Servasport System & New Payments module Workshops

Training nights on Servasport System to include using the Payments Module.

These nights will deal with all queries within the Servasport registration system .  People are free to bring laptops on the night to ask questions and do the payments live as the session is on.

*Please note this date is pre the live date.  Live date is scheduled the 15 ^th of March 2015.

 

Venue                                                             Date                                                    Time

Croke Park, Dublin*                                        Thursday 12 ^th March 2015                  19:30-21:30

Mallow GAA Club and Sports Complex          Monday 16 ^th March 2015                   19:30-21:30

Athlone IT                                                        Wednesday 18 ^th March 2015              19:30-21:30

Tyrone Centre of Excellence, Garvaghey       Thursday 19 ^th March 2015                  19:30-21:30

I would urge all Club, County and Provincial Boards to attend these trainings.  This is a great opportunity for all users to get full training on the registration system by a Servasport representative.  This is a new task put on Clubs/Counties and Provinces, please don’t miss this opportunity!

 

If you have not already done so can you please book your place before the 11 ^th of March by emailing with your club/county/province name and who is attending.

New Payments Module

At the end of 2014, the Camogie Association’s Ard Chomhairle (Central Council) agreed to fund the development of an integrated payments module in the current Servasport electronic registration system.

Useful links:

Opening a PayPal Account Camogie

Paypal Registration Payment guide

1. What is the integrated payments module?

In summary, when clubs re-register members annually or register new members, the required affiliation fees due to the Camogie Association and County, Provincial and Central Council will be paid online via a PayPal account in one payment as part of the registration process.

A member will not be registered until the payment is completed and the payment will automatically be divided to three different bank accounts as per registration instructions to:

• Ard Chomhairle (Central Council)
• Provincial Council
• County Board.

 

2. What are the benefits of a new payments module?

The Servasport system at present is a basic registration system that we import into Excel to calculate registration amounts based on registrations fees set out in the Official Guide.

The current process where funds are transferred from a club to central level via transfers to County level first, followed by transfers to Provincial level creates:

 

a)      An unnecessary risk collecting such large sums of money on behalf of the Association

b)      Large administration requirements in both collecting fees and reconciling amounts due

c)       Constant work in keeping track of late registrations and dealing with discrepancies when people are registered and delays in confirming registrations

d)      Full reconciliation is impossible to complete on an ongoing basis, as people are being registered on a daily basis.

 

This online payment module is designed to overcome these shortcomings by putting in place an electronic payment process which makes it easy for you to safely transact money via the internet.

 

3. When and how will the payments module start?

The payment module will ‘go live’ on the 15 ^th March 2015. Online payments will be facilitated via  PayPal Accounts (see Section 5 below). Clubs are strongly advised to undertake bulk registrations rather than individual registrations as this reduces the financial transaction costs associated with Pay Pal.

4. What will be different by using the payments module?

The new integrated payments module will facilitate the following:

 

a)      Automatically collect member registrations fees from clubs and calculate amounts to be distributed to County, Province and Central Council

b)      Club, County and Provincial levels will have the ability to view each members’ registration payments unique to their jurisdiction, so that funds and membership numbers can be reconciled

c)       Provide for the collection of monies in relation to the All-Ireland  Final Tickets [1]

d)      To collect additional fees that a county board may set in addition to the nationally set registration fees. Each county board can give us their specific requirements and these can be added into the system to ease the payments process.

 

5. Setting up a Club/County and Provincial PayPal Account

There are a number of initial steps that clubs will need to complete to be ready for the initiation of this system. The main step is to set up a PayPal account for your club.

 

A full step by step guide on setting up a PayPal Account is attached.

 

If you have any problems setting up your PayPal account you will need to contact PayPal directly.  Their contact details are

 

Email: 

Calling from within Ireland:

Calling from within Northern Ireland: 0800

 

This account will need to be set up no later than Friday 6 ^th February 2015.

 

Please notify when this is set up.

 

Please not the following important information re PayPal  setup and use:

 

• PayPal accounts must be set up using the PayPal Setup Guide. This allows PayPal to identify all members of the Camogie Association. If you use a personal PayPal account or do not follow the instructions for set up attached your club will not be identified as a Camogie Association PayPal account. This may affect your PayPal experience and may result in increased charges above what is noted below.

 

• If your club already has an LGFA PayPal account you cannot use this. A separate account has to be established.

 

 

• Irish PayPal Accounts & Bank of Ireland

In 2014, Bank of Ireland did not allow any free in branch transfers and charged up to €30 per transaction. Online banking costs €15 per month to access when an account is dual signatory (bank fees for 2015 are currently unknown). PayPal are hoping to introduce new functionality into Irish PayPal accounts by 2016, which will allow a bank account to be added and to be used as a source of funds  The Camogie Association and Servasport are not responsible for any additional fees charged by banks when clubs are ‘topping up’ their accounts via bank transfer or online banking.

 

• The . email address should be used by all clubs/counties and provinces as the official email address for PayPal account set up.  This email must be used as the official address for Servasport registration system also as was in place last year.  Only queries from the authorised email address will be answered due to security reasons.

 

Club(s) can only register their players, mentors and club officers only by using the on line registration system and paying via the registration system.

 

In line with the above all clubs are asked to set up a PayPal account as per instructions above immediately.  The closing date for all clubs having a PayPal account set up is strictly 6 February 2015.

 

5.1 Development and maintenance costs

Ard Chomhairle (Central Council) is funding the development and maintenance of the integrated payments system. There is no direct cost to clubs for this.

 

5.2 Transaction costs

The following transaction fees will apply per bulk transaction.

 

a)      PayPal – 1.4% of the total value of each transaction (whether bulk or individual) + €0.35 per bulk transaction.  Ard Chomhairle (Central Council) will fully fund transaction costs for clubs for all registrations completed by 31st May 2015.  From 1st June, clubs will fully bear this transaction cost.

b)      Servasport administration of transactions –  1.1%  of the total value of each transaction.  This cost must be paid directly by clubs.

 

The system will automatically calculate these costs.

 

6. Other New Developments: Official Camogie Association Team Sheets.

 

The registration system will now provide official team sheets for all clubs and counties.  Please use the following link to get full details of all functionality re teams including using the team sheet functionality.

 

https://servasport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/200193056-Camogie-Management-System

 

This link above is very useful for all functionality within the registration system.

7. Support and training

 

PayPal will be running a series of webinars to assist you in opening your PayPal account. We will send through details of timings and how you can register for these events in the coming days.

 

Ard Chomhairle will fund four regional workshops to support the implementation of the new system. These are likely to be in Dublin, Athlone, Mallow and Cookstown (venues and dates t.b.c.).

 

See point 5 above re PayPal contact information.

 

7. Next steps

If you are a club, county board or provincial council familiarise yourself with the procedure for setting up a PayPal Account, this will be sent out in the coming days.  This must be set up by 6 ^th February 2015 at the very latest

 

If you are a county board or provincial council please let us know if you wish the fees aspect of the system to include any additional fees you are administering in addition to the affiliation fees set out in the Official Guide.  This must be done by the 23 ^rd of January.

 

If you are a club, county or provincial registrar, secretary or treasurer take note of the PayPal webinars soon to be announced and please arrange to attend one of the regional workshops once dates and venues are confirmed.  These dates will be post the live date of the 15 ^th of March 2015.

 

Thank you for your time and co-operation with this project.

 

Paula Bruen

Finance Director

16th January 2015