Collecting membership fees for a club: how to get it sorted

It is mid-February and the treasurer is sitting with a spreadsheet, a bank statement and a list of fourteen members who haven't paid yet. Some have forgotten, two have moved and for one the direct debit was reversed without anyone knowing why.

Collecting subscriptions for a club is rarely complicated work. It's a lot of small tasks, and that piles up.

What does collecting membership fees mean exactly?

Collecting membership fees is the process whereby an association periodically charges its members an amount, receives that amount, and keeps track of who has and has not paid.

That process is split into four steps that you can manage independently: determining what each group of members pays, requesting that amount, receiving the payment, and afterwards checking who has fallen behind.

The first step requires one-off thinking. The fourth step takes time every year, and that is where the most savings are to be made.

Which payment method suits your club?

There are three, and they differ mainly in how much work they cause the treasurer.

Direct debit requests a one-off direct debit mandate from the member. After that, the amount is deducted automatically, with advance notice so that no one is surprised. This is the most hassle-free method: you sort it out once and after that it runs by itself.

Pay via iDEAL requires action from the member for each term. This suits associations where people prefer to press the button themselves, or where membership fees vary from year to year.

Bank transfer have the member transfer it themselves and have the treasurer check it off manually. It is the most trusted method and at the same time the most labour-intensive.

In practice, most associations do not choose one method but allow two. The differences between the payment methods are written out per method.

How do you make sure you don't start from scratch every year?

Most time doesn't go into collecting, but into resetting. Anyone who makes a fresh list every season is doing work that was already done last year.

The solution is to decouple the amount from the member. You record what a group pays and how often, and link members to that. If the rate changes, you adjust it in one place rather than for two hundred people. If a new member joins, they are tied to the same agreement as the rest of their group.

In 4planning the former is called a contribution plan and the latter a subscription. The creating a subscription plan is one-off work that you can live off for years.

What do you do with members who don't pay?

This is the part where treasurers tune out, and it can be prevented by not making it personal.

A payment reminder is not a formal demand for payment. It is a message that something has been overlooked, and it works best when it arrives promptly and without attitude. If you can send reminders in bulk, the entire backlog of overdue accounts can be cleared in a single operation instead of fourteen separate text messages.

Failed collections and chargebacks should be visible in one place, including the reason. That way you can see immediately whether it is due to a house move or an empty balance, which saves half the investigative work. Handling a failed direct debit then it is a matter of offering it again or switching to another method.

How do you keep track of what comes in?

Collected is not the same as received. Between the moment a member pays and the moment the money is in the association's account, there is a time lag.

A financial statement therefore shows two things: what has been collected but not yet paid out, and which payouts have already been made. For the audit committee, that second list is the most important, because that is what you check against the bank statement. That is how the financial overview.

When you had better not automate this

Not every club wins with automated collection, and it is fairer to say this than afterwards.

Do you have fewer than thirty members and if everyone faithfully pays in January, then software solves a problem you don't have. A spreadsheet and a bank statement suffice.

Do you change strong contribution per member, for example because everyone has their own appointment, then setting it up takes more time than it saves as long as those appointments cannot be grouped together.

Is your association Just started and if you still don't know what your season looks like, wait. Otherwise you'll lock in a structure that you'll just end up changing again within a year.

And are you sitting mid-financial year, then start with the next term and not halfway through. Having two systems alongside each other is precisely the work you wanted to avoid.

For associations that *can* be classified into groups, the reverse is true: the more members, the bigger the difference. With two hundred members, manual ticking off is an evening's work per term.

Frequently asked questions

What does collecting membership fees cost?

For Direct Debit and iDEAL, 4planning charges €1.00 in service fees per payment. Bank transfer is the only method without service fees. The package prices are listed on the pricing page.

How far in advance must you give notice of a direct debit?

An advance notice is sent to the member about fourteen days before the debit, so there is time to respond or ensure sufficient funds.

Does every member have to sign a mandate separately?

Yes, but only once. After that, all subsequent instalments will be charged under that same authorisation.

Can parents pay their child's subscription fee?

Yes. A parent gets their own tab in which the child's membership fee is paid and in which the child can be registered and deregistered. All messages about the child go to the parent.

What happens during a chargeback?

A chargeback is settled step by step with a subsequent payout and is never reclaimed from the association.

Can you offer multiple terms per year?

Yes. You specify in the plan how often collections are made, for example annually, half-yearly or quarterly.

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Sort out this season's membership fee once and for all, and the rest of the year will take care of itself. See how Contributions and payments working.