The 6 Registration Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make

We know registration can be a busy time, and let’s face it, a little stressful. Nothing slows your preseason down like accidental mistakes during registration. To help, we put together this quick list of the most common pitfalls of registration so you can avoid them and launch registration smoothly!

 

Building Your Registration at the Last Minute

No one wants to be building registrations online at midnight the night before your registration is due to open. We can’t stress this enough, don’t leave your registration to the last minute, not only does that create a stressful situation for you or your admins, it can also result in mistakes in your online forms. Allow for plenty of time to build your form (or forms) and test them to ensure they are working properly before launching. We recommend giving yourself at least two weeks to work on building your registration form online. A quick win in TeamSnap is to duplicate your previous season’s registration form and then make updates in the duplicated version to reflect your current season’s needs.

 

Not Sharing Registration Information in Advance

The more information you can provide your members about the upcoming registration ahead of time, the better. Let them know all the information they’ll need to register, including any documents they might need to upload to help expedite the process. Share information on when parents and players can expect to be placed on teams and hear from coaches. When your members have all the information in advance, administrators will have fewer questions to field from parents who want to stay in the loop.

 

Offering an Extended or Rolling Registration Period

How long is your registration period? While a rolling enrollment period or a long registration period may give members a lot of time to register, it could end up creating more work for you in the end. A long registration window doesn’t drive urgency for your members to sign up, which makes it hard for admins to assign players to teams or predict how many signups they may get which can make forecasting finances for your organization more difficult. Try shortening your registration period to just a few weeks or months to incentivize sign-ups and give your admins a head start on organizing players onto their teams for the year.

 

Complicated Fee Structures & Discounts

Nothing makes a registrar or treasurer’s life more difficult than complicated fee structures, or a lack thereof altogether. Prior to setting up your registration, be sure to meet with your board to align on your fees for the upcoming season and what you will offer with each program. Don’t forget to talk through any registration discounts you plan to offer.

Identify roadblocks you might run into with these prices and adjustments and consider where you may need to be flexible in your current fee setup. Complicated discount structures can be difficult for administrators to set up online, and difficult for your members to understand. Don’t be afraid to move away from fee structures and discounts if they feel too complex. A straightforward fee structure will make the registration experience better for both you and your members.

 

Failing To Include Payment & Refund Terms 

Clearly outlining your payment options, terms and your organization’s refund policy is essential to setting expectations with your members regarding finances. By adding your refund policy or payment terms as a waiver in TeamSnap’s registration solution, your payment terms are clearly visible and your registrants must acknowledge the terms to complete registration. This means no surprises for your members or treasurers down the road when questions arise about payment terms.

 

Forgetting To Test Your Registration

Once you’ve built your form, don’t forget to test it out! Forgetting to test your form can result in errors in an open registration. Using Preview Mode in TeamSnap allows you to preview your form as a registrant, so you can go through it the same way your members would. Previewing it as a registrant not only ensures you check your work but also puts you in the shoes of your members, seeing firsthand what they will experience during the registration process. This is a great time to test out your fee structures, sibling discounts and conditional logic you may have built-in your form.

Registration season doesn’t need to be the most stressful event for your sports organization this year.  Small improvements like these can help your organization stay on track and meet your registration deadlines with fewer hiccups along the way.

 

If you’re in the market for a new registration system, you’ll love TeamSnap’s registration solution, which allows you to collect online payments, issue credits and much more!