It is our understanding that clubs want to eliminate or reduce handling cash, because handling cash has several negative points:
- Requires volunteers or paid staff
- Inefficient admin process
- Risk to person handling cash
- Time spent depositing the cash + some clubs incur bank fees
We are currently building a new module to Bowlr, which will let clubs handle rink fees in the same way phone companies handle pre-paid SIM cards.
Members would "top-up" or credit a balance in £10, £20 or £50, for example via a debit or credit card via the Microsite. The balance would be debited when the player is recorded as having played in a league match, or if listed as a player on a Roll-up match.
The club defines the fees for participation in these matches.
The player's participation in league matches would be taken from the score input, and debited after the match.
For Roll-ups, when a player uses Online Booking to book a rink, the system will debit the balance immediately.
Additional players listed on the booking will also be debited.
Removing players from the booking will credit the balances again.
Clubs will be able to define an allowable overdraft amount, which takes care of the situation of a player not realising their balance was low until after a match.
We won't yet handle Knockout Competitions and Nationals etc. We will bring that as an update later.
Transaction fees from the payment processor are minimal even in the most expensive projection.
There is more to how this works, but please comment below with any concerns or suggestions, in case it is something we have not yet thought about. Thanks.