From spreadsheet to membership system: when, how, and in one evening

Most clubs start with a spreadsheet, and that's not a mistake. A sheet is free, everyone can open it, and with 30 members there isn't much to track. The trouble doesn't arrive in one day but bit by bit, until the treasurer spends every Sunday keeping the sheet up to date. Here's how to tell it's time, and how to move without losing anything.

Signs you've outgrown the spreadsheet

• There are several versions. The treasurer has one, the chair another, and the coaches have a copy from last season. Nobody knows which is right.
• Dues are reconciled by hand. Every payment has to be found on the bank statement and ticked off in the sheet, and some payments can't be tied to a name.
• Reminders take an evening. Someone has to filter on "not paid", copy email addresses and write the same email again.
• The CFR count takes a weekend. Members have to be counted by age and gender,¹ and birth dates are missing.
• Members can't fix anything themselves. Every new address and phone number goes through one person.
• The sheet lives on a private computer or in a private inbox. That makes it hard to hand over, and it's personal data about members that the club is responsible for.²

Two or three of these are enough. It's not about the number of members but about how much time your volunteers spend.

Clean up before you move

A system is only as good as the data you put in. Spend an hour on the sheet first:

1. Merge into one sheet. Find the newest version and fold the others into it. One row per member.
2. Remove duplicates. Sort by name and email, and delete double rows.
3. Mark people who've left. Don't delete them yet, but give them a column so you can choose whether to bring them along.
4. One field, one thing. First and last name in separate columns is nice, but the key is that phone, email and birth date don't share a cell.
5. Check the email addresses. Most systems use email for charges and logins. Members without one need one, such as a parent's.
6. Birth date and gender. If you report to CFR, you need them. It's easier to collect them now than in January, when the report is due.³

What a membership system should do

The point isn't the number of features but that everyday jobs get easier:

• One register that the whole board works in, with access by role.
• Dues with automatic reconciliation, so the system, not the treasurer, knows who has paid.
• Reminders that send themselves on a schedule you set.
• Members who update their own address, phone and consents.
• Emails to groups (a team, an age group, those who haven't paid) without copying addresses.
• Export whenever you like. Your data must be able to leave again as a plain file.

We've written a longer comparison in The best membership system for clubs.

Move in an evening

Moving doesn't have to be a project. With a clean sheet it usually takes an evening:

1. Set up the club and the membership types (such as senior, youth, supporter) with their fees.
2. Import the sheet. Save it as CSV or Excel and read it in.
3. Check the result. Look at ten random members and compare them with the sheet.
4. Send the welcome email when you're happy, so members can log in and fix their details.
5. Keep the sheet as a read-only copy until the season and the CFR report are done. Then delete it, so the personal data doesn't live in two places or stay around longer than needed.⁴

When you move to Clubroom

Clubroom reads the sheet's own columns, so you don't have to rename them first. Columns Clubroom doesn't know can become a field, a membership type column is matched to your types, and team or group columns become tags. Former members are left out unless you choose them, and an import can be undone for 24 hours. See Import your members and Switch in an evening.