How simple are your club management software reports to operate, understand and utilize for true decision making? If you are considering selling or purchasing a facility, having information at your fingertips is so important in the club ownership business world. The ability to easily discover what you’re looking for and get the details quickly can be huge. Consider the following operational reports critical if you are in a potential position to sell or acquire a site.
Test yourself and the software being used if it can easily generate the following key management reports:
Number of Real Members
How many members does the club have today and what is the breakdown by membership type, average dues and average tenure? This is like producing an on-the-spot balance sheet of the business. You should be able to quickly see a profile of the data to know key statistics. If you were considering buying or selling a health club, this is the type of information you would need and want to know. Make it a point to know exactly how many overall records are stored in the database and the breakdown of such. Include former members, cancelled and expired, additional family or spouses, barters, promotional accounts, and any group or corporate set ups.
Liability
What is the outstanding pre-paid membership liability on my health club or the one I am considering purchasing? Produce a report that shows not only paid-in-full memberships, but also information on renewal due dates or time remaining, the original amount paid, and the value of the remaining open time. Do the same for open gift certificates and open personal training packages that have been sold. These are all liabilities to the business and should be reported as such. Learn what is outstanding and make sure either redemptions are occurring or they are at least accounted for.
Past-due Accounts
What is the outstanding accounts receivable for unpaid dues? Produce a report showing — with aging balances by 30, 60 and 90 days old — of all members who owe money from prior months due to declined credit cards or other reasons. Note this is very different from a report that shows liability for future months of billing if the business operates based on 12 or 24-month contracts. That is revenue to be billed going forward. In addition, what follow-up procedures are in place to pursue these outstanding accounts?
Real EFT
Accompanying a report on past-due accounts, produce a report that tracks the EFT returns, showing members who are constantly delinquent and should be removed from billing if their credit card or checking account has not worked for more than three months in a row. These accounts should be removed from billing, and the membership cancelled, as they give a false expectation when projecting monthly revenue and cash flow.
Billing Summary
Does your club management software company provide a simple one-page report that shows you exactly what was deposited into your bank account for checking, savings and all credit cards? No wavering: this should be explicit and very detailed on both the billing revenue and expenses for all withdrawals, making the monthly bank reconciliation simple.
Learning the key details of the database being considered for sale or purchase can be an asset or a detriment to the business at hand. A few more basic reports for consideration would include reports on inventory and usage.
Taking the time to master a few of the above items leads to not only a greater understanding of the business, but the usefulness and capabilities of the club management software being utilized for the gym.
Carole Oat is the national sales manager at Twin Oaks Software. She can be reached at 860.829.6000 x 281 or at coat@tosd.com. Oat was a large club owner and operator for 15 years.
