First chartered in 1911, The Country Club of Orlando offers golf, tennis, fine dining, and numerous events for its members and guests. With these impressive amenities, the club realized they needed a software solution that would support their operations.

Using multiple club software solutions frustrates staff and members.

Every club has features that make it unique – its own traditions, rules, even its own architectural style. Yet, far too many clubs have one unfortunate thing in common: they use multiple software solutions – one for web , another for accounting, and perhaps yet another for reservations – that lead to extra work for the staff, and a frustrating experience for members.

Nicole Hisiro, Communications Director at The Country Club of Orlando, has felt this frustration firsthand. While her club utilized the Clubessential website and reservations solutions for a number of years, for much of that time the club used a separate system for accounting. Members used to be required to log into a separate website to see their statements. Using one vendor for web and another for accounting proved disruptive to them.

Members used to be required to log into a separate website to see their statements. Using one vendor for web and another for accounting proved disruptive to them.

Members were not the only people dissatisfied with this approach - club staff also found that working across two software platforms posed a number of problems.

Membership numbers were not pulling over correctly within the accounting system,” Hisiro said. “This made it difficult for us to do any accurate reporting without doing a lot of manual work to correct the errors in the accounting software. It was really frustrating, because that stuff should be cut and dry.”

Other operational needs could not be accommodated by their previous accounting software. “Items and price adjustments were not easy at all. Within our prior accounting software, we might update the price of an item at one location in the club, only to find the price wasn’t updated elsewhere. This meant that members would find that prices for a given item were inconsistent across the club, which was understandably frustrating to them.


Move towards a single provider for website and accounting software.

Although their prior accounting vendor did provide software upgrades, the software still did not contain the features and functionality the club needed. Moreover, the club did not always trust the data that they pulled from this system. With many clubs making more data-driven decisions about member activity, trustworthy data is vital.

Now, with Clubessential everything is seamless. Data pulls correctly between modules. This instills confidence that the data is correct – a feeling we didn’t have with our prior accounting vendor. That is one of the biggest reasons we moved to Clubessential’s accounting system – the confidence in our data.

With our former accounting vendor, far too often their modules worked together, but in a strange way, leaving us to question if data was pulled from the F&B portal or membership portal,” said Hisiro . Now, with Clubessential everything is seamless. Data pulls correctly between modules. This instills confidence that the data is correct – a feeling we didn’t have with our prior accounting vendor. That is one of the biggest reasons we moved to Clubessential’s accounting system – the confidence in our data.”

Knowing these frustrations, their prior accounting vendor proposed that the club move to a fully integrated system, with that vendor supplying both web and accounting software. Hisiro , however, was hesitant to move away from Clubessential. “I knew the high quality of the Clubessential website, having used it for years. I wasn’t ready to give that up even if our prior accounting vendor also offered a website product.”

Along with her preference for the Clubessential website platform, Hisiro had also forged strong relationships with Clubessential staff, and found that they took an interest in her club’s success. “I love that my Clubessential Account Manager meets with me regularly to review our website. You might think you’re on top of everything, but even the little suggestions that come up during these website reviews help us utilize our system even more effectively. They’ve brought us up to industry standards and have introduced best practices.”

Realizing the strength of the Clubessential web platform, as well as the value of partnering with Clubessential, Hisiro brought together different department heads at her club and proposed that The Country Club of Orlando switch to Clubessential Office for their accounting software needs. This moved the club onto one software suite that contained strong solutions for everything from member engagement and reservations - which they had already been using - along with Clubessential’s robust back-end accounting and reporting software.

 
The Country Club of Orlando sees increases in operational efficiency and member satisfaction.

Since launching their Clubessential Office solution in October 2016, The Country Club of Orlando has already enjoyed gains in efficiency. For clubs that use separate web and accounting solutions, handling tickets made in the Point of Sale (POS) for an event entails a big of investment of time. This problem used to plague Hisiro and other staff members at the club, but has now been eliminated since introducing Clubessential’s solution.

Clubessential has great products, but if you didn’t have the people on your staff who understand club operations, it wouldn’t matter as much. Who you work with is so important.

After large events, the staff would ring up tickets individually, which can be very time-consuming,”  Hisiro said. “Now, they can just go into the POS, give everything a glance to ensure accuracy, add a few items to particular tickets, and then just charge everyone. Being able to add information and then filter areas right there on the main Manage Members interface has streamlined getting the answers to a lot of our questions, as opposed to our old approach of having to create a custom report. Even just having the ability to create one item in one location and then use that item at all of the different F&B locations at the club has saved us a lot of time and has ensured accuracy.” 

These gains in operational efficiency have been matched by a positive member experience. Along with launching their Clubessential Office system, The Country Club of Orlando debuted a redesigned website with Clubessential. “Members really like the new aesthetics of the website, said Hisiro . "They also like the ability to login and easily see their statements and chits from one system.” 

As she reflects on her experience working with Clubessential, Hisiro can cite not only these gains in operational efficiency and member satisfaction, but also her strong relationship with the staff at Clubessential. “I’ve spoken to basically everyone at Clubessential, and I’ve never had an encounter with someone who wasn’t positive or who didn’t go above and beyond to help.” This relationship is a central reason she chose to enlarge her club’s relationship with Clubessential.

“Clubessential has great products, but if you didn’t have the people on your staff who understand club operations, it wouldn’t matter as much. Who you work with is so important.”


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