A Beneficial Approach To Your Club’s Competitive Registration Process

At TeamSnap, we know the competitive registration process can be overwhelming. From communicating evaluation dates, creating online registrations, hosting evaluations themselves, and managing the acceptance process and payments, there’s a lot going on and there are almost too many ways to handle the competitive registration process. At TeamSnap, our competitive registration solution may be a little different than your traditional offer letter, but it’s a tried and true process that we know will help streamline your online registration flow, from tryout to acceptance.

Plan for a Two-Form Registration Process

Every process starts with a plan, so sit down and plan your evaluation process out in advance. Identify your timelines and evaluation dates, when you’ll open registration for tryouts and when you’ll need to send acceptance/commitments out to collect payments.

At TeamSnap, we recommend a two-form registration flow with our registration solution: a tryout form, where you collect information from all participants interested in trying out for your club, and an acceptance form that you will send to those who have been selected for the team, to collect their information and payment for the season.

What are the benefits of a two-form process?

Gauge Participation: The two-form approach allows you to gauge participation and interest without collecting fees until teams have been selected. Assessing how much interest there is in your club is also a great way to help make your organization’s revenue more predictable and can help you forecast your future season. Tryout numbers are also a great indicator for potential participation in recreational clubs and leagues in your area--if your tryouts have a huge turnout, but your club has a limited number of spots on the roster, that can mean higher participation on other local rec sports organizations.

Communicate With Potential Members: Utilizing a separate tryout form also allows you to group registrants from tryouts together, allowing you to communicate with parents or players during the evaluation process. If you want, you can split your tryout registrants into smaller communication groups, based on their program level to get more granular with communications.

Collect and Manage Payments With Ease: Using a registration form for player acceptances is hugely beneficial to registrars and treasurers as well. TeamSnap’s registration allows admins to add fees based on programs or competitive levels, create custom installment plans and build sibling discounts and coupon codes. Once members enroll in installment plans, the payments automatically run on their scheduled date, so registrars and treasurers don’t have to chase down checks or submit payments to be run on a scheduled cadence. Flexibility is built into the TeamSnap payment system, allowing for post-checkout adjustments and bulk payment rescheduling as well.

Avoid Refunds With Registration Credits: Treasurers can breathe a little easier in today’s uncertain landscape, knowing they can issue credits to registered players in the event of a government shutdown or season cancelation, to be used towards a future season, instead of issuing hundreds of refunds. As a bonus, registration credits are also a great way to reward members for volunteer hours or with sponsorship.

What does this mean for my members?

For parents and players, clubs using a two-form approach will mean business as usual; almost all parents expect to register online for tryouts, and with more organizations using online registration solutions, clubs using registration solutions as acceptance registrations is becoming more of the norm as well.

When members register to accept their place on their teams through TeamSnap, they’ll be able to submit their contact information, sign off on electronic docs and waivers, enroll in payment plans (if offered) and then get automatically assigned to their team all in one go. Plus, returning players or those who already registered for tryouts can automatically import their existing information into the acceptance form, allowing for a quicker registration process.

How Can I Start?

If you’re in the market for a new registration system to wow your administrators and parents, you’ll love TeamSnap’s registration solution, which allows you to collect online payments, issue credits and much more! You can request a live demo of our platform and one of our helpful TeamSnappers will walk you through how you can set up your organization.