It took me two years to get my head around the numbers

It took me the better part of two years to get my head around the club’s numbers. I’m not an accountant and I’ve never been trained in finance, but I run businesses and I’ve got a reasonable handle on how the money works in one.

That’s the part I’d like you to sit with for a second. If it took me that long, I’m not sure what chance a volunteer with a day job is supposed to have.

It’s not that clubs are getting bigger. Plenty aren’t. It’s that running one costs more every year, and the rules around it keep changing. If the costs are going up, the money the club has to find goes up with them, and the more money moving through the club, the better it has to be managed. Then there’s what the tax office expects a not-for-profit to lodge, what the governing body wants reported, what the state wants filed, and what the club’s own constitution says has to happen before the AGM. None of it is impossible. All of it is easy to get slightly wrong, and slightly wrong compounds. A small mistake made every month for three seasons is a big one by the time anyone finds it.

So here’s the position I’ve come around to, and I’ll say it plainly. The treasurer should be somebody who works in finance, at a minimum. A qualified accountant if you can find one.

I know that’s a big ask for a volunteer committee, and I know what the response is. We’re lucky to get anyone to put their hand up. I’m not saying the person doing it today is doing it badly. I’m saying the job has grown past what it’s fair to ask of somebody doing it off their own good nature and a bit of confidence with a spreadsheet.

If nobody on the committee fits, there’s a second way to get there. Most clubs have somebody connected to them who does this for a living. A parent, a former player, a local firm that’s been on the sponsor board for years. Ask them for advice, not for the job. An hour or two a month with the treasurer, a second set of eyes before anything gets lodged, and a phone call when something doesn’t add up.

The time to ask is the day you decide you’re going to put your hand up, not the week before the AGM. If you’re going to run for president, have your team built before the meeting, and this person is part of the team.

Then treat it as what it is, which is in-kind sponsorship. Professional advice has a price, and a firm that gives it to the club for free has sponsored the club. Put them on the sponsor board and recognise them the way you’d recognise anybody else at that level. That’s fair to them, and it makes the arrangement something the club owns rather than a favour one treasurer happened to have.

None of this is financial advice. It’s a reason to go and get some.

Club Funding builds fundraising tools for clubs, and that’s how this gets paid for. This isn’t the pitch. Nothing above needs anything from us.

If you haven’t got the Sponsorship Playbook, it’s free and available here: