The week before the committee meets
The general manager needs a pack for the board. Membership numbers by category and the change since last month. Rounds played by members, guests, visitors and societies. Green fee income. Bar and catering takings. Subscription income against budget. Arrears. Course closures.
Each number comes from a different place. The tee sheet gives rounds, the EPOS gives bar takings, the membership software gives categories, and the accounts give income. Each export has its own format and date range. The manager spends two evenings pasting and checking, and the treasurer asks at the meeting why the subscription figure differs from the accounts.
Why the numbers never quite agree
Every system defines things its own way. A member who has resigned but not yet left might still count in the membership system but not in the accounts. A society round might be counted as visitors in one place and as a separate type in another.
The pack is built by hand each month, so the definitions drift. Different volunteers produce it differently, and figures from last year cannot be compared with this year's.
And the committee meets with a snapshot that is a fortnight old, because it takes that long to build.
There is a quieter problem too. Because the pack is hard to build, it only ever contains what it contained last year. When the board wants to ask a new question, such as how many five-day members play at weekends as guests, or how society income compares by month, the honest answer is that nobody has time to find out.
What that costs
| Problem | Effect |
|---|---|
| Figures pasted by hand | Evenings of work before every meeting |
| Different definitions | Meetings spent arguing about the numbers |
| No consistent history | Hard to see trends over seasons |
| Reports late | Decisions made on stale information |
| Knowledge held by the manager | Pack falls apart when they are away |
What the committee concludes from the numbers is its own business. Our job is to make sure the numbers are right and ready.
How we build the club report
- We connect to the systems you use, such as the tee sheet, EPOS, membership software and your accounts package like Xero or Sage, through their data exports or connections.
- With the manager and treasurer we agree definitions for each measure: what counts as an active member, a visitor round, a society round, and so on, and write them down.
- The data is gathered automatically into one store each night or week, and the definitions are applied the same way every time.
- A report page shows the committee's measures for the month, year to date and the same period last year, with the budget where you have one.
- Any figure can be opened to see where it came from, so a query at the meeting can be answered there and then.
- The pack can be exported as a PDF for the board papers, or shared as a link to a live page with the right access.
If your club management system already has reporting that would cover most of this, we help you set up the reports in it rather than building a separate one.
The next committee meeting
Between meetings, the manager can check the same page whenever a question comes up, such as whether a quiet month for green fees is a trend or just the weather. New questions from the board become new measures rather than new evenings of work.
The manager opens the report the morning the papers are due, adds a few lines of commentary, and exports it. The treasurer's income figure matches the accounts, because it comes from them. When a committee member asks how visitor rounds compare with last August, the answer is on the page.
- One monthly report, built automatically
- Agreed definitions applied consistently
- A history the committee can compare against
- Answers at the meeting, not a week later
Does your committee pack look like this?
- The report is pasted together from several exports each month.
- Figures differ between the report and the accounts.
- Only one person knows how to build the pack.
- Year-on-year comparisons are hard or impossible.
- Questions at the meeting are taken away to answer later.