In keeping your club’s finances in order, it’s always important to remember that ultimately your finances impact everything. Done well, they will support your day-to-day operations, whilst also helping you realise your long-term ambitions.

From accessing future funding opportunities to supporting the community projects you want to run, your finances are genuinely one of the core building blocks to creating and maintaining a long-lasting, sustainable and thriving club.

When it comes to your finances, it’s always a good idea to do a little, and often.

Dealing with finances can feel overwhelming for a lot of us. So making time each week to keep on top of the smaller things can prevent tasks from escalating into bigger, scarier projects. It’s a case of setting aside a bit of time each week to give it some focus.

Another good idea is to make sure you have more than one person managing the finance side, with sign off at different levels.

This means there’s no exposure or burden to one single person. Having more than one person accountable is the best way to ensure clubs are run well financially by providing a ‘check and challenge’ balance.

There’s also no need to reinvent the wheel.

There are many great templates and processes already available to use and proven effective in the world of football. All of these can help your club to make informed decisions faster and much more easily.

So what are these templates and processes? Lee Dyson, Club Consultant Lead who is tasked with improving the Finance aspect of the Club Programme part of England Football, shares his experience: “Having good processes in place will prevent clubs and leagues from losing money, and that money can be put back into important community projects instead.

“One of my goals is to help change the mindset from manual to automation, to create more streamlined processes. There’s the obvious fear that doing so will reduce the resource requirements but actually, it just frees up people’s time to focus on other areas. Giving them more time to focus on the more advanced decision-making side of finance – new ideas, planning, strategy – rather than getting bogged down in data entry and spreadsheets!”

A good example is the new automated payment system Lee introduced to The FA. 

As a representative for the County FAs, Lee has made sure their needs and views have been represented when creating the system. It was a collaborative effort, and the benefit of this approach has already been proven.

In particular, it demonstrates that automating tasks can help make the whole process of finances more efficient.

As the automation system is rolled out further it will have an increased benefit for County FAs and therefore clubs up and down the country. It will allow County FA finance staff to focus on all the other important aspects of what they do.

So if you need support on your finances, you can get it from the Club Programme part of England Football.

Of course, day-to-day, most clubs are heavily focused on the three key areas of finance: generating more income, controlling their spending and smoothing their cash flow.

But for help with more strategic or long term financial initiatives, it’s a good idea to seek out expert help through the Club Programme.