1,400+ children
LocationEssex, United Kingdom
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Customer Stories
Shine Clubs runs 15 clubs on one club management software and stays inspection-ready
4 min readShine Clubs runs fifteen wraparound and extra-curricular clubs across Essex, for around 1,400 children. Tony Charles owns it and Vicky has been operations manager for nearly eleven years.
Before MagicBooking, all fifteen were run by hand, on paper, with bookings, payments and registers each living somewhere different. Today they run on one club management software.
less time collecting payment
more term-time bookings
clubs on one system
Fifteen clubs, fifteen sets of paper
“[It was] horrendous. Before MagicBooking, everything was manually done, printed. There was no real control over what was going on, how many numbers there were, or even with the finances.”
Attendance tracking existed only as printed registers held at each site. Nobody could say, on any given morning, how many children were booked across the group or which families were behind on payment. The finance team could not chase debt without first working out who owed anything, and communication with parents was inconsistent because there was no single place to send it from.
Choosing club management software for fifteen settings
Shine Clubs' director reviewed several platforms. What decided it was how the club management software handled multiple settings rather than one.
“The director of the company went through quite a lot of different sites and decided that MagicBooking had everything that we needed and worked better for us. We have lots of different settings that all came under one [system], so financially [MagicBooking] was a better choice than some of the others. [...] this just had the edge on everything else.”
Onboarding was rated 9/10 for ease, with the admin team confident within weeks.
“The onboarding support was excellent. The team was patient, proactive, and offered bespoke training sessions which helped our managers and admin team build confidence quickly.”
Financial control, and the salary it saved
“Financially, things have changed. It's allowed us to keep control over people that owe, people that don't. It's also allowed the speed, so financially as well, it's kind of saved salary in some ways, because we're not having people manually doing everything, going through everything.”
Real-time payment tracking and online invoicing changed the financial position rather than only the workload:
- Payment collection time down 60%, so money lands sooner with less chasing
- Term-time bookings up 40% and early bookings up 30%
- Bad debt reduction rated 9/10
- Up to 75% of administrative time saved
- Real-time visibility of every parent payment, with all childcare vouchers accepted
“Payment tracking is now instant. We've reduced time chasing debts and eliminated paper registers.”
The gains were reinvested in growth and service quality without adding staff workload.
Ofsted inspection preparation that is simply always done
The benefit Vicky puts first is not a feature. It is knowing that no child can be in a setting without the records that should accompany them, which makes Ofsted inspection preparation a state the organisation is permanently in rather than a scramble.
“The most important part is it's giving us a sense of security to know that we are robust. If Ofsted come in and want to know our procedures, it's there. I know that a child can't be in the setting that hasn't got everything that we are supposed to have. And if we haven't, that's on the parents for not giving us that information. So, I feel like it ticks a massive box for Ofsted from that point of view. This keeps us robust.”
Registers, attendance and safeguarding data are fully digitised, with audit trails that meet Ofsted and local authority requirements, so Ofsted inspection preparation is never a last-minute job.
Attendance tracking that shows where to act
Reporting across fifteen sites is what turned growth from a hope into a plan. Attendance tracking by club, session and age group shows which parts of the provision need attention.
“I actually don't know whether the business could have maintained the growth. I think that it's allowed us to think about growing, because from a back office side, we can get reports that are really easy to do, and we can see where we are with attendance. It allows us also to really focus on clubs that need a boost, or certain sessions or certain age groups. We can get everything that we need to run reports really, really quickly.”
What parents say
Parent satisfaction is rated 9/10, with parents booking and paying in seconds and no phone calls or paperwork.
“It's so easy now - I can book and pay from my phone in seconds.”
“The system makes drop-off smoother because staff already know who's coming.”
The final word
After eleven years with the company, Tony puts it plainly.
“Absolutely recommend it. It's user-friendly, efficient, and supports growth.”
“We see MagicBooking as a partner, not just a platform. Their willingness to improve and respond to feedback has been outstanding.”
Shine Clubs is now planning its next phase, including expansion into holiday courses.
Running multiple clubs and want every setting, payment and register in one place? Book your free demo and see how MagicBooking keeps multi-site providers in control and inspection-ready.
