SAM 5.14 Payment Schedules, Quickbooks Integration, Other Fun
QuickBooks Integration
Someday in the future everything will work together seamlessly and without human error. With QuickBooks integration we’ve come one step closer to this goal. Mind yourself though, this is not your average QuickBooks integration. This is the real thing. Most software packages that tout this type of integration don’t speak about all of the manual steps required to get your data into QuickBooks, nor provide controls to make sure all items are posted properly just one time. Today, in a joint effort with Analytix Solutions we are releasing one-button Sports-IT QuickBooks integration. Engineered to be reliable and secure, this service will allow you to leverage the uncontested accounting management power of QuickBooks automatically populated with the deep sales data tracked by Sports-IT.
The integration requires some initial set-up, which is provided by Analytix. Please contact Don Crowe for more details. He will also be sending out a more detailed email to owners regarding this new feature. Arena Sports has been using it for the past month and it works very nicely.
Payment Schedules
Having trouble collecting money from your customers? Not anymore! One of the most time consuming tasks that a sports facility has is collecting money and determining when to collect it. To help with this everyday task we’d like to introduce you to payment schedules, a tool in Sports-IT that allows you to associate a payment schedule for any open invoice, and Sports-IT will automatically collect it for you.
Applications for this tool include:
- Invoicing and collecting long term rentals
- Invoicing and collecting multiple week camp registrations
- Invoicing and collecting large fee amounts (eg $800 Select Soccer Club dues)
Here’s an example of invoicing and collecting a long term camp registration:
Customer A would like to register for a 8-week summer camp for $1500. Most facilities don’t require that this sum be paid in full at the time of registration. Let’s look at a demonstration of how this would be accomplished using a payment schedule.
Below we’ve created an invoice for Customer A for the entire camp season of $1500 and collected a down payment of $500.
Camp Invoice For $1500
Now we need to schedule the remaining balance to be collected over the camp season. Below I’ve created a schedule to start on June 1st to collect $1000 over 3 monthly payments. (Note: you can create any schedule you want, for varying amounts and any dates you want. This is just an example).
The payment schedule is then created with 3 schedule dates below.
Those payments are automatically collected on the given dates and the schedule will show the outcome of those collections. See what the schedule looks like after all collections have occurred below:
The Payment Schedule Report (found under the finance reports) keeps track of all your past and pending payment schedules and whether they’ve been collected. You can use this report to find schedules or results, or to summarize amounts to be collected in the future (or summarize what was collected in the past).
Additionally, there’s the Payment Schedule Result Report that shows all the results of collecting the payment schedules. This report shows if a transaction was successful and also, more importantly, if and why it failed.
Only employees with the “Customer Credit” authority will be allowed to create Payment Schedules. As a reminder, employees also need this authority to take partial payments on an invoice.
Customer Email Opt-Out
Customers will now have the ability to easily opt-out of ALL email from Sports-IT. This was a necessary step to comply with ethical email practices as well as keeping our servers from being blocked by entire email companies. We’ve intentionally made this process such that customers who wish to opt-out will have to choose all-or-nothing for email delivery in order to leverage the power of game reminders to keep your email marketing lists healthy.
Other Fun Things
Team export updates for the season export tool – Thanks Troy Adams
New Financial Report page, providing an easier view of all the Financial Reporting options
Email Receipt button – allows you to email a customer or other contact a copy of a past receipt.
Thanks again for all of your great ideas for Sports-IT. We hope you find these new features helpful and a positive impact on your bottom line. We look forward to hearing your feedback on these items. Contact us if you have any questions.
Online Demonstration
RSVP support @ sports-it.com for an online demonstration for these features on one of the following dates:
9/3 @ 1pm PST
9/4 @ 10am PST
Quickbooks Integration
Someday in the future everything will just work together seamlessly and without human error. With QuickBooks integration we’ve come one step closer to this goal. Mind yourself though, this is not your average QuickBooks integration. This is the real thing. Most software packages that tout this type of integration don’t tell you about all of the manual steps required to get your data into QuickBooks, nor provide controls to make sure all items are posted properly just one time. Today in a joint effort with Analytix Solutions (www.analytixsolutions.com) we are releasing one-button Sports-IT QuickBooks integration. Engineered to be reliable and secure, this service will allow you to leverage the uncontested accounting management power of QuickBooks automatically populated with the deep sales data tracked by Sports-IT.
The integration requires some initial set-up, which is provided by Analytix. Please contact Don Crowe for more details. He will also be sending out a more detailed email to owners regarding this new feature. Arena Sports has been using it for the past month and it works very nicely.
Payment Schedules
Having trouble collecting money from your custemers? Not anymore!
One of the most time consuming tasks that a sports facility has is collecting money and determining when to collect it. To help with this everyday task we introduce you to Payment Schedules, a tool in Sports-IT that allows you to create a payment schedule for any open invoice, and Sports-IT will automatically collect it for you.
The best way to demonstrate this new feature is to use a day-to-day example: Customer A would like to register for an 8-week summer camp for $1500. Most facilities don’t require that this sum be paid in full at the time of registration. Let’s look at a demonstration of how this would be accomplished using a payment schedule.
Below we’ve created an invoice for Customer A for the entire camp season of $1500 and collected a down payment of $500.
Now we need to schedule the remaining balance to be collected over the camp season. Below I’ve created a schedule to start on June 1st to collect $1000 over 3 monthly payments. (Note: you can create any schedule you want, for varying amounts and any dates you want. This is just an example.)
The payment schedule is then created with 3 schedule dates below.
Those payments will be automatically collected on the given dates by charging the customer’s credit card, and the Payment Schedule will show the outcome of those collections. See what the report looks like after all collections have occurred below:
The Payment Schedule Report (found under the Financial Reports) keeps track of all your past and pending payment schedules and whether they’ve been collected. You can use this report to find schedules or results, or to summarize amounts to be collected in the future (or summarize what was collected in the past.)
Additionally, there’s the Payment Schedule Result Report that shows all the results of collecting the payment schedules. This report shows if a transaction was successful and also, more importantly, if and why it failed.
Only employees with the “Customer Credit” authority will be allowed to create Payment Schedules. As a reminder, employees also need this authority to take partial payments on an invoice.
Please join one of our online meetings ______________________ to see how this works.
Customer Email Opt-Out
Customers will now have the ability to easily opt out of receiving email from Sports-IT. This was a necessary step to comply with ethical email practices as well as keeping our servers from being blocked by entire email companies. We’ve intentionally made this process such that customers who wish to opt-out will have to choose all-or-nothing for email delivery in order to leverage the power of game reminders to keep your email marketing lists healthy.
Other Fun
-
Team export updates for the season export tool – Thanks Troy Adams
-
New Financial Report page, providing an easier view of all the Financial Reporting options
-
Email Receipt button – allows you to email a customer or other contact a copy of a past receipt.
Thanks again for all of your great ideas for Sports IT. We hope you find these new features helpful and a positive impact on your bottom line. We look forward to hearing your feedback on these items (we know you all have other things for us to work on, and we haven’t lost your requests.) Contact us if you have any questions.
Sports-IT June Updates
US Indoor Conference
This year in Vegas, the Sports-IT team will be attending the US Indoor Conference for the 8th consecutive year . The conference gives us the opportunity to promote the Sports-IT software but more importantly the opportunity to hang out with all of our customers both current and future (never a dull moment). For those of you planning on attending the conference, please shoot us an email at sales@sports-it.com and let us know, we’d love to have you come to our Tuesday night social if you can make it. We will be entertained by David Crowe, Don’s brother, a stand-up comedian who has performed on NBC, Showtime, and Comedy Central.
Latest SAM & MySAM Updates
Sports-IT is always releasing new and updated features for SAM and MySAM. A lot of these updates slip through the cracks and our users don’t hear about them until long after they are released. If its has been awhile since you’ve checked out our new feature updates, you can do so on our blog, SAM 5.12, SAM 5.11.
Email Templates
Everyone wants nice looking email templates but lets admit that creating them isn’t always easy. Additionally, when you want some marketing materials created you probably hire a designer. Well Sports-IT is partnering with a design firm that can help you get your own custom look that you want to present to your customers in email. If you’re interested in getting some custom templates created please email us at support@sports-it.com. Below are a few examples.
(Note any web designer would be able to create custom email templates. We’ve recommending Sun Belt Business Solutions because they know our software and our customers have been happy with their work.)
Paypal Payment Gateway Updates
A few of our customers have been getting phone calls and emails from Paypal saying they need to update their Paypal gateway account. Fortunately, if you are only using your Paypal gateway account to process cards in Sports-IT or via the Paypal manager you will NOT need do anything. Sports-IT will be making upgrades required for this update and they will be propagated to all Sports-IT customers.
For more information on details of the Paypal gateway updates see the following URL:
http://www.paypal.com/gatewayupdate
Indoor Facility Blog
This is a shameless plug for a blog that our fearless sales team is maintaining. Keeping up in the Indoor World is a blog talking about different subjects relating to the indoor facility world. One of the primary goals is to have many facility operators and owners submit posts. If you have an idea to blog about and would like to be a guest blogger, please contact us. You can also subscribe to the blog so that you’re updated on every post (ideally, 1 per week).
SAM 5.12 Released
SAM 5.12 includes new email templates, changes to email template administration and performance improvements for the cash register.
Email Templates
Two new starter email templates and powerful new template variables, including one that allows automatic inclusion of your company logo, have been added to SAM. When you visit the Email Templates Administration page (Adminstration->Email Templates) you will find the new adult and youth soccer league starter templates. To use these new templates, click the ‘copy’ link next to the template name, then click ‘edit’ to view and modify the email to suit your needs.
Click on the below image and you will see a new “preview” button to see what your emails will look like outside of the editor box.
Cash Register (hot list) Improvements
The cash register has been updated to include multiple performance updates when adding products to the shopping cart. During testing we measured speed increases of up to a factor of 8.
Release 5.11 New Features
Better Payment Type Handling
New drop-down selector makes it clear when you are taking cash/credit or handling a check. Especially useful is the separation of refund and NSF checks from check reversals.
Cash Payment
Check Payment
Check Refund
Daily Receipts Reporting Improvements
The Daily Receipts Report now better separates credits and reversals from income and allows you to view credit card income by type.
Daily Receipts New Features
Daily Receipts New Features
Customer Search by Event Date
You now can search for customers by the date of events they are registered for – including games, camps, classes and rentals. Just go to the Customer Search Tool, click on “search with date parameters” and enter your event date filter (see picture.)
event search by date
Subject Line Added to System Event Log for CSR and Team Emails
System Event Log New Feature
More New Features
- Add Gender and CardID to Customer Search Report spreadsheet output
- Add “From Name” to Customer Search Report email broadcast
- Add waiver reminder and link to game reminder emails
- Add indicator for medical note to sign-in roster
- Money format now shows dollar sign and commas
- Product search report will now report tax rates associated with each product
Thank You !
Thanks to all of you for your suggestions on how to make SAM a better solution for integrated arena management. If you have any issues or questions please contact us at support@sports-it.com. Thanks again!
What’s New
Automatic Registration Emails
You can now automatically send your customers an email notification of your design when they register and pay for camps, classes and teams online. First create an email message on the Email Templates management page and then associate your registration notification email template with any given season using the “Registration Email” selector on the Season Maintenance page (see image below.)
Select email template on season administration page.
New Online Camp and Class Registration
Campers can now setup online using the camp module in Sports IT. The camp module is similar to classes but contains the ability to multi-roster sheets using the activity groups and register for individual days.
Additionally, registering for camps, classes and teams has been improved to gather any medical or allergies young people might have. Any medical information is directly linked to their account as a medical note and shows up automatically on rosters and sign-in sheets.
Allow Class, Camp and Team Deposits For Online Registration
Online deposits, once limited to only team payments, can now be taken for classes and camps. Customer will get billed for the full amount but only pay the deposit, leaving the customer with an open invoice to pay the rest later.
Export Team and Class Information via Customer Search Report
Ever wanted to do analysis on class retention or class retention by instructor? The customer search report now has the ability to include the team/class/camp the customer was on and the instructor.
Athletic Business Articles on Waivers
Check out the article “Uphill Battle“.
In fact, check out the wealth of waiver-related articles at Athletic Business.
– jed
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization or (SEO) “is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines.” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization.
The process of optimizing your website can vary from very complicated to very simple depending on how much work your site needs. When I was asked to write an article about SEO for Lil’ Kicker franchisees I was a little concerned because of the technical nature of the work that goes into this process. But when I began to think about how difficult it can be to find a Sports-IT customer’s website, even searching by their company name and state, I realized that a few simple improvements would help their website move up the search result rankings. In short, while there are many people that make a career out of providing SEO services, you can optimize your own site without spending thousands of dollars if you follow a few simple rules.
Today’s Search Engine
Today’s search engines have adopted systems similar to the PageRank system created by Google. The order in which your page is listed is no longer based soley on what words are on your website but instead is based on complex algorithms that rank your website against others. Here’s Google’s description of their PageRank algorithm:
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”.
The image below gives a good representation of how PageRank works and what you can do to move up in the search ranks. Lets pretend that company B = ESPN and company E = You. ESPN has a large PageRank because there are millions of sites linking to it – some of them with large PageRanks and some with small. Your company’s website has quite a few websites linking to it but most of the websites have a very small PageRank and thus your PageRank remains relatively small. The key here is to get quality PageRank sites to link back to your site. For example, company C only has one site linking to it but it’s ESPN and this makes its PageRank larger than yours. If your company was able to get ESPN to link to your site your PageRank would balloon above company C. Also note that every page on the web will contain a PageRank. For example, a local news website’s sports page will have a higher PageRank than their obituaries. Getting ESPN to link to your website might be a difficult challenge but it makes the point that you want quality sites linking to yours.
Enough of the theory, lets look at how your website can climb up in the search results.
Step #1, Build Your PageRank
Building your PageRank of your website is the continual process of getting other websites to link to your website. This is the most effective way of putting your website at the top of search engines.
Step #2, The Front Page!
Don’t fill the front page (aka home page) of your website with team schedules, flash and pictures. The front page of your website will likely have the highest PageRank on your site. Because of this you want words describing your facility, services and location on your front page. Use the words people use in search engines to find the products and services you provide. If you run indoor soccer and Lil’ Kickers try to use the words “indoor” “soccer” “child development” and so on. And don’t just stick a bunch a words up there, try to use readable, interesting content. The search engine will figure it out.
Step #3, Build A Search Friendly Website
Sometimes the best websites are the simple ones. Don’t put your important words into flash and keyword descriptions in flash or images. I’ve seen many sites built entirely with flash and most of them are really hard to find using Google search. Here’s a list of Google recommendations on building your site.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769#design
Information above was taken from the following resources:
Google PageRank
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
Search Engine Optimization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
If you follow the basic rules of Search Engine Optimization – important keywords in content on your homepage, get linked by bigger sites, and limit flash or image containers for keyword critical content – you should find your site moving up the ranks of Google search.
SAM 5.6.0 Release Notes
Sports-IT is excited to bring you some great new features in SAM 5.6.0. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this release and going forward.
Release Notes
Automatic Class Prorating
MySAM and SAM now support prorating of classes (camps and house teams not supported).
- Automatic prorating of classes when turned on at the league level.
- Proration is calculated from the number of sessions left scheduled on the calendar.
- Proration is not calculated if the total number of sessions scheduled on the calendar is less than the number of sessions defined at the class level. This prevents the proration of classes before the entire schedule has been completed.
- Prorating for a particular class will go 10 minutes into the start time of the class. If users take the class and pay afterwards you’ll want to make sure to adjust the proration in the cart.
Financial Report Update Bonanza!
All the financial reports have been given a face-lift for consistency and added functionality. Financial reports are now located under the Reports->Financial menu. The following is a list of report updates:
Updated interface includes a multi-facility selector for all financial reports, new date range selector to quickly select commonly used dates and consistent layout of report fields.
Search for a particular payment type, dollar amount and export to excel.
List checks, check refunds, NSF check totals. Sort by check number, amount, etc..
Run other financial reports with the same report parameters, including links to run those reports for the prior year.
More fun features:
- Export the new daily sales & deposit report into excel.
- Sort report output by clicking on the columns.
- Totals now include check refunds for easier bank deposit reconciling.
Calendar Face Lift
Bright new colors and GUI enhancements improve your calendar day view.
Click the image below for a full calendar view.
- Click to view full calendar
Create events with a click of the mouse. Simply click on the calendar and select your event type.
Customize the width of your resources with the new calendar width slider. Have a lot of sub resources that are hard to see? Make the resource bigger. You can edit the width of the resource by clicking on the resource header on the calendar or by going into the Administration->Resources menu. Changes to the width of a resource will affect all users and requires manager authorization.
Lil’ Kicker Templates
Lil’ Kicker franchises now have the ability to use one of the five predefined templates (bring a friend, new session, parent’s week, Lil’ Kicker parties and picture week) for their broadcast emails. Click on the image on the right to see the full size image of what it will look like in your customers email box.
New Multi-Month Date Selectors
These improved date selectors throughout SAM have a cleaner user interface and display multiple months making it easier to pick your dates.
Season Export Tool
Season export tool has been updated to include more season and league fields such as the season team deposit amount, online sign up start and end dates, season and league descriptions, class prorating and online registration.
Additional Updates and Fixes
- Payments can be added to invoices by going to an invoice and entering a payment amount to add.
- Issue with min/max ages not being updated correctly when using the season export tool fixed.
- After taking a customer picture the image now reloads properly.
- SAM header now consistently continues across the browser page.
- Fixes for Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3.
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Keeping up with the Indoor World- Adult Soccer Players Who “Don’t Know They’re Players…Yet” June 30, 2009 slperryjr@gmail.com
- US Indoor Coming to Vegas June 16, 2009 Don
- Reinvesting in tough times June 9, 2009 Don
- How Does Your Facility Compare? June 4, 2009 Don
- On The Road to Financing – Sausage Racing in Milwaukee June 1, 2009 Don
