A simple guide to setting up coacha

You’re totally paper-based, non-digital, possibly using Google Drive (along with several other pieces of software) or are dissatisfied with your current software provider. You play with the idea of looking into another way of managing your club quite often. But with each software provider doing things so differently, the idea makes you recoil before you’ve gotten so far as a free trial. Does this sound like you? If so, we think you should stick around.

It’s a daunting thought, to transfer your entire club admin over to a new system. Although the initial weeks of using Coacha involve some time to input data, getting used to the system and learning your way around, after that, we almost guarantee a sigh of relief as you think, ‘why didn’t we do this sooner?!’.

We often receive support calls from people who’ve decided that it’s time for change and signed up to the free trial, but aren’t quite sure where to start. We thought we’d put a simple guide together to point you in the right direction once you’re in!
 

Step 1 – People

Getting your members and coaches into Coacha

Members

Once you’ve signed up to your free trial, the first task is to get your members into Coacha. There are a few ways you can go about doing this which include using our mass uploader (if you already have your data in a spreadsheet), adding each member individually or the most popular and possibly easiest way, is using your club’s signup form.

Using the signup form is a great way to make sure you’re getting accurate and up to date information, especially under GDPR. You simply need to take your signup form URL and pass it onto your members. You can do this on your website, via messaging, social media etc. Once your members have completed the form (which asks for relevant personal information such as name, address, NOK details, medical information and specific GDPR-related consent for you to hold their data), when you next log into Coacha, you’ll see that you have ‘pending members’. Simply follow the onscreen instructions to view/accept each member.

If you work in ‘teams’ or would like to be able to categorise your club members to make it easy to group them into registers/send broadcasts, you should allocate them into member groups. You can find a quicker way to allocate or change member groups to suit existing members here.

Coaches

Once your members are coming in nicely, start thinking about getting your coaches into Coacha. Remember, as an administrator, you have full access to Coacha and you can decide the level of access the rest of the team has.

There are 3 levels of coach access within Coacha:

• Admin – Coaches who have been assigned the ‘admin’ role will have the same level of access as the club owner. They’ll be able to view all features within Coacha including Money, Broadcasts & Members. But the main administrator will always hold the overall level of access.
• Coach Full – Coaches who have been assigned the ‘coach full’ role will be able to view all Members, Classes & Registers within Coacha. They will not be able to view other features such as Money/Broadcasts/Statistics.
• Coach Limited – Coaches who have been assigned the ‘coach limited’ role will only be able to view the members, classes and registers that they are assigned to.

To find out how to create coaches/logins for your coaches here.

Step 2 – Classes & Registers

Setting up your classes and registers

Classes

Once your members are input into Coacha, it’s time to set up your classes in accordance with your club timetable. You can find out how to do this here. If you want to allow members to book onto classes, you can do this here too.

Registers

Once your classes are setup, your registers will automatically generate with your members in them. So all you’ll need to do is log into Coacha and view/use them.

Step 3 - Payments

Setting up and assigning subscription plans

Choose whether you’d like to take your fees with Stripe or Gocardless

We partner with both Stripe & Gocardless to collect your member’s fees. Each payment processor has their own benefits and more information can be found on our blog. Stripe charge 1.4%+20p per transaction and Gocardless charge 1%. We don’t add anything onto these fees.

Link Stripe/Gocardless with your Coacha account

Once you’ve decided, it’s time to link your accounts together. Click here to find out how.

Setting up subscription plans

Whether you have 1 payment plan or 100, now is the time to set them up. You can find out how to go about it here.

Assigning your members to the plans

Then simply assign your members to the correct plan and choose whether to take the payment there and then (if they’re with you/over the phone), or to send them a subscription request via email.

Don’t worry, you can view the current status of a member’s transaction at any point in the Money Dashboard and Coacha will let you know if they haven’t completed the request within 7 days.

Coacha has an awesome automatic process for chasing failed payments, this is already set up for you. Find out more here.

One-off payments

If you need to take one-off payments for things like uniform/joining fees, you can do this too!

Step 4 – Member Portal

Giving your members access to the Member Portal

One of the many benefits of using Coacha is the Member Portal. It allows your members to view, edit and download their own data and is GDPR ICO gold standard. They’ll need a login in order to access it though. This is because some clubs don’t allow their members to access it at all, out of choice.

There are a few ways members can generate their login:

• You can individually assign members with a password and let them know what it is.
• You can ask the whole club (or members without logins) to create their own passwords.
• You can enable the ability for members to create their own passwords on the signup form.

You can also provide your members with this useful guide to find their way around. 

Step 5 – And relax!

Sit back relax and enjoy your extra time!

We don’t overlook the fact that the first few weeks of club setup involve some work and time. It can initially seem a little overwhelming. Afterall, you’re moving your whole club over to a new system. However, we can tell you that we offer as much support as you need throughout your time with us (even a free club setup if you need it), and the relief our clubs experience after the first month or so, is well-worth the time taken to get everything up and running… or so we’ve been told!

Your members’ data is safe and up to date, your coaches have secure access. Registers, payments and failed payment chasing is automated, just imagine the time you’ll save?

Once you’ve done the initial setup, you can play about with our other features like sending broadcasts, posting on the notice board, viewing your clubs’ statistics and more.

So, if you haven’t already, what are you waiting for? Sign up for your free, no card needed, no obligation, free trial today.