Youth Sport Finances – Managing Team Funds

Team Funds

As a team manager you will likely be responsible for safekeeping, management, and accountability of the team funds.  A soccer team operates like a small company. It generates revenue from the parents and external fundraising and then spends the money on team activities. Proper accounting of team funds is key.  You should treat the management of the team’s money in a fiduciary manner to avoid any inference of impropriety. 

Safekeeping of the Team Funds

Being able to provide a full accounting of the funds you have collected and funds that you have dispersed at any time is a must.  I recommend full transparency with regards to maintaining the team funds. The use of a set of google sheets to track the flow of the funds is an excellent tool for this task.  As the team manager you will be collecting a large sum of money from the parents pursuant to the budget and holding that money for the duration of the club year.  I recommend creating a separate bank account for the team to hold the funds.  Do not commingle your own funds with the Team’s funds.  Never take a loan from the team funds or use the team funds for your personal benefit. 

Collecting the Team Funds

Collecting Team Funds can be challenging; I recommend that you accept all manner of payment, cash, check, paypal, venmo, etc. Collecting funds early in the season, by any means available is key to minimizing the amount of time spent on collection.  Waiting toward the end of the season will invariably lead to difficulties in collection.  Always collect pursuant to the budget and remember, it is easier to return funds at the end of the season than collecting additional funds late in the season. 

Tracking Collection of Funds

Payment may not come in a lump sum, you must be able to track multiple payments by individual team members over time.  I recommend a private google sheet for this, as you may have some parents on scholarships or payment plans and making that information public is usually not helpful.  A simple example is located here or downloaded here.

Accounting for Funds

Accounting for the funds can be tedious as the accounts must always balance and you must accurately capture all transactions.  Using a spreadsheet as a register is the easiest method for for accountability. The register will require manual entry of every transaction to keep it balanced.  I recommend two sheets, one for the money in the bank and another for the “cash” account.  An example is linked here or may be downloaded here.

Team Treasurer

Next to taking care of the players, taking care of the team funds is the most important job.  The team will experience issues, if parents believe their money is being wasted or not properly accounted for. While it may be burdensome, I would only turn this over to a team treasurer if there is full faith and confidence in that individual; they may have many thousands of dollars at any one time and you should not give control of the team funds to them lightly.

You may want to consider holding the funds yourself in the bank and providing another parent with the cash account to pay for the ref fees.  That will reduce the number of transactions that you have to account for, but also minimize the risk of a misappropriation of the funds.

Conclusion

A proper accounting is a must, as the funds do not belong to you or the coach, you are holding the funds for the parents to be paid out according to the team budget. Management of the team funds is a very necessary task and whomever the team selects should be a trusted, organized and competent individual.