Comparing association software: 10 Dutch packages side by side

A brass band holds rehearsals. A civil-guards association holds drills. A football club plays matches and has to find referees every week. Those are not variants of the same thing: it is different work, associated with different words.

That is why 4planning is configured to suit the type of organisation you are. For a music society, the menu says “rehearsal”, and the reminder your members receive on their phones does too. Not because someone changed it somewhere, but because it is a music society.

This is what a season looks like when it is all in the same setting.

September. You set up the entire season's training sessions, rehearsals or exercises all at once, with fixed weekdays and times. School holidays are skipped. The trainer ticks off who was present on their phone. On the Attendance page, it then shows per member how often they were there, how often not and the percentage, with the lowest attendance at the top.

October. There is a club night. You create the event, attach a ticket shop to it that you can also share outside the club, and your sponsors get a free ticket type that is only visible to their own group. At the door, you scan with a phone. The volunteer doing the scanning does not need to be a member: they get their own scanner account via a link and do not see anything else relating to your association.

November. The membership fees are up and running. One subscription plan per group, members sign a direct debit mandate just once, and the pre-notification goes out automatically about fourteen days in advance. Failed direct debits are grouped together in the instalment overview rather than being scattered across your inbox. For children, the parent pays from their own account, and all correspondence regarding this goes to them.

January. The members' meeting. You record it in the same app and get it transcribed: a summary, the decisions made and the action points below it. Before recording starts, everyone gets a consent screen, and the recording is automatically deleted after a configurable period — thirty days by default. The report remains. Meanwhile, in the canteen, Club TV is playing on the screen: the agenda, the news, birthdays and your sponsors.

And throughout the year Is there an assistant in the app that you can just ask things to? “Who hasn't done their bar duty yet?” “Which maintenance tasks are due this month?” It also writes your news article and takes you to the right page if you can't find something.

In addition, everything else you need is ready to go, with no separate module or subscription required: single-question polls and full-form surveys. Documents in folders with permissions per group. Chat and group chat. Birthdays, the member directory and a digital membership card. A club shop with ordering rounds, where members order club kit and you print a pick list per round. Sponsors with amounts, duration and packages, and you decide yourself where their logo appears.

One login, and nothing else to explain. Members use the same environment in the browser or in the app. A member who opens the calendar will also see their membership fee, bar duty and tickets there. Each member chooses per type of message whether they want it by email or as a notification on their phone, so anyone who doesn't configure anything simply gets email. And if someone gets stuck, they can ask the assistant in the app, which explains the step and takes them to the correct page.