How to set up online registration

Ask for less than you think

Every field you add costs you completions. The instinct is to gather everything while you have their attention — t-shirt size, three emergency contacts, a medical history, how they heard about you. Resist it. You can collect anything non-urgent later, from a family who has already committed.

The fields that genuinely have to be on the form:

• Athlete name and date of birth — the date of birth is what places them in the right age group, so it is not optional.
• Parent or guardian contact — email and phone.
• Emergency contact — a second name and number.
• Medical notes — allergies, conditions, medication. Short free text is fine.
• Programme or division — what they are actually signing up for.
• Waiver acceptance — before they can submit, not afterwards.

Everything else — jersey size, photo consent, volunteer interest, previous experience — can be a second, shorter form in week one, when the commitment is already made.

Take payment in the same flow

The single biggest cause of lost registrations is separating the form from the payment. If a family fills in details and is then told to send a cheque, mail a form, or come back later with a card, a meaningful share never finish. Registration and payment should be one sitting.

Offer instalments if your fee is large. A $300 season fee is a real barrier in a way that $100 now and two payments of $100 is not, and the money arrives either way.

Set capacity before you open, not after

Deciding a division holds 48 players is much easier before anyone has signed up. Set it on the programme, let the system close the division when it fills, and take a waitlist instead. The alternative — discovering in week one that you have four extra players and having to tell a family they cannot play — is a conversation nobody wants and a member you probably lose.

Waivers belong in the form

A waiver collected separately is a waiver you will be chasing in October. Attach it to the registration so it has to be accepted before submission. That way consent is recorded at the moment it was given, with a timestamp, against the athlete — which is what an insurer will eventually ask you to produce.

Six things that cost you sign-ups

1. Requiring an account before the form. Let them start; create the account as part of finishing.
2. A form that does not work on a phone. Most parents register on a phone, often standing up. Test it on one.
3. Surprise fees at checkout. If you add processing, say so on the registration page, not at the final step.
4. No indication of progress. People abandon forms of unknown length.
5. Asking a sibling’s details twice. A family with three children should not fill in the same address three times.
6. No confirmation. Send something immediately. A parent who is unsure whether it worked will email you, and you will spend the week answering.

Then get it out of the inbox

A completed registration should land somewhere that already knows what it is — sorted into the right season, programme and division, ready to be placed on a team, with the waiver on file and the fee collected. If your registrations arrive as emails you then retype into a spreadsheet, the form was only half the job.

How this works in Ligue

Registration builds the form you need, takes card, ACH or Apple Pay in the same flow, supports instalments, enforces capacity with a waitlist, and attaches the waiver. Completed sign-ups arrive already sorted, so the roster, the eligibility check and the finance report all move at once.

Online registration: common questions