If your club takes subs by direct debit, your bank statement will not look like your member list. The list says who should have paid this month. The bank says that a single sum arrived on a particular day. Somewhere between the two, you are trying to work out who has paid, who has not, and who joined halfway through the month.
The problem: one bank line, many members
Most direct debit collections reach the club account as one credit. The payment provider collects from each member, then sends the total to your bank in a batch. You might see one line for £1,246 rather than forty lines for £28, £31 and £14.
That is a sensible way for banks to work, but it leaves the treasurer with a gap. A spreadsheet can tell you what the subs should add up to. It cannot tell you which members that £1,246 covers, unless someone has written it down at the time. Usually, nobody has, so the matching happens at the end of the quarter, from memory, with the statement open on one screen and the member list on another.
The committee then asks why the income is lower than the budget. You have to explain that it is not clear whether the shortfall is real, or whether it is a timing difference, a failed collection or a joiner who was never added. That conversation is much easier if each batch was traced to names when it arrived.
What to record for each collection
You do not need a complicated system for this. For each collection run, record three things:
- The collection date, meaning the day the money reached the bank, not the day the direct debits were set to go out.
- The batch total, which should match the bank line exactly.
- The members the batch covers, with the amount each one paid.
The third item is the one most clubs skip. It is also the one that saves the evening at year end. If a line for £1,246 can be traced to forty-one named members, you can answer any question about it: an AGM query, a member who says they paid, or an examiner who wants to see how the subs were reconciled.
If your club runs swimming lessons or gym sessions with different membership types, keep the batch record by type as well. A junior squad rate and an adult rate should not be merged into one figure, because the committee will want to see them separately when they review pricing.
Handling failed collections, part-month joiners and refunds
These three cause most of the trouble, because they change what the batch should have been.
Failed collections. A direct debit can fail for many reasons: insufficient funds, a changed account, or a cancelled mandate. The member is still on the list, but they did not pay that month. Record the failure against the member and the month it affects, rather than deleting it or quietly reducing the batch. The earlier month stays as it was recorded. The failure is a new entry that explains the gap.
Part-month joiners. Someone who joins on the 18th may pay a pro-rata amount, or the club may charge a full month from their first collection. Whichever rule your committee has agreed, write it down and apply it the same way each time. The batch total should match what was actually collected, and the member record should show the agreed charge, so the difference is explained rather than hidden.
Refunds. If you refund a member, record it as a separate entry on the date it was paid out. Do not go back and change the original month to make it look as though the refund never happened. The cash book should show what happened in the order it happened. An examiner or a successor treasurer will be looking for that trail.
In every case, the principle is the same. Do not rewrite earlier months to make the current figures look tidy. Add a new line that explains the change. This is what keeps the year-end figures honest and makes the handover possible.
Keeping arrears visible without chasing from your phone
Arrears are the amounts members owe the club for periods they have not paid. For a club on direct debit, arrears often come from a small number of failed collections that nobody has followed up. They build quietly until someone notices the balance is wrong.
The treasurer should not have to carry this alone, and it should not depend on a text message sent from a personal phone at ten at night. What the committee needs is a regular, plain report that shows:
- which members are in arrears, and for how many months,
- the total owed at the close of each month,
- any agreed payment plans or waivers, with the name of the committee member who approved them.
When this report goes to the committee each month, the question of who should be chased becomes a decision for the group. The treasurer can then say, with figures, that three members have missed two collections, and ask whether to contact them or wait another month. That is a much lighter job than being the only person who knows the list.
Where Vasker fits
Vasker is bookkeeping software for UK clubs and charities. For a club on direct debit, the parts that matter are the cash book, the members list and the arrears view.
The Free plan (£0) gives you a starter cash book with one fund. That is enough to see how the club account is moving, record the collection batches as bank lines, and get used to the habit of noting the date and the total. You can start there while you decide whether the membership side is worth paying for.
The Standard plan (£59 a year) adds full books, members, subscriptions, reports and grant matching. For a swimming or gym club, this is where the members list, subscriptions and the arrears report sit. You import the bank lines, record each member's payment against their subscription, and the arrears report shows who is behind and by how many months. Vasker does not split a direct debit batch across members for you, so keep your note of which members each batch covers, as described above.
There is no setup fee and no sales call. A few minutes is enough to create the organisation and start a cash book. The cash book needs an internet connection, so this is not a tool for recording batches offline on a poolside bench.
First month after switching from a spreadsheet
If you are moving from a spreadsheet, the first month is the hardest. Keep it simple:
- Choose one collection date from the last month you are confident about, and trace that batch to the member list line by line.
- Record the opening balance for the club account as it stood on that date. Do not try to rebuild the earlier years.
- Enter the next collection batch as it arrives, with its date, total and member breakdown.
- Note every failed collection, joiner and refund in the month it happened, with a short reason.
- Run the arrears report and check it against the spreadsheet for one month only. If the figures differ, find out why before you trust the new view.
- Show the committee the first monthly report and ask whether the layout works for them.
- Keep the old spreadsheet, read-only, until the first year-end is closed.
You will find that the first month takes longer than the rest. That is normal. By the third month, matching a batch should take a few minutes rather than an evening.
Gift Aid and subscriptions
Gift Aid does not automatically apply to subscriptions. Whether a membership payment can be claimed depends on the benefits members receive and the rules HMRC sets out for membership payments. Check the current HMRC guidance for your club before you treat any subscription as eligible for Gift Aid, and keep your records in line with it.
This article is general information for volunteer treasurers. It is not tax advice. For questions about your own club, check current HMRC Charities Online and Gift Aid guidance, and the Charity Commission, OSCR or CCNI guidance that applies to your organisation.
If you want to try the cash book and members list on your own club's figures, you can create your free account from the Sign up page on vasker.co.uk. Start with one fund, and move to Standard when you need members, subscriptions and the arrears report.