Top 13 Features for Youth Sports Team Management

Hey, coaches and team parents: Your roster of responsibilities is pretty full — sub us in for your behind-the-scenes youth sports team management tasks.

This is what we do best! You can collect all the necessary information and payments at one URL — and all inputs are automatically organized by the payer in your backend reporting center. (Plus, download a spreadsheet of all the collection details for an at-a-glance look.) The forms are as flexible as you need them to be too. Need player contact info? You can do that. Or parent signatures for minors? Included. Speaking of …

If you’re transporting players by bus, or they’re traveling to tournaments and camps without parents present, it’s essential to have signed permission slips at your fingertips. This is one of the many types of forms we offer, and all electronic signatures are stored right in your account. Bonus: We have a phone app for both Apple and Android — so they’ll all fit in your pocket too.

Youth sports team management means you have a lot coming at you, at different times — league registration then uniform payments then tournament signups, and on and on and on. Help prevent stragglers with our timing and access features, which will automatically end your collection on the date and time you choose.

Sports at any competition level cost money. Parents may appreciate the option to pay in increments instead of everything upfront. Enter our recurring payments feature. You can set the amount or allow the payer to choose. For more details and examples, check out this blog post.

Do you and another coach split organizational duties? Simply assign more managers through your account dashboard, and you’ll stay on the same page — because everything recorded for your team will be on this one page. (Not separate files on separate computers.)

You can send invitations, reminders, and messages directly through your Cheddar Up account. Maybe you have a collection for concessions sign-ups — this is a simple way to remind parents of their dates! Or you need to send everyone tournament site information. This is the spot to do it to make sure you don’t miss anyone. Learn more about messaging features (including history and creating an address book) here.

A Cheddar Up group page lists all of your team’s created collections at one URL. (As opposed to having separate URLs for each collection.) This is helpful for coaches and team parents as a home base for communication, but it’s equally helpful for other parents and players because they can see current and upcoming payment needs.

We think this feature is prime for youth sports team management. Take uniform orders, for instance: You may sell uniforms, bags, equipment, and spiritwear at the same time. Categories allow you to break that one collection into many parts — and helps your players clearly see all the pieces they need to purchase. This could also be helpful for travel sports teams: For each tournament, you may need to manage entry fees, hotel needs, or food costs in one place.

Set up an online team store with quantities tracked by size, thanks to item variations, which are kind of the professional organizers for Cheddar Up collections. Instead of creating separate items for every size you offer, you can create one item with multiple sub items. 

For example, you’ve set up a collection for players to choose their uniforms. Instead of listing every single uniform number available as a separate item, you can create an item for Large uniforms, then create an item variation for each number available in that size. When players choose, they’ll pick their size first, then see which numbers are still free. If a number is taken, it will show “Sold Out”.

We’ve got two great features to help boost team fundraising. Number One: Our fundraising progress bar shows all page visitors how much more money you need to meet your fundraising goal — which could incentivize more donations to get you closer. 

Number Two: We offer flexible fee options. Transactional fees are added to all payments made on Cheddar Up, and the default setting requires donors to pay them, which could help maximize the dollars you keep. However, if you think the lack of fees will help incentivize more people to donate, you can give payers an option to pay fees instead of a requirement. Or, encourage people to pay by e-check, which has a flat fee, not a percentage.

Yep! You can run credit cards on the spot. And, if you also pre-sell tickets through your collection, whatever you sell at the door will add to your overall quantity. Everything syncs up — and is automatically tracked and quantified in our reporting center.

Need to see which players have registered for the awards banquet, or check to see which tournament fees are still outstanding for each athlete? Our report filters make it simple to find this — and loads more. You can view the payments and information you’ve received across the account, or just for one collection.

Account-wide reporting will especially be helpful if you coach a school sports team or report to a parent organization. With our account-wide data, you can download comprehensive, customized reports detailing the financials across all your collections. If you’ve kept all records through Cheddar Up, you likely won’t need additional number-crunching!