Asset Management in Sports Clubs and Community Organisations: How Councils, Clubs, and Community Organisations Can Do Better
Clubs and community organisations are responsible for managing costly infrastructure and facilities. With Councils all over the country imposing stricter regulations, it's becoming increasingly important for these organisations to properly maintain and manage their assets.
Legal Obligation for Asset Management
In Queensland, incorporated associations have a legal obligation under the Associations Incorporation Regulation 1999 to keep an asset register and non-compliance can result in a fine. Surely, spending a few dollars on a good asset management systems is a better investment that paying an unnecessary fine...
However, the effects of poor asset management go far beyond the possibility of a fine. Neglecting maintenance responsibilities can lead to serious issues such as termite infestations and unsanitary facilities. For instance, when a clubhouse was only 7 years old, it was neglected, with dirty showers, dirty dishes in the canteen sink, and dirty clothes left in the change rooms across the entire off season. This resulted in moisture building up in the soil around the clubhouse, attracting termites, who caused more that $250,000 worth of damage!
What happens when you have Poor Asset Management?
Additionally, poor asset management can lead to the loss of valuable assets and sensitive information. A club may not even be aware of assets they've lost, such as phones, iPads and computers that have been given to volunteers and never retrieved. It's often a case of 'out of sight, out of mind.' Until a proper asset register is set up, ideally with automated reminders to perform maintenance and ensure that the assets are still in the possession of the volunteer who should have them, it's easy to lose track. Here I'm talking about a full-lifecycle asset register, where there is an easy process for adding new assets, the ability to track assets that are still in service, and a process for noting how assets are disposed at the end of their useful life. And the depreciation schedule in the back of your annual financial statements is not an asset register!
So why is it that organisations don't manage their assets effectively? There are various reasons, including competing priorities, a small number of volunteers who typically do everything, a lack of funds to invest in asset maintenance or simply not knowing what tools to use. Another factor is that, up until now, Councils, government and even a club's own members have not held the committee to account for effective asset management, so the committee keeps burying their heads in the sand and ignoring the risks.
How can I manage my assets?
Effective asset management takes, what I call, a circle of protection. The maintenance and management of facilities and assets requires good people, who have the knowledge, desire and capacity to do things right, good governance systems, like affordable asset management software and systems for sharing the work around, and enough money, coming from good financial management, effective budgeting and running a viable business, to be able to invest in asset maintenance and eventual asset replacement (yes, this means having a sinking fund!).
Where can clubs and Councils turn to improve their asset management? At one end of the spectrum, there are do-it-yourself spreadsheets. But unless you're a wiz at creating formulae and rules and have foolproof handover systems, a spreadsheet won't remind you when asset maintenance is due and it's likely to get lost or forgotten when the committee changes.
At the other end of the spectrum are some incredibly complex and expensive software systems that unfortunately include so many features that clubs don't need and won't use.
assettrac to easily manage your assets
Recognising that clubs need an easy-to-use system that does much of the heavy lifting, and one that has a price tag to match the price-sensitive nature of volunteer committees, we developed assetTRAC. Making a small investment in a system like assetTRAC can be the most cost-effective solution for clubs and community groups, especially when taking savings in volunteer time into account. By using assetTRAC to manage assets, organisations simply add their assets using the user-friendly web interface, add photos and descriptions of each asset, and set up the maintenance and check-in frequency, and then reminders and budgeting are set up automatically by assetTRAC.
