keep an external list of potential new members. Everyone is kept in one system, and it’s an easy, quick process to accept them. You’ll save hours of time and your prospective member s will be happy knowing they’re ‘in the system’ before being actual club members.
19. KEEP TRACK OF MEMBER PROGRESS
If you have multiple coaches teaching different classes within your club, it can be super hard to stay on track of the development of member s. Likewise, if you’re teaching lots of member s, it can be easy to forget things about their individual progress. It’s a great idea to have a designated area where you keep track of member progression to help with the planning of future classes.
Each Member Profile has a Coaches’ Notes section within Coacha. This area can be used to track progress/monitor behavior or whatever you need it for. As this is in a designated area, all coaches will know where to access it and it’ll make tracking the progress of member s a lot more efficient.
Your coaches will feel so much more confident that they are able to work with your member s more thoroughly. Members will also show more progress thanks to a person-centred approach and your club’s attendance will hopefully soar.
20. WHEN THINGS ARE URGENT
Although accidents tend to be rare, they do they happen. And in the event of an emergency, your coaches should feel prepared to deal with them. Some of the most important things your coaches need are:
• Instant access to NOK contact details
• Instant access to medical details
Coacha lets your team access both NOK and medical details within literal seconds. All they have to do is head to the member s’ profile and there they are. No more rifling through folders or spreadsheets because the solution is already in their hands.
Your coaches can have piece of mind that they’re prepared to deal with any emergency because they have a set process to follow and an easy system to use. They’ll also save so much time and stress by not having to rifle through folders/locked cupboards for NOK details. The member s’ NOK will also appreciate the super fast execution of the emergency protocol.
21. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
As the world of GDPR and child protection is so enormous, it can be hard to choose what data is compulsory to collect for each member . Some clubs we speak to previously decided not to take member s’ DOB. We argue that DOB is one of the most important pieces of information you need to collect. In the event of an emergency, the medical team will need to know the members’ DOB as part of their initial assessment.
DOB is an essential field within Coacha Member Profiles, but not only for the above reason.
We’re continuously developing Coacha around child protection best practice. Having the correct DOB stored on a members’ profile will ensure that no child is ever contacted when they shouldn’t be.
This will take a huge weight off your shoulders so you can rest assured that you’re safeguarding your member s to the best of your ability. Plus you and your coaches are completely prepared in the event of an emergency. Imagine the time and stress that this will save.
22. THE KEEPING DATA SAFE HACK
Less and less clubs are using paper-based admin for one reason; it’s insecure. If a folder is left out without supervision, your member s’ personal information is left for anyone to pick up. You should have a system in place which gives your member s the confidence that you can protect their data properly.
You can be assured your member s’ information is protected to the highest standard when held within Coacha. Being cloud-based software, we use only the best and most secure servers which are backed up daily. Your coaches’ accounts are password protected, meaning no one can gain access to member information apart from them.
This means that you aren’t carrying around insecure paper records and member s/parents can be completely satisfied that protecting their data is at the forefront of your mind. You’ll also save so much time in eliminating paper. No more having to type and print documentation/ register s etc. No more flicking through clumpy paperwork or being weighed down by heavy folders; because everything is in your handheld device.
23. HAPPY MEMBERS MEAN HAPPY COACHES
Sometimes, member morale can dip which can result in lower attendance. Occasionally, if this goes unnoticed or nothing is done about it, it can result in them leaving the club altogether. You could monitor your member s’ attendance weekly/monthly and then incentivise them with an award/prize.
Coacha automatically generates attendance statistics for each member. Also, if there’s one member you’re particularly concerned about, you can set a reminder to check their attendance in 1 week; or even to let you know when they’ve attended 5 classes. This will hopefully allow you to motivate them a bit more, resulting in them staying on to train their passion. It’ll also save you so much time in doing the workings out yourself, and even give you statistics that you wouldn’t necessarily work out otherwise.
24. GIVE MEMBERS MORE CONTROL
For our clubs, a lot of their time prior to Coacha was spent updating member information. Their member s were sometimes left frustrated when they didn’t have direct access to their data. It’s a good idea (especially under GDPR ) to give them some control over their data.
You can assign your member s login details for Coacha’s Member Portal which will allow them (or their parent/guardian) to log in, view, edit and download their own data. This is currently gold standard best practice in GDPR.
This will give you the confidence that your club is working by the absolute best practice for GDPR compliance. It will save you so much time by using one standalone system, rather than having to update/provide access to member information on a manual basis. Member s/parents will also love the added control over their data.
25. THE LEGAL DATA HACK
If you haven't already, now is a good time to start thinking about the way you handle member data and getting a system in place for it.
Here at Coacha, we built our software around GDPR , literally. Here are some of the features:
• The ability for member s to instantly view, edit and download the data you hold on them. This is gold standard practice and means that in the event of them requesting the information you hold on them, you won’t need to do anything because they can instantly download it.
• Member s must agree to specific consent surrounding GDPR before they can submit their information into your club.
• There is the option to exclude those who have opted out of receiving marketing, from any emails/texts being sent.
• Data being held in one safe and secure place.
Our users love that they can relax because they know they are working towards compliance and taking care of their member ’s data properly.
They also save so much time just by having all of their member data in one system. It means they aren’t spending hours upon hours searching in different spreadsheets, paper files and other systems to collate their information.
Their member s/parents are also super happy (not to mention impressed) to have an increased level of control over what data you hold on them. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.
26. SHORTCUT: SAFEGUARDING - DO LESS FOR MORE
It is our duty as sports coaches to safeguard children, vulnerable adults and their data. It’s a good idea to implement safeguarding tools into your club, to ensure you’re doing everything you can to protect those individuals.
Coacha has several different features focused around safeguarding:
• The communication system is built around best practice guidelines. All communications sent to children in certain age brackets will either divert directly to their NOK or copy their NOK into the communication. So, no one is ever contacted when they shouldn’t be.
• You can add an independent moderator email address. This will ensure that they are copied into every email that goes out to every child.
• The ability to upgrade a Coaches’ Note to a Safeguarding Note on the occasion where there is concern for a member . This will also prevent the note from being viewed/downloaded in the Member Portal.
• If you have vulnerable adults within your club, you can tick their NOK as their primary contact.
• We are constantly working with safeguarding organisations to see what else we can implement to protect your member s.
This gives you the absolute confidence that you are actively working towards safeguarding your member s to the highest possible standard, whilst doing even less than you were before. You’ll save so much time because all of the safeguarding methods that may have taken place manually across various platforms before, will now take place digitally, within one system.
This means that all information is collated together in a process which has been cut down to ensure it takes as little time as possible, without compromising the quality of safeguarding.
We hope you enjoyed our 26 club hacks and they come in handy when it comes to shaping and streamlining your admin. Remember you can sign up for a 14-day free trial of Coacha to see if it fits your needs today. There are no card details needed and no obligations. Simply take a look, see if you like us and get in touch with any questions you may have!