The MyAthlete Finance Engine is a Consent-First, Policy-Driven, Audit-Ready billing system. It replaces manual spreadsheet billing, fragmented parent communication, and transaction-fee drag with a transparent workflow that respects payer authorization and guarantees absolute data integrity.
Rather than an athlete-only billing system with parents bolted on, it is a general-purpose billing engine that handles three primary parties with equal rigor:
- Athletes — Individual competitive or recreational club members. Bills for an athlete are automatically routed to the family's primary payer if one is designated, or directly to the athlete's linked account.
- Direct Members — Adult or independent members who hold their own account and pay their own fees directly. They pay via their own payment mandate with no family profile involved.
- Families — A family unit with a designated primary payer. Family-level billing aggregates charges for all family members (e.g., a single annual family membership or a consolidated family gala entry fee).
Billing groups target one of these three options. Whether you are billing an athlete, an individual member, or an entire family, they all enjoy the same consumer protections: 3-day advance notice, immutable invoicing, automatic credit netting, and a dedicated dispute portal.
1. The Integrity Ledger
Every financial event in MyAthlete is recorded on a secure, itemized ledger. The ledger is the single source of truth for money owed or credited, and it is designed for forensic accountability.
- Immutable by Design: Invoices cannot be modified after issuance. MyAthlete enforces this strict standard: a charge is never edited or deleted. Adjustments are made via a Credit Note (a negative ledger entry) or a permanent void transition. Every cent remains fully traceable for audits.
- State Workflow: Items progress through a clear lifecycle from Awaiting Approval → Pending (Due) → Locked (when attached to a payment link) → Paid, Failed, or Void. Locked items are protected from automated runs to prevent accidental double-charging.
- Pricing Audit Trail: Every change is recorded in an audit log with a timestamp and the actor. Treasurers, parents, and auditors can read the exact mathematical breakdown of sibling discounts, prorations, and surcharges applied at the moment the bill was generated.
- Snapshots: Payer details, athlete names, accounting categories, and tax rates are snapshotted at the time of creation. Historical reports remain stable even if members move squads, accounting codes are updated, or VAT rates change.
Credit Netting — No Manual Wallet Management
MyAthlete does not force families to maintain separate virtual prepaid wallets. Refunds and event cancellations automatically create negative ledger entries (credits). During the daily sweep, the system calculates:
If the net position is positive, a single payment collection is initiated for the remainder. If the net position is zero or negative, no draft occurs. Excess credits roll forward to offset future bills automatically, meaning parents never need to request manual payouts or transfers.
2. Consent-First Billing: The "Permission Slip"
MyAthlete decouples *money owed* from *permission to collect*. A payer sets up a standing Direct Debit mandate, which acts as a payment channel. However, no funds are ever drawn without explicit, granular consent.
The Consent State Machine
A Fee Consent represents the payer's authorization to be billed for a specific fee structure. It acts as the gatekeeper for all generated charges.
- Pending Approval — Awaiting payer authorization. The associated charge is held, blocking the automated collection sweeper.
- Approved — Payer has authorized the fee. Charges are cleared for automated collection.
- Disputed — Payer has contested the charge. Collection is immediately frozen and the issue is routed to the club's Action Center.
- Declined — The subscription is rejected or cancelled. Outstanding charges are voided and the billing engine skips new generations for that fee structure.
The Price Guard
If a Treasurer increases the price of an active fee structure, the system automatically resets the consent status to Pending Approval and prompts the payer to re-authorize the new amount. The club will never collect a higher amount without current, explicit consent. A price decrease is informational only; the consent stays approved and the lower amount is applied.
Dispute Resolution Flow
Payers cannot unilaterally decline or cancel an ongoing payment request without notifying the club. They must raise a structured Dispute, which ensures the club admins are alerted. Conversely, disputes are handled through a dedicated thread, meaning once a fee is approved or declined, it cannot be disputed. To halt a running subscription, the payer communicates with the club and an admin resolves it via the dispute resolution portal.
3. Flexible Billing Models
The system supports three clear billing models to accommodate all types of club fees:
- Recurring Schedules: Used for continuous or periodic fees (monthly squad dues, annual club memberships). Admins can define exactly which months are active—for example, automatically skipping August squad fees. Payouts respect the payer's preferred collection day (1st, 10th, 15th, or 25th of the month) unless overridden by admins for time-sensitive registrations.
- One-Off Charges & Installments: Used for single event entries, merchandise, or camps. It supports multi-payment Installment Plans where the total amount is split—either into customized percentage steps or equal automated divisions (e.g., €240 divided into 3 equal monthly payments of €80) to avoid rounding errors.
- Ad-Hoc Blueprints: Reusable blueprints that do not run on an automated schedule. Admins can manually instantiate these for specific groups or selected athletes (e.g., custom tour fees or equipment charges). The system flattens and deduplicates the list to ensure no athlete is charged twice.
4. The Automatic Discounts Engine
Instead of manually applying discounts to individuals, MyAthlete evaluates price adjustment rules automatically in memory. This ensures billing runs execute quickly and accurately without errors.
Key Discount Categories
- Sibling Discounts — Automatically detects siblings and ranks them by age or fee amount. The engine can apply custom discounts (e.g., full price for the eldest/youngest, and percentage discounts for subsequent children).
- Family Caps — Clamps the maximum monthly squad fee liability per family. Sibling fees are evaluated in order of amount (highest first) against the cap budget. Once the cap limit is reached, remaining siblings are charged €0.00 for that fee plan.
- Group Discounts — Direct price adjustments tied to membership in specific Smart Groups (e.g., committee members, staff, or scholarship recipients). These can apply a percentage off, a flat reduction, or a fixed price clamp.
Exclusions and Sandbox Simulators
Rules can be excluded for specific folders or fee structures (e.g., sibling discounts do not apply to summer camps). Before committing changes, admins can run dry-run simulators:
- Fee Previews: Simulates changing a base price to show the exact net variance per target.
- Rule Impact Simulators: Simulates a new discount rule to show the club-wide revenue change and highlight any rule conflicts before making it live.
5. SEPA-Compliant Advance Notices
Under SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) rules and Central Bank regulations, clubs must give payers at least 3 days' advance notice before collecting direct debits.
How It Works
- Hard-Coded Compliance: The 3-day notice rule is hard-coded into the system and cannot be bypassed or disabled. This guarantees the club remains compliant.
- Notice Delivery: An automated email is scheduled and sent 3 days before the debit date, showing the exact amount, collection date, mandate reference, and line-item breakdown. Push notifications are sent as secondary alerts.
- Collection Guard: The system will block collection for any item requiring notice unless the email notice has been successfully sent and 3 days have elapsed.
- Failures & Retries: If email delivery fails, the system retries up to 5 times with exponential delay. If delivery continues to fail, the item is blocked from collection, and the admin is notified.
- First-Charge Exception: The initial charge when a payer approves a new consent is collected immediately, as the approval step itself serves as the notification.
6. Interactive Disputes Portal
When a parent or member disputes a charge, the system opens a structured dispute thread instead of silently cancelling the payment. This allows for open dialogue and resolved agreements.
Resolution Paths
- Member Approves: The member resolves the dispute from their portal (e.g., after receiving clarification), clearing the items for collection.
- Admin Cancels: The admin cancels the subscription. The consent is set to Declined, and all associated unpaid charges are automatically voided.
- Admin Waives: The admin forgives the specific period's fee. The consent is set to Approved so future billing cycles continue, but the current outstanding charge is waived.
7. Prorating & Mid-Cycle Additions
The system automatically tracks roster movements with daily precision. If an athlete changes squads mid-month, the system calculates the exact pro-rated difference without requiring manual admin adjustments.
Prorated Calculations
For mid-cycle joiners, the system can automatically calculate a prorated fee based on the remaining active days in the billing window:
If the athlete joined in the same calendar month, the calculation simplifies to:
The Coverage Auditor
A nightly background check scans squad rosters to detect members who joined mid-cycle without billing. Admins can choose to ignore, bill full amount, bill prorated amount, or receive an inbox alert for manual review.
8. Transaction Fee Savings & Card Payments
Legacy software charges flat fees on every transaction, costing clubs hundreds in transaction drag. MyAthlete optimizes these fees through smart batching and alternative recovery routes.
Intelligent Batching
The system runs a daily sweeper that aggregates all pending charges for a family (e.g., squad fees, gala entries, club hats) into a single monthly Direct Debit pull. By processing one batch instead of several individual fees, clubs save up to €3,000 per year in transaction fees.
Card Payment Recovery Links
For debt that cannot be pulled via Direct Debit (such as ex-members or failed mandates), admins can bundle outstanding charges into a single secure link. The parent pays online by card (supporting Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, and Google Pay) via a hosted checkout. The items are locked while the link is active and automatically unlock if the link expires or is cancelled.
9. The Action Center: Policy-Driven Oversight
The Action Center is the admin's central dashboard for financial oversight, displaying tasks requiring immediate attention:
- Mid-Cycle Joiner Alerts — New squad members who need prorated billing set up or waived.
- Open Disputes — Unresolved payment query threads.
- Missing Payers — Members added to squad billing who have no primary payer linked.
- Missing Mandates — Registered payers who haven't completed their Direct Debit setup.
- Recent Payment Failures — Returned collections (e.g., insufficient funds) from the last 30 days.
- Failed Advance Notices — Undelivered SEPA emails requiring manual contact.
10. Smart Groups & Financial Planning
By integrating with the core roster system, billing targets remain dynamically up to date.
- Set-Theory Targeting: Admins define billing targets using logical rules—for example, "Gold Squad + Performance Squad, excluding Committee members". As athletes transfer squads or change groups, their billing schedules update automatically in real-time.
- Simulations: Admins can test proposed fee increases or cap changes in a sandbox to view the exact revenue impact to the penny, without altering any live data.
11. Irish Invoicing & VAT Compliance
All issued invoices are frozen and immutable in compliance with Irish tax regulations. Adjustments are strictly managed through credit notes.
- VAT-Registered Clubs: Supports per-rate VAT breakdowns and snapshots the active rate at billing time so historical reports remain stable.
- Non-VAT-Registered Clubs: Automatically prints the required VAT disclosure statements (e.g., under Section 235 TCA 1997 for sporting exemptions).
- Club Legal Types: Supports required disclosures for CLG (Company Limited by Guarantee) including CRO number, and Unincorporated Associations including GS Numbers.
12. Manual Adjustments & Accounting Exports
When manual changes are needed, every action is logged to preserve audit trails.
- Voiding Fees: Unpaid charges can be marked as void. Voided items are kept in the database to prevent holes in historical reports.
- Issuing Refunds: Paid items can be refunded, which generates a credit note that automatically offsets future bills.
- Splitting Bills: Admins can split a large charge into smaller pending payments.
- Accounting Exports: Admins can generate and stream ledger exports mapped to club nominal/general ledger codes, formatted for direct import into QuickBooks or Xero.
13. The Daily Automation Schedule
The MyAthlete Finance Engine runs automated procedures throughout the day to keep club accounts reconciled and parent alerts timely:
| Time | Automated Event | Purpose / Admin Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| 01:00 AM | Roster & Consent Sync | Checks all member squad changes and updates billing consent requirements. |
| 02:00 AM | Fee Generation | Evaluates fee structures and generates the draft charges for the month. |
| 03:00 AM | Coverage Gap Audit | Scans rosters for mid-cycle squad additions and creates prorated charges or inbox alerts. |
| 04:00 AM | Daily Collection Sweep | Combines pending parent charges into optimized batches to reduce transaction fees. |
| 08:00 AM | Payment Retries | Automatically retries failed Direct Debit collections where eligible. |
| 09:00 AM | Compliance Notifications | Delivers SEPA 3-day advance notices and sends best-effort upcoming payment alerts. |
14. The Bottom Line: Legacy Systems vs. MyAthlete OS
| Feature | Legacy Standard (SCM, TeamUnify, etc.) | MyAthlete OS |
|---|---|---|
| Billing Targets | Athlete-only with parents bolted on. | First-class support for Athletes, Direct Members, and Family Units. |
| Proration | Manual spreadsheets and calculations for the Treasurer. | Autonomous daily-precision calculations via automated coverage auditing. |
| Audit Trail | Mutable invoices that can be edited or deleted. | Immutable ledger entries and invoices; adjustments via Credit Notes only. |
| Consent Flow | Automatic collection with no approval gates. | Consent-First: explicit approvals with Price Guard resets on price increases. |
| Compliance | Best-effort or manual notices. | Hard-coded 3-day SEPA advance notice with automated retry/backoff. |
| Transaction Fees | Fees charged per item, leading to transaction drag. | Batched fixed-fee transactions saving clubs thousands annually. |
| Refunds & Credits | Manual bank transfers or offline calculations. | Credit entries with automatic netting during the daily sweep. |
| Disputes | Costly chargebacks and gate fees. | Structured in-app dispute resolution threads. |
| Debt Recovery | Manual phone calls or writing off debt. | Shareable card payment recovery links (Apple Pay, Google Pay). |
| Financial Forecasting | Historical reports only. | Revenue risk analysis and rule dry-run sandboxes. |
| Collection Date | Fixed by the club. | Payer-selected collection days to align with family cash flow. |