Officials

The Officials page is your referee and official register: who's accredited, when they're available, which fixtures they're appointed to, and what each match pays. When it's time to pay, a bank-ready CSV lists everything owing. You'll find it under Club operations → Officials.

Who can use this

Officials are a Pro plan feature aimed at associations and larger clubs. Administrators and moderators manage the register and appointments. An official who has a ClubHelix account can see their own appointments and manage their own availability.

What's on the page

• Stat tiles: active officials, upcoming appointments, and unpaid completed match fees.
• Officials register: contact details, grade, notes and per-official unavailability dates.
• Appointments: who's on which fixture, in what role, at what fee.
• Match pay: completed appointments, the unpaid total, the pay export and the mark-paid control.

Step by step

Register your officials

1. Click + Add official to open the Add an official page — three short questions, and only the name is required.
2. Who is the official? — their full name, and optionally the grade your association gives them (shown beside their name in the register).
3. Are they one of your members? — Someone from outside the club for an association appointee or visiting official, or Yes, they're on our roster and pick the member. Linking them also links their account (self-view + notifications) and their accreditations from the Accreditations page.
4. Anything else? (optional) — folded away: email, phone, and internal notes only your admins see.
5. Click Add official. To change someone later, click Edit on their row — it opens the same three questions on their own page.
6. Record unavailability as date ranges ("away 12–19 September") so appointments warn you before you double-book a holiday.

Appoint to fixtures

1. In Appoint an official, pick the fixture, the official, their role (referee, assistant, umpire, scorer, timekeeper) and the match fee.
2. If the official is unavailable that day or already appointed to an overlapping fixture, the form stops and tells you — tick Appoint anyway if you really mean it.
3. Officials with accounts are notified of new appointments. Track responses with the status control (appointed → confirmed / declined).

Pay match fees

1. After the round, set completed appointments to Completed — they join the unpaid pool.
2. Download the pay export (one row per official per match, with contact details and the fee) and pay it through your bank.
3. Press Mark all completed as paid — every completed, unpaid appointment is stamped with the date and your note (e.g. "EFT run 21 July"). Paid appointments can't be removed; they're your payment history.

Match fees and bank file

Club operations → Officials → Match fees & bank file is where you record what each job is worth, and where you set up the bank file your treasurer uses to pay everyone at once.

Set your rates

1. Add a rate with a Grade (leave it blank for "any grade"), a Role (or "Any role"), a Fee and optional Notes.
2. The most specific rate wins: grade and role first, then grade, then role, then your blanket default.
3. A warning at the top names any grade on your register that no rate covers, because an appointment on an unpriced grade starts at nothing — which is how somebody goes a whole season unpaid.
4. To change a rate, save the same grade-and-role combination again.

Rates are a reference for whoever makes the appointment. The fee on an appointment is still typed there and can always be changed on the day.

Set up the bank file

Only an organisation admin sees this card — a moderator gets a note asking them to find one. Your bank supplies every value: the Financial institution code, the APCA user ID it issued you, the name it shows on the file, the name officials see on their statement, your own BSB and account number, and a short Description. Tick My bank wants a balanced file only if yours asks for one.

With those saved you can download an ABA file — the fixed-width direct-entry format Australian banks import — covering every completed, unpaid appointment.

The file is deliberately all or nothing. If one official has no bank details, if one payment is not classified as a reimbursement, an honorarium or a fee, if anything is in a currency other than Australian dollars, or if there are more than 2,000 payments, you get a message naming the rows instead of a file. A short bank file is worse than none: once the bank has imported it, the missing line is invisible.

Field reference

• Role — referee, assistant, umpire, scorer, timekeeper or other. One official can hold different roles on different fixtures (or even two roles on one fixture).
• Fee — per-match, set at appointment time. Edits after payment aren't possible.
• Status — appointed → confirmed / declined → completed. Only completed appointments reach the pay export.

Tips & FAQ

• Does ClubHelix pay the officials? No — actual payouts stay with your bank. The export and the paid stamp keep the ledger straight.
• Auto-assignment? Not yet — appointments are manual with clash warnings. Availability-based suggestions are on the roadmap.
• An official disputes a payment — the Match pay table keeps every completed appointment with its paid date and note, so you can always show exactly what was paid and when.
• What does "classify the payment" mean? Every fee-bearing payment has to be labelled a reimbursement (paying back money the official spent), an honorarium (a token for voluntary service) or a fee (payment for work done). Both exports refuse to run while any payment is unlabelled, because the three are treated differently at tax time and an accountant cannot tell them apart afterwards.
• The bank file says bank details are missing. An official's BSB and account number have to be on their record before they can appear in a bank file. If you are being told they are missing for officials you have already set up, the field is not yet on the officials register — pay from the figures in the Match pay table through your bank as usual, and press Mark all completed as paid afterwards to keep the ledger straight.
• Do the rates fill in the fee for me? Not yet. The rate card is the reference whoever makes the appointment reads; the fee on the appointment is still typed in.