Source: Groundwork
Los Angeles, CA, June 6, 2017— Groundwork, an easy-to-use, automated payment and notification solution designed for youth sports, launched today to help alleviate pain for coaches and parents who face payment and collection challenges.
Coaches commonly spend 30+ hours per season on collections. That time comes at the expense of their ability to plan, practice, or even have just a few extra hours to relax. As Groundwork co-founder Bill Lennon discovered in speaking with hundreds of teams and coaches, collections remain one of their top pain points, especially with 5% to 10% of all collections going unfulfilled. Families, in turn, need a payment method that is friendly, intuitive, and automated. Now, with the arrival of the Groundwork sports payment platform, a streamlined solution is finally here.
“Groundwork has been great for the Golden Spikes,” notes bet a tester and Golden Spikes Baseball team coach Monty McMullin. “I was looking for an option to help keep all of our transactions organized. Not only has it been efficient, but it’s also easy for our parents. Great customer service, also. We will continue to use Groundwork in the future.”
Unlike peer-to-peer payment systems, such as PayPal or Venmo, Groundwork lets parents establish a payment plan at the beginning of the season that’s customized for them. Parents can either pay all expenses up front at once or spread them throughout the season on an auto-pay system. Teams pay just a 2% + 30¢ processing fee. Parents can pay using their bank account or use a card for an additional fee. Groundwork automates all payment communications – no coach calls necessary. Coaches have complete insight into payment statuses via Groundwork’s simple dashboard application, and parents never have to worry about inconvenient phone calls or awkward discussions about money. In addition, Groundwork strives to be as proactive as possible, helping coaches with everything from a best practices guide for smoother parent relations to weekly or monthly accounting reports.
Groundwork measures its success in parent sign-up numbers. As of today’s launch, these number in the hundreds. In the fall, with many more organizations already committed to signing on, Lennon says that the 10,000-user milestone will arrive soon. After that, he anticipates reaching into the millions, “which could happen in a couple of years.”
“Groundwork is about more than just accepting payments,” Lennon adds. “It’s about keeping parents in the loop and making participation extremely convenient for them. This is a new technology for youth sports, and it’s revolutionizing the old ways of handling payments.”
About Groundwork
Groundwork is an easy-to-use automated payment and notification solution designed exclusively for youth sports. Groundwork helps track payments by team and player all in one place so payments never get lost or forgotten. Real-time reports show collection progress and identify who is not current. Groundwork allows users to create custom payment plans for teams and players and award scholarships and discounts. Parents can choose to pay online upfront or enroll in autopay for the season. Groundwork even takes care of reminding and notifying parents for you automatically. Bottom line: Groundwork helps teams run with less effort, time, and cost and makes parents lives easier too. For more information, visit https://www.ground.work/ and follow @teamgroundwork on Twitter.
