As soon as I saw Xero I could see the benefits.
Robin Moore can’t believe the difference that Xero makes to his job. The manager of Eden Epsom Tennis & Squash Club says last year the club had its most successful year in ten years, and he thinks that with Xero, things will only get better.
- Unlimited free access to a sample company
- Pay when you setup your company
Xero is a great fit for clubs, making accounting easy for people who aren’t accountants. Set up recurring subscriptions, produce professional reports, and track profits and losses for any part of your club.
Let Xero look after subscriptions
Keep track of membership fees that are due or outstanding, with Xero’s repeating transactions. No more working out who owes what, Xero will tell you who’s paid and who hasn’t.
Save your volunteers
The reality of running clubs is you are dependent on volunteers – and they may change frequently. Xero is web-based so can be accessed using any computer connected to the internet. Your treasurer can easily log on at home or wherever they are. And if you appoint a new treasurer it’s no problem, simply invite them in and away they go – no need to transfer data from one place to another.
Safeguard your club
Your club chooses who has access to Xero’s financial adviser features or who has standard user roles. This works to safeguard the club, the treasurer and the board members.
No more waiting on the bank
Receive automated transaction feeds from your club’s bank accounts directly into Xero, even for clubs with dual signatories who have limited internet banking opportunities. No more waiting until the end of the month to see what transactions have been made.
Find the leak or the gold mine
Tracking in Xero allows you to measure what parts of the club are making or costing the most money. Does your club have a bar, pro-shop, or organise tournaments? If so, you can individually track these so your profit and loss reporting is simple.
Easy distribution of information
Board or committee members can be invited to log in to Xero and view the numbers at any time. This saves having to print out endless spreadsheets or reports that become out of date soon after they’re printed.
Debbie’s story
Xero’s the best thing that’s happened around here for a long time.
When you’re running a club it’s hard to keep everyone up-to-date with current accounting information. But now, using Xero, club managers can nominate all the relevant club staff to have access to view the club’s accounts, 24/7 from anywhere.
Robin Moore, Eden Epsom Tennis & Squash Club manager, says New Zealand sports clubs live and die by the presence or absence of volunteers. Most clubs struggle to get volunteers because the work is seen as too laborious and time-consuming.
"Every club needs volunteers and a good support crew – you can’t do it all on your own. You just get burnt out. Volunteers and their time are the keys to a successful club."
The Eden Epsom club has about 600 members over the two codes, with a predominantly senior membership. Robin has been involved in sports club management for a number of years.
"I saw Xero as an opportunity to solve a lot of our club’s problems, not only for my role, and the office administrator’s role, but also for our treasurer. Xero saves us so much time and makes life easier for us. At the end of the day putting your hand up to be a volunteer should be more fun than it currently is," he says.
Robin now finds accounting easy. He says the treasurer, the president of the club and he can keep track of the numbers. It used to take a while to find the information that was asked for, and then even longer to deliver it.
"Our old system was constantly crashing and we would lose data. There was no support and we often had to revert back to spreadsheets. There was so much double-handling – it made even more work for us."
"Now because our accounting is online, it’s so easy to find what you want, and see the true worth of the club, without wasting time."
Most clubs enforce the rule requiring dual signatories to sign off on any of the club’s accounts. Therefore, responsibility is shared and not on the one head – which can be risky for a club and the person involved. Robin says Xero’s authorisation and approving process is great, allowing the necessary people to access the accounts.
Using Xero makes it easy for Robin to look after the club’s subscriptions – most of which are monthly. These just go directly to the correct areas as they are already set for automatic approval, and all Robin has to do is reconcile them.
Robin also says working out the club’s tax in Xero was much easier than in other systems he’d used.
"Tax – the word – is usually enough to put anyone off. But Xero certainly makes even that easy."
"I don’t know where we’d be without it. Xero’s the best thing that’s happened around here in a long time."
