Table of Contents
Episode Summary
Join Winfield Reichard, Ryan Mitchell, and Zach Malloch as they review Golf Trac fees in RecTrac 3.1. These new setup options would allow you to charge fees without your patrons having to come in and pay for them in person. This hands-off option can enable your patrons to pay online before their tee time while cutting down on close contact.
Video
Transcript
Zach Malloch 0:42
We are alive. Welcome everybody to a GolfTrac edition of RecChat. Today we're going to be joined by Ryan Mitchell and Winfield Reichard that both golf experts of the highest degree. I feel a little bit lonely at the moment nobody's joining in yet. Ryan, if you could please start your video and unmute your microphone. Win, I see your beautiful face just popped up. You've got your microphone still looks muted, but we're almost there. There we are. Welcome guys.
Ryan Mitchell 1:16
Hello, How's it going Zach?
Winfield Reichard 1:18
Good.
Zach Malloch 1:18
Not too bad. Win this is your second time on a RecChat. Thanks for joining us again. And Ryan. It's your inaugural
Ryan Mitchell 1:26
Yup, First Time.
Winfield Reichard 1:28
All right,
Ryan Mitchell 1:29
Sounds good.
Zach Malloch 1:30
Okay. So setting the stage for this we have been hearing from golf courses. And you know, basically the name of everybody's game is adapting to the changing conditions out there. And we've heard that golf courses are no different. And people have been coming up with some ways of maybe streamlining some of the way business works with the social distancing, and everything like that. So Win, can you give us a little bit of a an overview, we'll just kind of start a conversation.
Winfield Reichard 1:57
Right. Yeah. Thanks, Zach. Yeah, I think today, what we want to talk about, like you just said is the new environment and social distancing COVID-19. And we want to talk about some of those different payment options that are out there for the golf courses that people have been calling in about, and really break out some of the just those pros and cons of those payment options. Really, everybody.
Zach Malloch 2:24
Alright. so this is mainly to, to provide more options so that you don't have to go inside and do a traditional line at the counter. Correct?
Winfield Reichard 2:35
Correct, right. We want to just offer that some of those basic setup options and preview and review, as Ryan and I will do some of those aspects of golf as an overview, and go through some of those, like, again, some of those basic setup, things that we can help you with so that those payment options are available to you.
Zach Malloch 3:02
All right. Well, let's go ahead and get started with it. Where do you want to begin?
Winfield Reichard 3:07
yeah, I think what we need to do is start right off at golf course management, and think about your turn time. And just making sure that that's appropriate. And that all golf courses, have a turn time on there. Every once in a while when all of us are going in there and looking through the support and doing our zoom meetings, that every once in a while we don't see a turn time on there. So everyone wants to make sure they always have their proper turn times on there. The next thing would be that they have their daily and annual passes. One of the options that Ryan and I are going to talk about and focus on is going to really focus on your daily passes and making sure those are there. And then Ryan's gonna get into here in a moment is service items, making sure your service items. So those really those three things are really key in your golf setup, and making sure that those are connected to your golf course management. And then one of the things that we'll look at very specifically is your fee tab for one of the new I guess I'll say new for right now, I guess payment options that people are probably going to be interested in is that new booking option that we haven't set up all that much, but in this new environment, we'll be looking forward to talking about
Zach Malloch 4:40
Okay, so that's basically just making it so that you're charging at the time that the time is booked rather than when you're coming in to actually check right and play and,
Winfield Reichard 4:48
and doing it more online. Exactly.
Zach Malloch 4:52
So, which one of you guys wants to head that part up? Or what order do you want to go with that?
Winfield Reichard 4:57
Well, I think the way we wanted to do it as well. We'll talk I guess first just passes in general and what we want to focus on, again, key things with the passes that are connected to the golf course, the three key areas, your default membership dates that you want to be aware of, that they're up to date, that we haven't skipped over anything in terms of looking at, you know, has anything been left behind on 2019, especially for annual passes. So that's one of those things you want to look at, you want to definitely make sure you're looking at your fees, and then you're looking at your rules. If anything comes into play there, most of the time, your fees that Ryan's going to talk about are at your Service Item. So I'll leave that one for him. But then if there are any rules that might come into play there, you just want to look those over and make sure that nothing is maybe holding something up, especially when it comes to the booking online or anything.
Zach Malloch 6:00
So just kind of general preparations, for new seasons, sort of stuff outside and separate from
Winfield Reichard 6:05
exactly right. And I guess the last thing there is really, the passes are just really meant for the Type of player and who they are and everything too, as well. Okay. And that really then brings us to what Ryan can talk about here is some of the service items that you know, would be connected to the golf course, that are going to help display on the Tee sheet and are going to be responsible for some of the current maybe fees that you display through the Tee sheet from bookings currently.
Ryan Mitchell 6:46
Alright, thanks, Win. Yeah, I think the other obviously, the other big part of the golf operation is the service items, which is normally where your green fees are, or carts as well. But the big thing to highlight on these today is the whole count option is part of the green fee setup. So that's one thing to know as well as we're going through these different options here today. Really the one way to determine or I guess charge someone for 9 versus 18 holes, is coming through that green fee setup. So that's one big thing. And the other one is that most of time, those green fees, like Win said are set up to charge when you check in through the Tee sheet or when you push that Button, there in Touch POS on your on your touch Screen, to charge them when the player actually comes in. So what we need to do obviously, in you know, these times here is unfortunately not coming in to the golf course anymore. A lot of these were trying to get online, so that transaction type is going to end up changing. And depending on, you know, your setup, we'll go over over those different options there. But we're going to potentially be moving those kinds of fees over to the golf course side of things with a different transaction type. So again, those get connected to your golf course. And then if you're checking in through the tee sheet, if not you use the touchscreen, like you said, and charge them that way. But I think now what we can do is kind of look at that's your normal operations. And we can look at now some of the different options that we can use in these times to get those more online.
Zach Malloch 8:31
Would you be able to share your Screen Ryan just so we can see the transaction types as you're talking about those? And give people a visual anchor for this. I'm putting you on the spot?
Winfield Reichard 8:45
Yeah. Ryan, if you want I'm pretty prepared to do that if you want to.
Ryan Mitchell 8:51
I think I've got it. There you go. Can you see my screen.
Zach Malloch 8:54
Yeah, there we go. So we're in a Service Item right now?
Ryan Mitchell 8:57
Yes, yep, this is, this is one of my green fees here. 18, hole SR round. So one of the first things I mentioned there is on the green fee setup under miscellaneous, we have this whole count option here. So making sure that those are set correctly, and that'll get you the correct rates depending on how, how people are checking in on the tee sheet. And it'll also come out correctly then on your rounds report, you know, under the 18 or the 9 hole rounds, and then on the fees tab at the top here is the transaction type. So when normally, we have those set to the both purchase and tee sheet check in so you could sell them either way through the tee sheet or through Touch POS. And that way, that's one thing that we might be changing if you go the booking route, is we're gonna move those fees to that golf course instead and change our option to booking. So those are kind of the two, two main pieces. You know, kind of basic overview there of a Service Item, but those are the two main fees pieces that we were concerned about today.
Zach Malloch 10:02
And sorry, Ryan, can you just go back to those fee Screen and actually edit, I just want people to see what you're talking about in that transaction Type that booking is one of those drop down options. And this is basically what would make it. So when people go to WebTrac, they go online and they reserve a tee time online. If we turn on booking, that means that they'll charge on the web, they won't have to wait until they come in, they wouldn't have to necessarily even do a manual check in at the...
Ryan Mitchell 10:30
right, exactly. And one thing to know, we'll get into this, obviously, but the book option doesn't really come into play at all on a Service Item. The book transaction is for booking a tee time. So that one if you do want to go that route, don't make any booking fees on your on your green fees, that's going to be on the course because that transaction Type does not have anything to do with a Service Item sale. It's a tee time booking.
Winfield Reichard 10:56
Yeah, and I can share my now because I've kind of have that setup on mine. If we want to see that here, you know, a couple seconds or
Zach Malloch 11:06
Yeah, Ryan, if there's anything else you want to show us on your Screen, please do. kind of switch over. and just as people that are watching this, as we're kind of like switching between the screens, any questions, we have that q&a area in the middle, and as you ask a question, other people can see it and kind of upvote it or if you have any questions, definitely let us know if we get through this and just kind of go through it when and Ryan want to show us then we can finish it up early also,
Winfield Reichard 11:38
Am I sharing on the right Screen there?
Zach Malloch 11:40
I can see RecTrac With all your tee time processing Golf Course Management, everything.
Winfield Reichard 11:45
Good. All right. So on the golf course, as Ryan was saying, One fun thing about golf in your own database, you can always create your own country club. Here we go. So but as Ryan was stating, with your service items, what you would end up doing with the one payment option of booking online now and moving it out to the web, you would use your fee tab on your golf course, as the place to move your fees. And you would use that transaction Type of book for your certain fees. Now, this can become. And I think we want to stress a little bit that we want to keep this pretty straightforward if we can, because you would be moving a lot of fees and rules over to this area if you go this route. And I think we could also state that you would not get the same reporting features if you do this route, as well. And so we want to make sure. So the pro here is that yes, you'd be able to move your fees online, and you'd be able to yeah, get your fees out online. However, the one thing you might lose here in this is that you lose a reporting feature of the VSI golf report in terms of tracking rounds and everything.
Zach Malloch 13:39
So that might actually answer Carrie's question here, when can you set it to charge during booking and or at check in? So you can pay online if possible, but if you can't, then they can default to paying when they get in? Or is this kind of like switching from one process to another process?
Winfield Reichard 13:58
Right, you're switching from one process to another process here in this case.
Zach Malloch 14:02
Okay.
Winfield Reichard 14:03
Yeah. And this is just part of the whole switching of this here, because this goes hand in hand with your daily processing Profile. Let me go here for a moment. So I've just think it's simple to go here. If I go to my Profile assignments now. And not, again, not to get too overly complicated here. But again, my daily processing Profile for my web user. And right here, I do need to update and this is to be able to show those proper fees that I just had out on my golf course out on the web. So this is my WebTrac Daly processing Profile, the module household here has to have two things in place. One, it needs to have the proper like resident and non resident, say, household attached. And then down below here, you have to have the proper pass or passes in place for those fees to show. And what's very important here to understand is the order in which you connect these two households. And the order in which you connect these two passes here is the order in which your fees will show online. And just as again, which you can read about is if you do highlight our help here, it will tell you about so if you had a, say a resident, non resident and member rate, you would want to highlight both up in the golf area here. And down below, in that order, the household and those passes.
Zach Malloch 16:20
And this kind of just influences the way the fees display online. So you can see, if you have resident household first, then non resident, then you'll see resident rates on the rate stuff, non-resident rates.
Winfield Reichard 16:33
Correct. And as if everyone's familiar out there, then you know, what this brings up then on the web is, then you're looking at your Screen design, then, you know, and everything else. So there's a lot involved with moving this around and getting it out on the web, in terms of this booking payment option.
Zach Malloch 16:57
So Howie he is asking what would prevent a non Passholder from booking under a passholders. So I guess, I'm going to interpret this a little bit how he that we have a non pass holder, that is friends with pass holder, the pass holder goes on books to tee times for or two slots for them, but gets the member rate on both of them, but really should have only got it on one and paid full price on the second one.
Winfield Reichard 17:30
Yeah, you would have to that would boil down to some of your rules that you might want to put on there. And this does open up some of maybe Pandora's box and you know, the rules that you may place on your pass holders or your members, you may have to narrow those down to maybe one, you know, booking per day or something along that line.
Zach Malloch 17:57
Right. So I think that maybe the the takeaway from this is a this is a I don't know, it's almost like a bandaid, it's a way to get some business still flowing through potentially, or reduced complication structure as far as the fees go. So you're not going to have every scenario answered perfectly, but it helped keep the lights on, I guess.
Winfield Reichard 18:18
Yeah, before everyone I think goes to hog wild or crazy on this is that I again, this is just one of those options that we have out there that a lot of people I think first started calling in saying how do I get my fees out there. And again, just to stress This is just one of those, I think a couple of the other ones that we want to offer you up and talk about a little bit more are some of the easier ones,or Ryan how do we want to phrase it a little bit or?
Ryan Mitchell 18:56
Yeah, I mean, I think definitely one is Yeah, booking one is is one that would require a little bit of setup just because most people don't have booking fees on there already. So just take a little bit of time and set those up. And and the other one is a lot easier I guess it just depends on on your staffing capabilities basically but the other one is kind of like a curbside or a phone in option. And basically you don't really change too much about how you're you know during the process in RecTrac As far as selling it through the tee sheet or selling it through through the touch buttons basically kind of keep your your process there the same but just try to get more people to call in to pay instead or if you have a sign on the front door or whatever you know I don't know if people are allowed into your your clubhouses, your pro shops to pay or not. But this is kind of one of those where, you know, you could do something simple like putting comments on WebTrac So And when they when they go online to book, it would show, you know, due to COVID, 19, whatever the message you want to put out there, but you know, kind of put your phone number and allow them to call in and and say, Hey, I booked this time this is my name, you can verify they are on the tee sheet, and then check him in the way you normally do again, tee sheet or the touch Button and, and just take the payment over the phone. So for you guys lucky enough to be hosted with us or have a wan in connection, you can also potentially do that from your house as well. Don't even need to really be at the clubhouse if, if that is an issue for you guys. So depending on your credit card solution, you know, you might have to bring something home with you to take the credit cards. But that is an option as well, just kind of putting that out there. But that one is kind of the the easiest option. There's nothing really you have to change necessarily in RecTrac. To do that. It's it's just a matter of getting the people, your players, the customers coming in to pay over the phone pretty much instead of in house in the clubhouse,
Yeah. So what's something that you're referencing there Ryan, I think was a Web Layout common code? Would you mind showing us what that is? And so while Ryan is bringing that up, basically web layouts is you can choose any page in WebTrac that you can view. And then you can add an extra little bit of comment. So if people do a tee time search, you could potentially come up with a message that says due to COVID 19, we're changing the way we process please do X,Y and Z and get some information out there to them.
And so I think yeah, with this one, there's definitely a couple of ways you can go about it. One that might be easy as well is right in golf course management. If you go into your golf course, there is a comments tab in here as well. So at the end, you can kind of put in information about your golf course, you already already might already have a little blurb. So you could put something in there as well. But that text, when you go to WebTrac it will show up here at the top. Normally people have I guess that's one thing to say is, normally people have it in the detail display. But that is what you need to do to get that to show up. But you could put a note there, that's a pretty easy one to do it. Or to get that to show. The other one that Zach was mentioning, is a Web Layout comment. So these you might already have in play for other pages, or your search page already. So for me, I think I do already have one here... So basically, you can add something into here as well.
Zach Malloch 22:55
so just while you're here, Ryan, the kind of the important part is if somebody wanted to try this for themselves, whatever common code is fine record Type of WebTrac layout in that center area there is important. And then on the right hand side, you get to decide whether you want this code to show at the top of your Screen, the left hand side right hand side, the bottom of it, and which program. So if we've got search by HTML, that's just a WebTrac search. And we've got module equals gr, which is our code for golf. So this means it's going to show up on your golf search Screen for you.
Ryan Mitchell 23:33
So you can also kind of double check yourself as well, if you go to your your actual search page, it'll show you that in the URL at the top as well. So search .HTML and module equals gr. So those are the parameters the program that you want to put in here. This one, I have a script in there HTML script to hide the fifth player option, a lot of you guys might have that as well. But really, you just need to, you know, Type in here, if you do know, HTML, you know, you can kind of dress it up, make it fancier different color, bigger font, whatever you want to do there. But that is kind of a scenario. To get those to show. We'll see if I that right or not. So we can kind of see I guess I should have done a background. But we can see it right there. Testing Web Layout calm and so you can put something up at the top like you said if you if you know some HTML, you can dress it up as well. Make that look nice, according you know, kind of fit in with your with your page format as well. But yeah, so on this on this page here, you can do a lot of different things, obviously. And like we were saying before, you can do the booking fees. So that is going to charge them right when they book this tee time. The option that I was describing now is basically do the same thing they always do. They booked a tee time for free and just kind of put a comment here or maybe up top here to say, instead of coming into the clubhouse to pay, call this number to pay, and we can take the credit card over the phone.
Zach Malloch 25:09
So actually related to that, so Tina was asking with that option if you ,so normally, you have to check people in to collect the payment, if they don't show and they want a refund, you can't cancel the checked in tee time, you have to use a POS Button to issue the refunds that
Ryan Mitchell 25:27
yep, that's that's still true, that might be actually getting worked on in development. But I think I saw that on the list there. So that might be an option here in one of these upcoming releases. I'm not going to make any promises on that front. But I did see it getting moved in the development queue. So that option I think, is coming down the line.
Zach Malloch 25:48
All right. And I see a question here from Robert saying he doesn't like people being able to select their own rates. So I'm guessing that would just be if you had multiple rates if you're trying to prompt for it. But the way you're describing things, if you potentially are doing this as something simple, like Resident non resident, something where the system knows exactly who the person is, and you're switching to a more simplified rate structure for a little while, then we have those limited.
Winfield Reichard 25:50
Yes, for sure. I think for Roberts, answer there. I again, I think Zach, you kind of set it up. I mean, if you're doing guest rates, I think that's one thing if your members log in and want their rate than they are going to get their rate, whether they have an annual pass, okay. And they are maybe getting a $0 rate or sometimes they call it a trail fee, they would get the appropriate rate. Okay. But otherwise, I think you're really setting up that guest 18th hole fee, for the most part, for most people that are signing in and booking online,
Ryan Mitchell 26:59
I think yeah, if you're, if you're looking to go the booking fee route, then like Win said, I think it has to be pretty basic, kind of take out the for the guest players take out like if you have an adult a senior and a junior rate, it's going to be tough to do that, like you said, you'd have to prompt it and the person playing would have to pick which one to get charged. So obviously, they're pretty much always going to pick the lowest rate. So I would say if you can, you know, during these times here, just kind of try to get the revenue coming in. To simplify that maybe just have that I have in those three different rates based on age, you could still have rates based on day of the week and time of day. So you could still have Twilight, regular rates, you know, peak, whatever you call them, weekday weekend rates, that kind of stuff will still work. But I think having having them pick their own rates, like you said, isn't gonna work out too well. So if you can simplify it as much as you can.
Winfield Reichard 27:57
And I think that's another reason why Ryan and I would lean towards this, as much as it's on the onus of the members or your community, the phone in is leaning more towards them. And I know it doesn't sound like it would be as easy as just going online and paying as we're all very accustomed to doing. However, from your end, you keep reporting, your setup stays the same. And it's really just about you know, keep maintaining your setup, almost as is if if not as is and using the same online reservation system and keeping your in house bookings the same. And all of your rates are pretty much there. And you wouldn't face as Robert saying someone choosing their own rate in any way, shape or form.
Zach Malloch 29:05
Okay. Well, I think that we shared some tips for sure. The questions currently have quieted down and we're just about 28 minutes into that. So that seems like a good concordance of things happening here. Any parting thoughts from either of you guys, Win or Ryan?
Winfield Reichard 29:26
Ryan,?
Ryan Mitchell 29:27
I was gonna say, there's, you know, if you if you do have any questions, obviously, we're always here to help you guys out as well. So feel free to call in. I was gonna say the, the phone in option, again, is the least amount of setup, you know, least amount of things to change, it might just be kind of, you know, letting the public know, the other options. Again, you lose some of that flexibility, some of the reportability as well. But there still is, you know, a number of different options, even things that we say didn't go through we can kind of Get creative, obviously in RecTrac and do some different things, but just kind of wanted to put that out there that there is one option that is pretty easy. The other ones, just let us know if you need some help to set those up.
Zach Malloch 30:14
All right. And Randy asks how many different colors are actually on the wall behind me (I think there's four of them plus white?) And then I had a question about how to fix a hook. Do terrible when I am just kidding. We did get one other question. So with John's asking with the phones reservation, what's the best way to get customers receipts? They're curious about making sure that they should be able to play that you're validating that they were there that they did pay that they should be able to get on the course.
Winfield Reichard 30:45
I think with that, if you're getting the phone reservation, I think what you're really doing is, and this would be my example, Whether I'm at home, in your parking lot online, making that foursome tee time, okay? For Ryan, Cory, Zach and myself, I am calling you, I am booking it online with my phone, I should be getting not only that confirmation receipt, but then if I call in to Cullen, and say, Hey, Cullen, I want to pay for this, I give you my credit card over the phone, whatever, okay, and then pay for that, I should be able to get that via email, if I'm not mistaken, sent to me. And then I have that sent to me on my phone. And then if I have to, I may even be able to pull that I should be able to pull that up on my phone to show the starter, hopefully from a distance. And if you have a starter out there on the first, you know, on the starter box or at the first hole. So hopefully that kind of walks through a scenario where you might see that.
Zach Malloch 32:13
All right, so email receipts are a good way to get the receipt on your phone, you can kind of flush that as your "See, I did pay. I shouldn't be here." And I think Ryan is our you're demonstrating is the
Winfield Reichard 32:25
Yeah,
Ryan Mitchell 32:25
yeah.
Zach Malloch 32:27
Receipt looks. And of course you'll have if you have RecTrac If you have something you'll see the name of the people who had booked those times. And you could, you know, you'll you'll know roughly who to expect at what time to, okay. All right. Well, guys, we're, we're at a blank slate right now for questions. So good job with that. Thank you both very much for joining me and sharing some of your ideas. And I'm sure as things continue to evolve if we hear from other people. Oh, and actually, this is a really good question. So Craig is asking, just to confirm all of these are all of these existing options, not just with the new UI? And so these are all 3.1 options we talked about today? But it doesn't matter if you're in the old UI or the new one. Correct? capabilities. RecTrac 3.1?
Winfield Reichard 33:19
Yes.
Zach Malloch 33:20
Okay. All right. Well, I'm learning to, to echo some of the sentiments in chat. I hope everybody is taking care of themselves and staying healthy and doing their parts. And just remember, we're all in this together. And thank you very much Win, See you later. Thank you, Ryan, see you.
Ryan Mitchell 33:39
Thanks.
Zach Malloch 33:40
And we'll go ahead and end this meeting. And thanks for everybody for joining us.
Winfield Reichard 33:46
Take care. Bye