FIELD NOTES / GET ORGANIZED

A referee payment tracker you’ll actually keep.

Start with a small record you can update after every assignment. A useful tracker is one you can reconcile.

Give each game a stable reference.

Use the assignment number from your assigning system when you have one. If different systems reuse the same numbers, add a payer prefix. For your own records, a simple reference such as NRL-001 also works. Keep it consistent when you record a payment.

Record six details.

1. Game reference: a unique ID you can find again.
2. Assignment date: when you worked the game.
3. Payer: the organization responsible for payment, which may differ from the venue or assignor.
4. Agreed fee: the amount confirmed for this assignment.
5. Payment date and reference: enough to match the deposit to your records, without storing bank account numbers.
6. Amount allocated to the game: the portion of that payment covering this particular assignment.

Separate a game from a payment.

A game earns a fee. A payment settles some or all of that fee. The two events do not always happen on the same day, and one payment may cover several games. Treating them as separate records makes partial payments easier to understand.

If you receive $260 covering two $180 assignments, your total outstanding balance is $100. The payment detail tells you which game remains partly unsettled. Read the worked batch-payment example.

Make the habit small.

After each assignment, confirm the game and fee. When a payment arrives, match its reference and allocate it. At the end of the week, look for missing references or amounts that do not reconcile. Back up your file in a location you control.