The Goolwa SLSC is South Australia’s newest surf lifesaving club, patrolling Goolwa beach since 2010. It made the local community very proud when it was awarded Surf Life Saving South Australian Club of the Year 2017, since it had only been operating a few years. The club is made up almost entirely of volunteers who commit their time to keep the fund raising alive and well, which supports training programs for current and upcoming life-savers.

For many years they have been operating out of a temporary structure, the view out to the beach has always been stunning but the facilities needed an upgrade! In July 2019, the newly built $3.5 million modern facility was finally completed and the official launch and opening date was October 13. Thanks to the generous support of their sponsors, their local community and the Alexandrina Council, the volunteers’ vision and commitment became a reality.

As it’s still early into Goolwa’s launch, the club currently serves up coffee, cakes and sandwiches, and has a fully licenced bar. In the not too distant future, they will also be offering a full menu for lunch and dinner.

Where they needed help

Since the club opened, the process involved in signing up new members, keeping on top of membership reminders and processing renewals has been a manual one with good old fashioned pen and paper. With the best of intentions, as the club expanded it became difficult to manage their growing membership, and paperwork along with payment details were lost. Consequently, memberships were not renewed causing the volunteers to spend much more time chasing up and managing memberships than they needed to.

There were also different levels of membership with various profiles and membership discounts, which further added to a time-consuming administration process.

At the end of the day, one report was generated for all sales streams – drinks, food and memberships. Someone had to sit down and work through this data, allocating sales revenue to different streams – an arduous task for volunteers who were offering their time freely to the club. They were happy to do this work for the benefit of the club and had been manually managing all aspects of the club successfully for years, but once the H&L POS system was installed, they wondered how they ever did without it!

How did H&L help solve their problem?

We installed a front of house Point of Sale (POS) system which links to their back of house operation using modules for:

Membership management – membership types and levels along with specific subscription fees are managed, and discounts for food and drink are allocated according to their membership profile by location and groups (eg the Nippers).

Sales and stock control – sales for food and drinks are recorded against stock levels so that staff have a better understanding of what new stock is needed. This means the club now remains well stocked week to week.

Till balancing and reporting – the club has up to date information and reporting at the end of each day about their till takings and variances due to leakage or wastage at their fingertips.

New membership information is captured in one transaction. When a new member buys an item, staff can offer a membership subscription at the till. A new card is swiped at the POS, and the details captured at that moment. There are no forms to be filled in or follow ups needed. It is all done simply and easily during this first transaction.

The result is an efficient and pleasant transaction for all concerned and a smooth welcome to the club as a new member. H&L’s POS then begins to track the transaction history of the member, building a profile and offering loyalty rewards and discounts based on their membership and purchase activity.

What are the benefits to Goolwa SLSC today?

Smooth handling of daily transactions

The H&L POS system handles all transactions for the bar, the café and memberships. The payments for each of these services are captured at the POS, which provides information on stock levels that need replenishment. Both staff and members find the whole transaction is efficient and smooth.

Easier membership tracking and rewarding

Membership cards are swiped at the POS and discounts and rewards are immediately offered to the member based on their profile and history of purchases. The back of house software recognises sales to that specific member, so each member builds a profile of preferences and history.

For example, if a member is part of the Nippers club, Nippers rewards and discounts are immediately offered. In addition to this, the club can see the spend pattern of not just the individual members but all the Nippers members as a total over time. The process centralises all transactions, reporting and reconciling at the point of sale.

Efficient stock control

The club volunteers find it easier to track when stock has been sold and reconcile this with current stock. They can track wastage or leakage much easier and correct errors. This is no longer a manual process and saves the volunteers’ hours of time every week.

Reporting at their fingertips

The reporting is clear and easy to understand and the volunteers breathe a sigh of relief at the end of the day when they can reconcile their stock and sales much more easily.

Reports are broken down into revenue segments – the bar, the café and membership sales. The reports will also show the club manager when they are busiest so they can decide on staff rosters ahead of time.

Happier volunteers

The volunteers are more productive with their time. The new POS tracks the details so they can get on with running the club – growing memberships, increasing sales and revenue, all in the interest of keeping the club buoyant, so they can train new life-savers and actively take care of Goolwa Beach.

The club may decide to outsource their kitchen to a third party caterer for meals in the near future. The advantage of having a POS is they will have up to date information about revenue streams (bar, meals and memberships) at each shift, so they can accurately split the revenue and profits between the club and the kitchen caterer.

Client Testimonial

“Goolwa SLSC is a proud user of the H&L POS system as through our research we have found it to be both reliable and functional, with the appropriate level of support when required.
The club looked into many different systems, but we found that the H&L POS system met all our current inventory management requirements as well as offer future expansion as our club grows.
We understand H&L to be an industry leader and look forward to working with H&L as our club develops.
Nick Falanga, Goolwa SLSC, Business Manager

Call H&L Australia about Clubs and Membership POS Solutions

Find out more about why Club and Membership venues across Australia choose H&L’s POS solution. H&L’s user-friendly technology allows you to build custom loyalty programs and promotional offers, giving you the tools to make your club a success. Call H&L on 1800 778 340.