Society Golf - A system for deposit and payment?

[Gene HACKman]

Hi, Just started a golf society with a group of 20 or so friends and colleagues.

Everything is going reasonably well, however I am struggling to get my head around how to organise the deposit and payment system for collecting money for events.

For example. [and bear with me, Ive typed this half a dozen times to try and make it read easier without success!!!!]

I need to book 10-12 venues for throughout our season. Each of these venues want 10-15% putting down as a deposit. So about 50.00 per venue in full. Membership fees will cover about 4/5 of these venues, but the rest I will not have enough money in the account to pay a deposit.

If I tell members I want them to pay a 20% deposit x amount of days before the event and they then transfer - lets say 10.00 - into the account then I cannot use that money for deposit on future events or else when the event comes up that they have actually paid the deposit for, the account will not have enough in it as money has been used to fund elsewhere.

Can anyone possibly help and explain a deposit and payment system that might work?

[WUTiger]

Could you get a small-business credit card account? This way, you could use the card to make the deposits on venues. Also, since you would use the card just for GolfFriends , you would have a cost-accounting tool to keep track of expenses.

Get a credit limit of $3,000 and you should have enough working-capital liquidity to book events, but minimize losses if someone hacks the account. This financial "firewall" is another reason to have a GolfFriends -only card - do NOT run this out of your family checking account or family credit card.

Behavioral side: You need to have a clear-cut payment system, or friends and colleagues could quickly become former friends and colleagues.

You might contact the venues and see if they would buy off on this sequence:

1. You make the deposit for the venue.
2. Players show up and pay their green fees.
3. The venue gives you a credit-back on your card for the amount of the deposit.

You will probably need to collect a up-front fee from your group to cover: credit card transaction fees/interest and no-shows greens fees. You could then give the players a refund at end of the season of their balance, or let them carry it over until the next season.

Again, you would want to present GolfFriends with expense sheets to show that you're on the "up and up." Hate to say it, but people can get testy over $10.

Any advice from people who run golf courses?