When starting a football team, one of the most overlooked but equally important roles within a football club is the club treasurer. A club treasurer is integral to the smooth running of the club, so you’ll need to work closely with the entire club committee.
As the football club treasurer, you will be the one who is responsible for the financial management and reporting on what has happened to the club’s funds. This usually covers a number of areas including accounts, match day, sponsorship, fundraising, and insurance.
It’s also ideal to future proof your practices as if you’re a new club but will eventually look to become an FA Charter Standard club, having a club secretary will be a huge help to ensure you meet the criteria required.
“Clubs who are successful in the long term are built on sustainable finances” – The FA
For new clubs, it is important to raise funds quickly to cover essential expenditure such as affiliation fees, league membership fees, pitch hire charges (which may have to be paid in advance) and football kit and equipment.
What is the role of the Treasurer?
The role of a football treasurer is to ensure that the club stays financially sustainable, pay all expenses, and collect any funds owed to the club. This usually covers a number of areas including accounts, match day, sponsorship, fundraising, and insurance.
Essentially, the main purpose of this job is to look after the finances of the club.
A treasurer’s role is easier if everyone else in the club knows what they’re doing.
Characteristics of a Football Treasurer?
As the club treasurer, you will be responsible for the finances of your club, along with producing a regular account of the money going in and out of the club. Therefore, you will need some accountancy skills, as well as being organised, motivated and be happy to work as part of a team.
The Treasurer must be well organised, able to keep records, careful when handling money and cheques, scrupulously honest, able to answer questions in meetings, confident handling figures and prepared to take instant decisions when necessary.
Main responsibilities of the Treasurer?
A club with well-managed accounts will be able to grow much quicker than a club with no one looking after its finances. That’s where you come in and will take responsibility for the following:
- Maintain your club’s account by keeping up-to-date with income and expenditures
- Plan your club’s annual budget with the club committee
- Monitor your club’s budget throughout the year
- Present reports to key stakeholders about the club’s finances
- Being the spokesperson for members that may have questions about the club’s finances
- Arrange payments for the club such as pitch hire, referee fees, football kit/equipment, league memberships, affiliation fees and insurance
How To Manage Your Club’s Budget?
Managing your clubs’ budget not only ensures you have a greater level of control over all of your club’s spending and activity but also means that the club will be more organised and smarter with its money, as you’ve taken the time to be forward-thinking.
Planning a budget can end up taking a lot of time so be prepared and make sure you leave enough time for yourself. You can do this by using an accounting software but these usually cost money. A free alternative could be Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
If you’re a new club or a club simply without financial resources it’s still essential to understand where expenditure is going and how the club will fund such.
It would be extremely beneficial for you to call a meeting with the rest of the committee to get their opinion on the projected incomings and outgoings of the club for the next year.
Try to think about all possible incomings and outgoings, it’s important that you don’t leave anything out as they should all be considered in the budget and a little extra for ad-hoc tasks or emergencies.
Always remember that you can look at last year’s budget plan as a basis. Take note of areas where the club was over or under budget, then adjust the new year’s budget accordingly. Remember to take into account that some bills may rise from the previous year, such as pitch hire.
To get a better understanding of the club’s finances, it might be worth having a conversation with the person who was responsible for finances previously. A handover could be beneficial to you and some of their experiences could give you an idea of what to expect. For example, any emergencies that the club has experienced in the past and could potentially account for again.
The importance of cash flow
Cash flow refers to the actual amount of “hard” cash available to the club to spend at any one time. It’s important when predicting budget income and expenditure, periods of high/low income and high/low expenditure must be anticipated. This will allow you to plan for accumulated cash to be available to meet high expenditure periods rather than when income is low.
Especially due to the seasonality of football, income is usually generated during the season but a large portion of spending is required during the off-season. The off-season may generally be a period for maintenance and replacing kit and equipment, with limited possibilities for generating income so it’s important to acquire cash beforehand or keep a portion for the off-season.
There are a number of ways a club can raise money during the off-season including gaining sponsorship for the upcoming season or fund-raising cards.
It is important to ensure that income exceeds or at least matches expenditure and that records are kept, as the opposite will lead to debt.
Debt is understandably a big concern for most grassroots football clubs and unfortunately, debt can hit any club, arising from a football activity such as disciplinary costs, match costs and playing expenses.
If you do find yourself working with a club that is in debt, many County FA’s provide assistance ‘Debt Recovery’ so if your club is in debt, we’d highly recommend contacting your County FA.
Yearly reports
A very important task of the Football Club Treasurer is to produce the financial reports. This is for each committee meeting and then at the end of the year. They will need to produce the financial reports for presentation to members at the Annual General Meeting (AGM).
Every club should produce a set of annual accounts. Club accounts should show opening balance, income, expenditure, and closing balance.
While the requirements for each individual league will vary, all will have set in place certain expectations of their clubs with regard to financial recording and reporting and it is vital that the treasurer is fully aware of all these expectations. So be sure to check with your league to ensure you’re enclosing all the information they require.
