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Online membership

  • 09-02-2021 10:28am
    #1
    Kerrydude1981
    Registered Users Posts: 14,193 ✭✭✭✭


    Just wondering what site or system does your club use to collect membership especially now during times we are living in?

    My club is looking at Clubforce and the GAA's Foireann system


Comments

  • #2
    ArielAtom
    Registered Users Posts: 2,573 ✭✭✭ArielAtom


    Kerrydude1981 wrote: »
    Just wondering what site or system does your club use to collect membership especially now during times we are living in?

    My club is looking at Clubforce and the GAA's Foireann system

    We use Clubforce and have done for a number of years. Works well.


  • #3
    dobman88
    Registered Users Posts: 6,460 ✭✭✭dobman88


    My club uses clubforce. Very easy to use and once you sign up, your details are there for next year making it easier again.


  • #4
    Fine Cheers
    Registered Users Posts: 552 ✭✭✭Fine Cheers


    +1 for Clubforce. Not the cheapest on the market but certainly the leaders in my opinion. Better rates if you have other services with them such as online lotto. Klubfunder ok too.


  • #5
    sgarvan
    Registered Users Posts: 1,606 ✭✭✭sgarvan


    We were with ClubForce and moved to Clubifyapp.com

    Not involved in the reasons for the move but presume the use of the Clubify phone app.


  • #6
    Uncle Pierre
    Registered Users Posts: 1,451 ✭✭✭Uncle Pierre


    My club recently spent a lot of time looking at both Clubforce and Klubfunder as means of running online lotto and taking online membership payments. We decided to go with Klubfunder in the end, mainly because the fees with Clubforce are so high. It might be better suited to larger clubs putting a high proportion of their memberships etc. through an online facility, but not so much for smaller clubs with smaller membership bases.


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  • #7
    luasaigh
    Registered Users Posts: 27 ✭luasaigh


    Our club had been using Sportlomo to collect membership online in 2019 and 2020. We were very very happy with Sportlomo (and it was also the cheapest we looked at - we compared with a number of other well-known systems).

    On researching Foireann, we figured that it was going to be a major pain managing two systems and the upload from one to the other. Plus Foireann has lots of other features. We knew there would be downsides to dropping Sportlomo, but we took the chance and went full-on Foireann-only. 100% online for membership. And it's working out great. 211 of our ~300 members have already registered. Only significant problems were some members (or mostly parents of members) getting used to the new system, and a tendency of some parents to enter their child as the account holder (ticking the "I'm 18 or older" box regardless). But we sorted all problems really.

    There are some minor problems - all of which I have opened support tickets for, and they will get to them when they get to them.

    The thing that grates the most is that the CSV download does not contain all the information, and in particular does not contain the communication consent information which is a real problem for us because we feed the CSV to a club texting system and we would like to be able to programmatically exclude the mobiles for which there isn't consent (based on the type of communication). I'm optimistic that Foireann will address this in time.

    In summary though, we're thrilled we went whole-hog Foireann.

    Great deal too BTW - only charge is 1.35% of a payment! Great negotiation by the GAA & other associations.


  • #8
    thefa
    Registered Users Posts: 912 ✭✭✭thefa


    Is it 1.35% total or the fixed fee (25c) plus 1.35%?


  • #9
    luasaigh
    Registered Users Posts: 27 ✭luasaigh


    thefa wrote: »
    Is it 1.35% total or the fixed fee (25c) plus 1.35%?

    No fixed fee as I understand it (though I have not totted up the figures to double check that).


  • #10
    thefa
    Registered Users Posts: 912 ✭✭✭thefa


    luasaigh wrote: »
    No fixed fee as I understand it (though I have not totted up the figures to double check that).

    We have stripe for the lotto already and it’s the 25c & 1.4% plus VAT so was curious. Had briefly looked into Foireann as the fees are lower than Clubforce and no annual fee. Could easily save €100s which is handy when things are tight.


  • #11
    Uncle Pierre
    Registered Users Posts: 1,451 ✭✭✭Uncle Pierre


    Yeah, usual Stripe fees are 1.4% + 25c per transaction.

    The GAA may have negotiated a slight discount to 1.35% all right. Don't know if they managed to get rid of the 25c per transaction as well.


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  • #12
    luasaigh
    Registered Users Posts: 27 ✭luasaigh


    Uncle Pierre wrote: »
    Yeah, usual Stripe fees are 1.4% + 25c per transaction.

    The GAA may have negotiated a slight discount to 1.35% all right. Don't know if they managed to get rid of the 25c per transaction as well.

    They did get rid of the 25c (which is very important for our club as our membership charges are very low so 25c per payment would have been high for us).

    And I just now validated that they got rid of the 25c by comparing the value accumulated in our Stripe account vs the amount paid by members.

    Great negotiation by the GAA.


  • #13
    Uncle Pierre
    Registered Users Posts: 1,451 ✭✭✭Uncle Pierre


    The 25c doesn't sound like much, but can catch you out all right.

    I remember when we first started using Stripe for online lotto, and some people were buying just one ticket (€2) at a time. The 1.4% worked out at only 2.8c, but add the 25c per transaction fee, and we were only actually getting €1.722 from the ticket price.

    We've since changed it so that minimum online purchase is €10. Means we get €9.61 of that tenner.

    Club treasurer is "old school" and still doesn't like losing anything out of the purchase price, but at least proportionately, 39c out of a tenner is far less than 28c out of €2!


  • #14
    luasaigh
    Registered Users Posts: 27 ✭luasaigh


    Uncle Pierre wrote: »
    The 25c doesn't sound like much, but can catch you out all right.

    I remember when we first started using Stripe for online lotto, and some people were buying just one ticket (€2) at a time. The 1.4% worked out at only 2.8c, but add the 25c per transaction fee, and we were only actually getting €1.722 from the ticket price.

    We've since changed it so that minimum online purchase is €10. Means we get €9.61 of that tenner.

    Club treasurer is "old school" and still doesn't like losing anything out of the purchase price, but at least proportionately, 39c out of a tenner is far less than 28c out of €2!

    Exactly. We used stripe before too.

    With Foireann, our child membership is €25
    --> 34c to Stripe (and credit card companies), and €24.66 to us.
    A good deal for us.


  • #15
    thefa
    Registered Users Posts: 912 ✭✭✭thefa


      Uncle Pierre wrote: »
      The 25c doesn't sound like much, but can catch you out all right.

      I remember when we first started using Stripe for online lotto, and some people were buying just one ticket (€2) at a time. The 1.4% worked out at only 2.8c, but add the 25c per transaction fee, and we were only actually getting €1.722 from the ticket price.

      We've since changed it so that minimum online purchase is €10. Means we get €9.61 of that tenner.

      Club treasurer is "old school" and still doesn't like losing anything out of the purchase price, but at least proportionately, 39c out of a tenner is far less than 28c out of €2!

      We have the €10 limit too. Think we get €9.52 back on a tenner after transactions fees and VAT. Does your club avoid the VAT?

      From my experience, people seem to overestimate how profitable the lottos are and those 3 for €5 are a killer.


    1. #16
      Uncle Pierre
      Registered Users Posts: 1,451 ✭✭✭Uncle Pierre


      thefa wrote: »
        Does your club avoid the VAT?

        SSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH! :D

        Seriously though, I honestly don't know about that. But I did find the following in a Revenue document here

        3 Lotteries
        The issuing of tickets or coupons for the purpose of a lottery is exempt from VAT.
        Bingo tickets and raffle tickets are also exempt from VAT.

        Also for what it's worth, don't understand how if you're somehow paying VAT and we're not, that you're ending up with only 9c less out of €10 than we are.


      1. #17
        thefa
        Registered Users Posts: 912 ✭✭✭thefa


        The VAT is charged by Stripe on their processing fees (9c onto the 39c from the €10). We’re exempt from any form of sales VAT on lotto tickets alright!


      2. #18
        Uncle Pierre
        Registered Users Posts: 1,451 ✭✭✭Uncle Pierre


        That makes sense. I've never actually followed the money trail through to that degree, to see exactly what we're left with. My role with online lotto is really to see that online entries are properly entered into the draw and checked along with the "traditional" ticket sales, which still make up about 75 or 80% of total sales.

        Basically, I see one figure for total online sales income, and another figure for what our take of it, but I've never analysed the difference to see how much of it is the 1.4% fee, the 25c per transaction fee, or VAT.


      3. #19
        AndrewJRenko
        Registered Users Posts: 28,324 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


        We use https://www.smartclubsolutions.com/

        I'm just a member, so I've no involvement in setting it up. Seems a bit clunky from the end user point of view, almost as if a financial system has been repurposed as a membership system, but it gets there.


      4. #20
        cosdec
        Registered Users Posts: 13 ✭cosdec


        Issue I am having is no "Register" button . SO We have members who have paid "offline" (cash mostly) and now when I go into Foireann to try and register them as having paid the Register button is greyed out. This is the same for any combination I have tried

        - older existing members who were definitely the same in old ServaSport system (and I could manually register them there).
        - New members who I create as a Club Admin
        - new members who have registered themselves and chose the "Pay Later in Club" on membership options (so they can do cash in the club)

        I have tried this for members but with and without the blue "verification" tick


      5. #21
        eo9han
        Registered Users Posts: 3 ✭eo9han



        https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117030863#Comment_117030863

        Do you know if a club can use the same stripe account for foireann and klubfunder? We're looking into moving from clubforce

        Just asking as you said you've used stripe before and seem to use it with foireann?



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      7. #22
        Kerrydude1981
        Registered Users Posts: 14,193 ✭✭✭✭Kerrydude1981


        Hey everyone, anyone have issues with Foireann and bulk uploading members? Getting errors on the CSV file

        image.png




      8. #23
        luasaigh
        Registered Users Posts: 27 ✭luasaigh


        https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118592803#Comment_118592803

        To my knowledge NO. I tried. I would have liked to because the Stripe account I had allowed me to give refunds (tho that is coming apparently in Foireann) and to have improved reporting.

        We were with Sportlomo, and were very very happy with them. But moving to Foireann at the beginning of 2021 for everything worked very well for us. And you can't beat the 1.35%, without any other fixed cost.



      9. #24
        Northern lassie
        Registered Users Posts: 96 ✭✭Northern lassie


        Hi All

        Just wondering is anyone using the Foireann App. We only use Foireann so delighted to see that the App has finally been launched. We've had a few pay their membership already and that seemed to work okay. Even a few families paid the family membership which is great as there was a problem doing that through the website previously.

        Would anyone know if the communications part of the App is up and running i.e. is it possible to send out email to everyone that's a registered member on Foireann.

        Thanks

        Post edited by Northern lassie on


      10. #25
        luasaigh
        Registered Users Posts: 27 ✭luasaigh


        Hi @Northern lassie.


        1. There's a forum now at https://gmssupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-gb, and specifically for communications at https://gmssupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-gb/community/topics/6962510068636-Communications. Might be effective to ask there.
        2. Based on my experiments, it's only possible to send a message via Foireann to members who are part of a team or a group - but that certainly has worked for me. The recipients have to have the app though as they can only receive messages via the app. I could stand corrected however, so best to post your Q on the forum.


      11. #26
        Spocker
        Moderators Posts: 6,851 ✭✭✭Spocker


        Foireann only currently supports messages to those who have downloaded the app, and logged in at least once - there is no email/sms option available right now



      12. #27
        Bass Reeves
        Registered Users Posts: 18,127 ✭✭✭✭Bass Reeves


        https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117032277#Comment_117032277

        3 for a 5 euro can often bring in extra funds. Where the catch is if you have sellers pocketing the difference. It might be stupid to offer it onIine, but if a couple are buying a ticket each they are likely to take the extra ticket. Where the catch can be is three people together are they entitled to 3/ 5 euro.

        Most lotto's have stopped this practice.

        Slava Ukrainii



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