Explore the reasons why comprehensive financial management solutions are becoming increasingly valuable for National Governing Bodies (NGBs), for both security and convenience.

National Governing Bodies (NGBs) often boast expansive communities of athletes, coaches, volunteers, officials, fans, and more. Having such diverse memberships means these organisations are required to provide an extensive array of products and services, leading to a substantial volume of daily transactions. As a result, it is absolutely vital that NGBs adopt and implement comprehensive payment processing systems. Beyond alleviating a considerable administrative load on their staff, such systems play a pivotal role in ensuring the financial security of their members.

This article analyses the importance of strong payment processing capabilities for NGBs, covering payment security, the impact of modern payment methods, financial reporting, and more.

Payment security and compliance

NGBs come in all shapes and sizes. Some have hundreds of thousands of members, while others may have just a few hundred. However, regardless of membership numbers, all NGBs must implement robust payment security measures to protect against data breaches, fraud, and unauthorised access. By ensuring the security of any financial transactions, NGBs can build trust among their participants.

A key benchmark in this area is the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a set of security standards specifically designed to ensure that companies who accept, process, store, or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment. Compliance with PCI DSS requires organisations to meet a rigorous set of requirements, and for NGBs, providing payment processing that is PCI DSS compliant represents a commitment to safeguarding the integrity of every transaction. By being PCI DSS compliant, NGBs can more effectively:

  • Protect member data: With the secure storage and transmission of sensitive information, such as credit card details.
  • Mitigate the risk of data breaches: NGBs are becoming increasingly popular targets for cyberattacks.
  • Meet legal requirements: Non-compliance can lead to legal consequences, financial penalties, and significant reputational damage.
  • Boost member confidence: By reassuring members that their financial transactions are handled with the highest level of security.
    Adapting to Evolving Trends

In addition to providing first-rate payment security, it is also vital that NGBs adapt to the evolving preferences of their community and industry trends. Gone are the days of members posting cheques, now, participants leverage digital wallets and contactless payments.

Sports organisations can’t risk falling behind and must ensure their payment processing systems can provide all the modern payment methods and diverse features that their members have come to expect. By embracing these options, NGBs can enhance user experience and broaden the scope of their community engagements.

Advanced functionalities

NGBs also need the ability to be flexible with their payment processes, particularly as they cater for ever-growing communities. This means that offering advanced functionalities - such as recurring payments for membership fees and streamlined processes for refunds - is a necessity.

By missing out on these features, sports organisations put themselves at serious risk of not only damaging their community relationships, but failing to maximise their prospects for revenue generation.

For example, by providing the option for members to set up auto-renewing memberships, NGBs can secure consistent annual revenue streams, making financial consolidation and reporting a breeze, and open the door for more straightforward strategic planning. Additionally, it makes life significantly simpler for members, who can almost ‘set and forget’ their memberships, and just focus on enjoying their chosen sport.

Maximising efficiency

Payment management can be an incredibly complicated and time-consuming task for NGBs. Often, annual financial management tasks become a shared responsibility for NGB staff, or alternatively, the organisation has to pay for specific training. In some cases, NGBs even find themselves having the employ financial specialists.

Comprehensive payment processing software can eliminate much of this complexity, negating the requirement for training or new hires, and reducing the burden on existing staff members.

Streamlined financial reporting

Financial reporting is another arduous and resource-heavy task which NGBs find themselves having to take on. However, the right payment software can streamline this process, and make it much less of a headache.

The rapid production of detailed reports empowers NGBs to make data-driven decisions. These insights then become invaluable tools for improving member engagement, optimising event delivery, driving revenue generation, and steering the organisation toward sustained success.

Clearly, the implementation of advanced financial management systems is a vital step for NGBs. Not only do they support digital transformation by providing advanced functionalities and streamlining complex tasks, but they are also the backbone of secure and well-safeguarded payments for participants.

For example, our Platform supports over 70 NGBs with comprehensive payment features that make financial management a breeze and provide enhanced experiences to their members.

If your organisation is looking for a finance admin tool to support your journey, get in touch to find out how we can help you.