How to accept card payments at your sports club

Almost nobody carries cash any more — but plenty of community clubs still ask for it. Cash floats, envelopes of coins, bank transfers with no reference, and a treasurer reconciling it all by hand in a spreadsheet: it's the least fun part of running a club, and it's completely avoidable. Here's how a community club can take card, Apple Pay and Google Pay payments securely, with the money going straight to the club.

The cash problem every treasurer knows

You know the drill. Someone has to organise a float for the canteen. Match fees turn up as a jumble of notes and coins that need counting and banking. A member pays their membership by bank transfer but forgets to put a name in the reference, so nobody knows who it was. Someone always turns up on game day without cash, so their payment gets chased for weeks. And at the end of it all, the treasurer is left trying to match a bank statement against a spreadsheet, line by line.

None of that is anyone's idea of volunteering. It's slow, it's error-prone, and it quietly drives good people away from committee roles. The fix isn't to chase harder — it's to take payments the way members already pay for everything else.

Take card payments inside your club's own app

With ClubApp, your club takes payments directly inside its own branded app. Members pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay in a few taps — the same way they'd pay for anything else on their phone. There's no float to organise, no cash to count, and no chasing bank transfers with missing references.

Payments are powered by Stripe, one of the most trusted payment processors in the world, so card details are handled securely and your club never touches sensitive payment information. Members get a smooth, familiar checkout, and the club gets a clean digital record of every payment.

Low fees

Community clubs run on tight budgets, so the maths matters. ClubApp charges a low 2.7% + 30c per transaction on in-app payments, paid straight into the club's own account. The money lands with the club, minus that transaction fee — across your membership income, fundraising and canteen takings.

One setup, used everywhere you collect money

The best part is that you set payments up once and then use them everywhere your club currently takes cash. The same payment setup runs across:

• Membership and registration — paid at sign-up, no chasing bank transfers
• Match and team fees — collected per game or per season without the shoebox of coins
• Event tickets — sold straight from the app for functions, presentation nights and fundraisers
• The online shop — club merch and apparel paid for on the spot
• Fundraising and raffles — take contributions and sell tickets by card

Because it's all the same system, there's nothing new to learn each time you add another way to collect money. Turn it on once, and card payment is available wherever you need it.

Built for the treasurer, not against them

Every payment is tracked and reportable, so the treasurer can see what's come in and where it came from without reconciling a bank statement by hand. Instead of matching mystery transfers to member names, the record is already there — who paid, for what, and when. That's hours back every month, and far fewer errors.

Members benefit too. They get a digital membership card and a receipt for what they've paid, so there's a clear record on both sides. No more "I'm sure I paid that already" conversations at the gate.

Practical tips to get started

You don't have to change everything at once. A couple of simple moves make the biggest difference:

• Turn on online payment everywhere you currently take cash. Anywhere a volunteer is holding a cash tin — the canteen, event entry, raffles — is a spot where a card option removes the float and the counting.
• Add a card option at sign-up. Collecting membership and registration fees the moment someone joins is the single easiest way to stop chasing payments later in the season.

Start where the pain is loudest, prove it to the committee, then roll it out across the club. Once members can tap to pay, they will — and the treasurer gets their evenings back.