Club Management Software

[griffindm]

I'm doing a review of the available software for sports club management. This to determine if it is the right time for our club to take the plunge. We are looking for a product that does scheduling and membership management, preferably from the Web. The best one I have seen so far seems to be EZFacility. The others I have looked at seem to be mostly PC-based, with a couple offering limited capabilities via hosting. EZFacility is subscription-based, and starts at about $100/mo for up to 5 instructors. The optional membership module (which looks pretty good) runs $49/mo for up to 250 members. It does billing (with some current limitations) and exports to Quickbooks Pro, which is a plus for us.

Has anyone else found anything comparable or better? We are not committed to this product yet, and are actually testing a Yahoo Group to do coordination for instructor scheduling right now.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Dave

[kuroutesshin]

Did you do the ETZfacility demo? How did it work out?

[noodle]

i've actually considered developing or extending existing software for fencing clubs specifically. if there's serious interest i'll follow through. question is, what features would you want to see?

[MdA]

i've actually considered developing or extending existing software for fencing clubs specifically. if there's serious interest i'll follow through. question is, what features would you want to see?

I say go for it. I never used web software to manage a club but I think it is a great idea. At one time, I owned my own club and anything to help manage memberships, allow members to pay online, and keep the books ...in addition to lesson and class sign-ups...would be great.

All integrated and in one place...both public and user login sections on the website.

[MdA]

I say go for it. I never used web software to manage a club but I think it is a great idea. At one time, I owned my own club and anything to help manage memberships, allow members to pay online, and keep the books ...in addition to lesson and class sign-ups...would be great.

All integrated and in one place...both public and user login sections on the website.

He is a link to a web software package that I checked out for the USFCA...they decided to go with another...but I think this one looks great and cheaper than what you are looking at

http://www.wildapricot.com/

[noodle]

He is a link to a web software package that I checked out for the USFCA...they decided to go with another...but I think this one looks great and cheaper than what you are looking at

http://www.wildapricot.com/

that looks like a pretty thorough piece of software to me.
whats missing? and again, what does a fencing school/club specifically need that isn't being provided for?

[griffindm]

Well time to report back. The EZFacility demo looked very good. The only nits were the invoicing presentation (it does a single invoice for each service, though you can also do statements which would show each service as lines in one doc), and some of the terminology. The product is geared towared health clubs and personal training facilities. I plan to do a more thorough demo, looking at features beyond membership and scheduling later this week.

The Wild Apricot product looks good also. The pricing is excellent. Where it maybe a little weaker is in scheduling and potentially billing/export integration. It has a scheduling tool, but the online demo is a little vague on details of its flexibility. We are currently using Yahoo Groups for scheduling (just started a little while ago) and it has nice options for recurring events and single event detail overrides. Obviously not a full package, but it does this part well.

The EZFacility package does export to Quickbooks, which is a plus if you have a full bookkeeping solution (and everyone needs something to record misc expenses), and it does appear to be able to link the billing detail to the QB customers, which is a nice plus.

It is a little unclear on the Wild Apricot site as to whether or not it has a problem with payments done by check rather than online, but I would assume if has that capability.

I will contact them about a demo or trial and see where things go.

Thanks for the input.

Dave

[noodle]

Well time to report back. The EZFacility demo looked very good. The only nits were the invoicing presentation (it does a single invoice for each service, though you can also do statements which would show each service as lines in one doc), and some of the terminology. The product is geared towared health clubs and personal training facilities. I plan to do a more thorough demo, looking at features beyond membership and scheduling later this week.

The Wild Apricot product looks good also. The pricing is excellent. Where it maybe a little weaker is in scheduling and potentially billing/export integration. It has a scheduling tool, but the online demo is a little vague on details of its flexibility. We are currently using Yahoo Groups for scheduling (just started a little while ago) and it has nice options for recurring events and single event detail overrides. Obviously not a full package, but it does this part well.

The EZFacility package does export to Quickbooks, which is a plus if you have a full bookkeeping solution (and everyone needs something to record misc expenses), and it does appear to be able to link the billing detail to the QB customers, which is a nice plus.

It is a little unclear on the Wild Apricot site as to whether or not it has a problem with payments done by check rather than online, but I would assume if has that capability.

I will contact them about a demo or trial and see where things go.

Thanks for the input.

Dave

here are some features i was kicking around:

customer management
rate management (variable membership fees, variable fees for lessons)
line item billing, bill printing, bill email notification
simple scheduling (i.e, a single calender, possibly email notification)
customer online access
bills payable online via integration with AWS
export available to other systems, including batch CC export for manual processing or uploading to authorize

in addition, custom stuff as requested.
think its worthwhile to pursue based on the options already available?

[griffindm]

Noodle,

It would be a gamble, but it could payoff. The existing dedicated sports club mgmt packages, except EZFacility, seem to be largely PC based, or web with only limited capabilities. Some others, such as MotionSoft, are just too expensive (~$500+ per month). Generic products such as Wild Apricot give many of the requirements, but fall a little short. What I would see as the ideal fit would be something at WA's price point $25-$100/mo, with better sport-related billing and scheduling options.

What I have seen is the lack of the ability to do membership - event interaction, where what you are eligible for, or the pricing thereof, is dependent on whether or not you are a member, and potentially what type of member.

An ability to export to the popular PC small business softwares (QB/Peachtree/Etc) would be very sweet as well, even at some additional cost.

Do not stint the scheduling side. Clubs need both a list and calendar view of things. It would be great to be able to matrix coach availability into the scheduling tool as well. This makes it a valuable tool for coverage during NAC's or SN when coaches maybe unavailable.

Go for it if you have the time. I'd buy it from you!

Dave