How to open entries for a weekend tournament without losing a division to a spreadsheet

What should an entry actually be — a team or a player?

Both work, and the choice decides what you get for free. A per-player price means the coach buys twelve places, which gives you a roster place per child, a guardian countersign per minor, a jersey size per child and a credential per player at the gate. A team-priced entry is one place and one credential, which is simpler to reconcile and gives you none of that per-child machinery.

What is not on the table is an automatic team discount. The group price and the quantity that triggers it live on the entry type and nothing in the product writes those columns, so a rate of that shape can never be published. If you want a squad price, publish it as the entry price; if you want returning clubs to pay less, that is a promo code or an early tier, both of which are real.

• Per-player pricing buys you the roster, the countersign and a credential per child.
• Team pricing is one place and one credential — simpler, and much less per-child control.
• An automatic quantity discount cannot be published; use a tier or a promo code.
• The platform fee is charged once on the order, so a squad in one entry is the cheaper shape.

When should entries open, and what closes them?

Announce first and open at a stated time. A concentrated on-sale is easier to staff than a trickle you have to keep watching, and coaches plan travel weekends a long way out — the lead time modelled for this vertical is a little over a month, which is a useful planning horizon rather than a rule.

Close entries with an early tier that stops on a date and a standard tier behind it, rather than with a message asking people not to enter. A tier with an on-sale window is real inventory: it stops selling by itself, at the minute you set, whether or not anybody is watching the console that evening.

How do I let coaches enter now and name players later?

Take the money for the squad and send the coach a roster link. The confirming transaction creates exactly one place per place paid for — a thirteenth player cannot appear on a twelve-place entry — and every place can either be typed in by the coach or emailed to the player's family to complete themselves.

Deferring names does not defer the rules, which is the part directors are usually surprised by in the right direction. A half-completed place is validated in full, an answer key nobody declared is refused rather than stored, and the blocking waiver and consent still gate the money at checkout. A place nobody has named is refused at the gate and is not on the offline door list, so the unfilled ones are visible on the Saturday morning rather than in the post-mortem.

• One place per place paid for; the roster never mints an extra player.
• Each place can be invited to fill itself in — the family types their own child's details.
• An unnamed place does not admit anybody and is not on the manifest.
• Re-typing a place swaps the player, raises a fresh guardian request, and moves no money.

Should I review entries before taking the money?

If your divisions are tight or you care who is in them, yes. With review turned on, an entry becomes an application: the club completes the whole form and uploads its documents, the places are held while you decide, and no payment intent exists until you approve — so "money cannot be taken before approval" is structural rather than a status somebody has to remember to check.

The queue is where you read what a club submitted before you take the money, under your own field labels, and it is the only place the uploaded documents open. The answers themselves are readable afterwards too, on each player’s own record and in your own CSV of your own players. Approving emails them a link to pay. Rejecting releases the places, scrubs what they sent and tells them. An application nobody decides on expires with the hold, so a queue you abandon does not quietly sit on your inventory.

What should the withdrawal line say?

Say what you will actually do, in one sentence, on the listing. "Entries are refundable in full up to three weeks out, half after that, and not at all inside seven days" is a policy a director can apply on a Tuesday without a conversation.

Bindro can carry out the refund half of that from the console, and the coach can refund themselves from the link in their confirmation email where you allow it. Rolling the fee into next season is the other half, and it is the same one action: withdraw the team and settle it as a credit instead of a refund, held against the captain's email for a future entry. Whichever you choose is written with the withdrawal in one go, so the record can never say a team was settled while the money sat still, and their places go back to the division immediately either way.

• Publish the policy on the listing, not in a reply to the first email that asks.
• Refunds reverse your proceeds first, then tax, then the platform fee.
• Money is held until two days after the last session, so an early withdrawal costs you no cash flow.
• An entry recorded as paid outside the platform cannot be refunded through bindro.