Why Google Forms Doesn’t Work for Sports Registrations

25 min · Olivier Rousseau & William Rochford · May 12, 2026

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About this episode

When you start a sports or recreation program, using Google Forms for registrations feels like the easiest option. It's simple, free, and quick to set up. But as your organization grows, managing registrations, payments, attendance, communication, and staff turns into a lot of manual work. In this episode of AMplify, Olivier Rousseau and William Rochford explain why Google Forms gets limiting for sports and recreation registrations, and how to know when it's time to upgrade. Google Forms is a fine place to start. The point is knowing when it stops being enough.

What we discuss

Why Google Forms makes sense when you're starting out, and the signs you've outgrown it, often somewhere between 30 and 60 registrations Collecting payments: a club with 50 or 60 clients on Google Forms realized it was missing money, and why sending an invoice at registration helps parents pay Confirmation emails, reminders a week before camp starts, and texting a whole class when a snowstorm cancels it What changes when you hire staff who need attendance lists and payment status Registration data that shows which classes fill up, and why camp medical information doesn't belong in Google Forms Class capacity limits and automated waitlists that tell you when to open another class Parent accounts for invoices, makeup classes, and class changes, plus invoicing that tracks what's been paid Waivers signed during registration, and how landing on a Google Form can make a new business look less established Resources mentioned The Real Problem With Mailchimp for Sports & Leisure (next episode) Best Class Management Software: 6 Must-Have Features Before You Buy Canadian Alternative to Google Forms Google Forms vs Microsoft Forms: Which Form Builder is Best? Activity Messenger online registration Activity Messenger digital waivers Book a free demo of Activity Messenger Follow Olivier on LinkedIn About the hosts Olivier Rousseau co-founded Activity Messenger after spending 13 years running a kids' sports program that served 4,000 families. William Rochford is Activity Messenger's product expert. Want to share your story or ask a question? Email olivier@activitymessenger.com.

Full episode transcript

Read the full transcript

Intro[0:00] When you're starting out your business in the sports and rec industry, it can be very tempting to go towards easily accessible, often times even free tools like Google Forms. Uh sometimes we think of Jotform, Shopify, WooCommerce, like those big names in the e-commerce space. But anybody who's listening to this podcast who has a little bit of experience will be able to tell you that those maybe sometimes free tools at the beginning end up costing you a lot in the end because they're very limited and they are not[0:35] adapted for the sports and rec industry. And so at some point you will have to switch. And the more embedded you are in those tools, the more that switch can be costly. So we're going to talk about that this episode. Stay tuned. Hey everybody and welcome back to AMplify. I'm your host Will. I'm here with Oli. How you doing Oli? Good. Good. You? Very good. Very good. Shaking off the holiday rust. Absolutely. Um so let's jump right in. Uh yeah, this[1:09] is going to be a good one. So a lot of people uh come to us. they come from they're using Google Forms oftentimes they're even using Google Sheets yeah you know to uh to track their data and all this and we see a lot of frustrated clients this often falls apart pretty quickly um and sort of the idea that we want to push here in this in this podcast we want to encourage you to think about switching to a dedicated platform for sports and rec sooner than later we'll just put it that way sooner than later. And so in this episode, we're going to[1:43] talk about like pain points that we see a lot of people come with and a lot of the limitations of these like free or popular style tools that exist on the market. Yeah, absolutely. And I think if you're if you're starting off, you're starting let's say a karate club, you're starting a dance class that you're renting a place and you have, you know, 20, 30 students, maybe less. Um, you know, I think these tools can make sense, right? Because you're kind of a, you know, one man, one woman shop. you know, you're running[2:11] everything, you know, all your clients, um, and you don't mind doing the manual kind of work to get get used to it and to you don't need to automate it right away. Now, as you grow, that'll be become difficult, right? So, these tools that are not like created for service-based um, you know, kids programs a lot of times will bring in limit limitations really early on. So the question is okay what are those limitations and what is the gap from you to going from a free tool to maybe a a small payment for a software that will actually free free up time reduce manual[2:43] task. Um and yeah so I think that's where you know a lot of businesses when they're starting off can can be in in that situation. Absolutely. And like one of the one of the big problems that we have with these tools is that they don't scale for the service industry. Um so you do run into roadblocks sooner or later. Um so INo integrated payments[3:05] guess the first big point is that Google Forms in particular and a lot of these other systems do not have at least proper integrated payments. Yeah. Right. So whenever you create a redirect from let's say one form sends an email which is probably coming from another software and that email is like hey you can pay this way that way creates a lot of friction. Yeah. Yeah. I think it creates friction at the client level who's registering but also[3:36] on the admin side. So if I take registration on a Google Form all I get after is a sheets with all the people who registered right? So I got to go manually invoice every single person. had a client recently tell me they were using Google Forms. They came in and they were not collecting. They were missing a lot of money. And one of the reasons they were not that they didn't have that many clients and they had like 50 or 60 clients. So they were smallish and they were doing everything manually but they realized at the end that they were like not collecting a lot of funds.[4:04] People were coming we're not paying like the tracking was very hard right. So they were like, "Wow, let's pay for a software, right? And let's get that structured so we know who has paid, who hasn't paid. Maybe even force payment upon registration." You don't have to do that at first if you're not like too uh, you know, not too confident or you don't want to spend, sorry, uh, around registrations. But what you want to do is have a form where people can register and automatically creates an invoice. Mhm. So I always give the example that if a[4:32] client comes to register and they fill out your form and you have to contact them when you're ready, at that point they might not be ready to pay. So even if they're willing clients that want to pay, they want to do it during registration. Even if it's offline and they just send you an e transfer or they send you a check, whatever it is, they want the invoice right away. That's what's expected in every time you purchase something online, you get an invoice right away. So you want to automate that and then that'll save you quite a lot of time but[4:58] it's also you're reducing friction at the client level for to get them to pay. One of the most frustrating thing is chasing people for payment. Right. So if you can reduce friction helps a lot. Absolutely. And when you have an integrated payment system so the registration happens the invoice is generated the payment could be taken offline. Even if it is you have a way to track invoices really easily and that's a game changer. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. And you know, you're talking about this this uh this business who had[5:25] 50 60 clients. Well, that's really not that much. No. You know what I mean? And so the and I I would even say maybe as soon as you get to like 30, 40, you should track. Yeah, it is something to track and you have to do it manually. And the things you were doing at 20, as soon as you get to 60, it just doesn't work. There's more support coming in. There's all these things that a software will actually you kind of help you streamline all those things. Yeah, 100%. Um, soNo automations[5:53] another big limitation with these softwares that are not made for the service industry is you cannot easily automate confirmations. Yes. And you can definitely not do SMS reminders. Yeah. So when you register, right, you want to get a confirmation email. Um, that is limited in in Google Forms. So again, you might have to email people. You might want to, you know, let's say you sign up for camp 2 months in advance. It would be nice to have an automated email go out 7 days before[6:21] camp starts with all the details, right? So, taking stuff off your plate with different automations and making sure the communication is up to par with parents and kids so they know what to expect when they're coming in uh is super important, right? So, those those automations are really really important. And like you were mentioning, you want to you're going to collect phone numbers, you're going to collect emails as they register on your form. You want to be able to use that. Like, do you really want to text from your phone? And when you start it, everybody[6:46] starts like that. It's okay. You know what I mean? That's a normal process when you're starting a business. But at some point, you probably don't want all your clients to have your number, right? And at some point, you'll have to cancel a class for 60 people at the same time cuz there's a snowstorm, there's a power outage. And are you really going to text 60 people? Like it it just from your phone. What's your list on that? Like Exactly. So, it's just it's just one of those things where it's like you need those features. And when they when you[7:09] really specifically need texting or communications, you don't want to have to go get your list, go to your Excel sheet, find the seven people in that class, you know, text them manually or email them from Gmail. Like it just adds a lot of friction and it's it it makes everything heavier for you, right? Again, very manageable at first, but it gets harder when you scale and it makes everything errorprone, too. Yes. 100%. Oops, forgot that person. Oops. You know, oh, I sent it to the wrong class or[7:34] Yeah, exactly. Um so related to that of course limitedNo scalability for your business[7:39] automation you don't get you know not only those confirmations but all of the workflows that are possible when everything's integrated from registration to client database to invoicing um you know when all of that is integrated that opens the opportunity for really interesting workflows. Yes that you can do to communicate um and also to operate. Yeah. and just to scale your business, right? If you have a smooth registration process with automated and personalized[8:11] communications that kind of come after your client knows what to expect, you know that the system is going to help you kind of amplify and help your communications throughout the whole process. And then you can go back to focusing to growing your your your business, right? Hiring staff, giving more classes, you know, just being more like in the in the moment of where you you actually should be serving the most and letting the software do the rest. Mhm. Um, and at first you kind of see it as like a, you know, I'm saving money, so[8:38] if I go to Google Forms, it'll cost me $0 instead of taking something else that's like 99, 129 a month. But you'll quickly realize that like, you know, 99 bucks a month and let's just imagine it saves you 10 hours and of headaches, like that's below the minimum wage. You know what I mean? That's under 10 bucks an hour. Exactly. And it doesn't allow you to spend those hours growing your business. You're just kind of doing all this admin stuff. So it's actually more expensive than that. exactly that software should be[9:05] doing. And then the whole idea is like if somebody like you know when should this change be made cuz I I I still believe Google Form is a good solution if you're like testing something out you're not sure if you're going to get any revenue so you might not want to pay but like as soon as you start scaling 40 50 kids and maybe even before and you start hiring. I think that's a big one too cuz once you hire someone how are they going to access attendance list? You know how are they going to know who paid who hasn't paid? It's not in your[9:29] head anymore. It's not just your system. So you got to start planning for hiring and for growth and expansion. Right. Right. Because a good solid um registration platform can also handle internal communication as well as communication with clients. This episode is sponsored by Activity Messenger, an online registration software I helped build after spending more than a decade managing kids sports programs and dealing with outdated, disconnected tools that slow everything down. I know the frustration of using a bunch of old tools that don't sync,[10:02] don't scale, and definitely don't make life easier. Activity Messenger is built to fix that. Our goal is to be your all-in-one operating system, modern, mobile first, and to simplify your entire workflow. Want to check it out? Visit activitymessenger.com to book your free demo. Now, let's get back to the show. So, another aspect here isNo analytics[10:24] analytics. Yeah. And you know, so you do get analytics with a tool like Google Forms or Jotform has pretty good analytics on their forms as well as far as I know, but you won't necessarily get, how can I say, like business specific analytics, specific to your business, specific to the registrations, like who's registering to your classes and when and what how old are they and where do they live and and yeah, once once you have like a form that has class-based programs and all that kind of stuff, it's really easy for[10:53] you to then say, "Okay, let's look at all my programs let's say with a tag for four or 5 year olds and see like hey they're all at 90% full versus my 6- to 7-year-old is at 30% full right so maybe I can merge two of those programs and open up another one in that age group and kind of like you know better position your programs um so getting that data is super important for all those those reasons and then you know a lot of other datas you might be working with sens like sensitive sensitive data so if you're running a camp you're getting medical information[11:21] you might be getting immunization reports or things like that because you need that at camp, Google Forms is probably not the best, you know, place to do it. Like it's it's it's not the most secure, you know, it doesn't have all the all all the security levels. You don't have really any encryption service, right? Exactly. So, it becomes very, you know, like should we be collecting that data? So, now what do you do? You do it by email, you get do it over the phone. So, again, depending on the data you're getting, you're going to want that[11:45] analytics, but just be able to kind of see all the the uh the data so you can run your programs uh throughout. Yeah. Yeah. And you talked about, you know, like tailoring your program when you can notice that one class has less registering than another, but that's also really good to pivot. You know, if you put out your program and you find that one is is trailing behind, but one another class is completely full. Well, let's maybe double this full class and open more spots. Just replace this one that's struggling, right? Right. And even likeNo waitlists[12:15] you know one thing an automation that would that is important data as well is like let's say on Google Forms you don't have a waitlist right. So if you start programs when you're starting off you just want as many kids as possible then you might you might be renting a place that can only fit 12 kids. Yeah. And it's like okay how do you limit your registration form? And but that's also analytics cuz if you if you're able to limit it to 12 and then within 3 days you have seven kids on the waitlist.[12:41] Like that's information that you can collect and be like, "Oh, what do I do with that? Maybe I need to open up another class, right?" And those are revenue generated ideas versus people coming in, you might have removed it or said it's full and then you just don't know what's going on, right? You might have 100 people coming into your form, not filling it out because it's full. You just don't have an idea, right? I mean, I guess if you're working with Google Forms, you would have to just straight up close your form when it's[13:06] full, right? or put a link through to a waitlist that's not completely adapted to the same class. Like there's some workarounds. I'm not saying it's not possible, but having it, you know, specifically to the class and automated for them to get a text when a spot opens up just kind of Yeah. streamlines again. Yeah, for sure. Um well, so that was our next point covered. No attendance tracking. Yep. And along with that, you know, just tracking all this information, there'sNo customer accounts[13:32] customer accounts. Yes. um what's important to to think about in terms of of customer accounts? Yeah, I think most class management software have what we call a customer portal where when I register my kids for a program, I can go back in, see my invoices, change my credit card number, see a calendar of all the classes that are coming up, maybe have drop in uh sorry, not dropins, but canceled class where I can go and cancel and do a makeup class. So, there's a lot of things that happen in[14:00] there. And if you don't have it and you send manual invoices because they signed up on Google Forms and then six months later like I need this for, you know, whatever reason you're like, I don't know where the invoice is. You got to go back in your emails versus, okay, as you're scaling, imagine at some point you're at 100 150 registrants and they all want their invoice. They all they just connect to their account. You don't even know they went and got their invoice, right? It's just part of the process. You don't even know that they requested a makeup class and switched,[14:26] you know, that one makeup class from Monday to Thursday. they just go and do it and it that's beautiful. You don't have to have all those things in your mind of that makeup class I need and you send that invoice over there and then it just bogs you down in details you know you shouldn't be working on you should be working on other things. Yeah. So common thing here have having the software work for you. Yeah. Do things that you would otherwise do and that frees up hours and we all know that an admin's hours is invaluable. It's hard to put a price on that because[14:56] you're like the one thinking about everything. um and making everything grow. So that's definitely going to affect growth in the end 100%. And not only the ability to handle more clients, but also the ability to like we said earlier like work on your business, actually progress things. Yeah. UmNo invoicing system[15:16] yeah, I mean we talked about invoicing as well. uh you know having an automatic invoicing system is very helpful because if you're tracking invoices manually how are you making those? Are you like generating PDF invoices on I don't know something like Canva or Yeah. A lot of people will use from what I've seen is just like an accounting software that you have a free version where you can do some invoicing, but it's just so much manual work, right? Like you want a software that's going to[15:44] take all the details from the customer, flip it with your details on the invoice. It's just a perfect invoice every single time based on what they they took and then just come and pay and you never have to figure out invoices again. Right. Exactly. And not only is that creation taken care of, the email is sent out automatically with the invoice, but also the tracking. Yeah. So even if you're doing offline payments, you can easily see which invoices are unpaid and it helps a lot. And you can take[16:10] that invoice and send it straight to that person as a reminder to pay for the invoice. And even your end of month kind of summary for your accounting, like you know, is it if it's all individual invoices, you know, what's paid, what's not paid, just getting a nice report, everything's there. So 100%.No waivers[16:26] Uh, one thing that happens a lot too in the in the service industry is waivers. Yeah, a lot of waivers. Um what are the advantages of having integrated? I think you know one thing that you that you know some forms don't do is you want to collect the whole process of the client right so the whole workflow so they want to register one of the classes get them to sign their waivers get them to do give you the information they need about their children and then get them to pay and get the invoice so that you[16:55] know that as soon as somebody is on the attendance list they've clicked all those things. there is there are no other ways to get on the attendance list apart from filling out those things, right? And that just removes a the whole headache on your on you just like every I just got to look, I know the waiver signed, right? So that helps a lot. Um and you can structure it better. You can have, you know, more kind of cohesive waivers that are easier to understand, easier to fill out. Um and a lot of times, you know,[17:21] people just don't have it. So they'll take registration on Google Forms and then have a paper waiver at the front desk. Yeah. Like those are those are things that that can happen, right? So again, you want to kind of connect everything into one place. Yeah. And knowing that that waiver is signed is is pretty invaluable cuz then you can focus on different things on day one when you're, you know, instead of having everybody coming in, please sign this waiver,[17:41] please sign this creates a lineup, I don't know, all this stuff, right? So um and you can miss some that way. 100% pretty easy to miss that and that's security like this is you know a lot of times we're working with children in these types of programs like we need you know it could be a swim class like we need these things signed for your liability but also for parents coming in and knowing what they're getting into. Exactly. Mhm.No branding control[18:08] And uh so the the I was going to say the final point, but actually there's another one too that we haven't really touched on is the whole issue with like branding. Yeah. And client trust. Yeah. So I mean we're not necessarily saying this is a huge thing, but when someone lands on a Google Form as a registration form, there could be something in the back of their mind that it's like, oh, um should I trust this organization? Like who is this? Are they professional? Are they serious?[18:38] Yeah. Are they big enough? Are they going to close? Like it's And again, when you're starting off, it's normal. I'm not saying like you should not use Google Forms, but as you scale, you're going to get more and more people that are not referrals cuz at first a lot of times it's referrals, but then you'll have Facebook ads, people finding you and they'll you'll put this nice Facebook ad or nice Facebook post and they click and it goes to a Google Form. Right? I mean, I'm not saying you're going to[19:00] lose that all your clients, but it does send kind of a signal that like it's a smaller business. Um, and that could potentially scare people away, right? How structured are they? You know, how good is this program? Even though you might be giving the best program, it's just what what's kind of coming out, right? What what people are seeing versus they're coming in on a really nice form. It's built. You can see it's professional. It's integrated on the website. Uh, it just gives that extra edge when when you can brand everything and and not be on Google Forms. Yeah,[19:28] exactly. And you know, we don't want to blow up the point more than we have to, but I think it's it's important, especially in the service industry, because you know, your client, some client who says no at the beginning could potentially have a a long-term uh, you know, lifetime value. Yeah. A client who returns two, three, four times is a very valuable client to have. And that's building a relationship, too. So, on a human level, too, that's that's interesting. Uh, you know, um, what was I going to say? I had another point, but[19:58] I forgot it. Yeah. Well, one thing I I'd want to kind of jump in and if it comes back is like I think, you know, one thing we're we're saying here is that there is a place for these free tools. Um, and I've seen people start on Shopify, on WooCommerce, selling classes, selling programs, like that is those are made for items. Those are made for products. You don't have an attendance list. There's no date dates. I had somebody switch over recently and was like I was like, how? They just grew really quickly. And that can happen.[20:27] you're running programs and people start talking and they're growing really rapidly and they were on Shopify running programs. It was it was a nightmare. Great product honestly. Shopify obviously really really good but when you're looking at all the context of running programs it was never designed for that right. Um so they switched over went a lot better. But what I'm trying to get at is if you're in that situation, a lot of times I've met a lot of people that are like, "Cool, I'm ready to move away from Google Forms." But when I meet class[20:57] management software, I am overwhelmed, right? These are softwares that are made for, you know, businesses when they're further down the line that they don't need a Google Form anymore that they're, you know, they're growing and there's this big gap where it's like drop like the simplicity of Google Form. get all these features, huge learning curve for you, uh, for your for your, um, parents as well, for the clientele. And a lot of people are scared of that that jump, right? So, I think what you might want to be looking for is a a tool[21:26] that is form based, right? So, a class management software that is form based that will be help you replicate your Google Form, but add all the features you need for class management. Yeah. So, I think that's one thing that we can mitigate that gap because I meet people all the time. They're like, "I got a WordPress form. I got a Google Form." And it's like, but then when I when I show them on on the product in Activity Messenger, I'm like, "Look, we're going to reproduce this. We're just going to add this this this this. It's going to look the same. It's just going[21:50] to look more professional, and you're going to have all the features you don't have in Google Forms, plus everything that comes after with the community. It's going to look the same, but better because it's going to be branded." Exactly. It's going to look like you. And it's also going to have all those connected tools. Exactly. Right. Which is huge. And that sort of leads us into the final point which umNo customer support[22:08] you know you talked about the learning curve and yeah a lot of these platforms can have definitely a learning curve um even ones with with familiar aspects and so one thing that you will not get with Google Forms is customer support. Yeah. Yeah. So if you run into a problem well you're on your own bud you know 100%. And it's the tool is a generic generic tool, right? I mean, you want to do surveys, you want to do a forms for your birthday, like it's a great tool for generic stuff, but if you are going[22:40] to double down in your business, in your niche, you're going to want a a form tool that only develops for that niche, right? And doesn't look at at this wide wide wide net of like any kind of form, right? Like has the class component and that has a support there, too. Like I like to mention, you know, when you get on a support call and you're starting business, it's probably when you get the most value cuz you didn't think of a million things and the person at the customer success on whatever software you're building, they've seen like dozens if not hundreds[23:08] of organizations just like yours and then you they help you streamline and give you ideas on how to structure your form. So you can get a lot of value just by using the tool, but just by even contacting and and talking with people with experts in in in the industry, right? So absolutely. So that's really invaluable in my opinion. So, you know, with all these points, I think our our goal hereOutro[23:31] was to sort of help you to see a little bit further, you know, down the line because sometimes when you're starting out, it's really easy to just have your view kind of cluttered with everything that you have to do now and all that you're thinking about. And sometime, you know, often times it's exciting and you're getting a whole bunch of new stuff. You're you're learning new tools, coming up with new ideas. Um, but if we could help you see a little further down the line and maybe we convinced you that getting an actual registration software[23:59] uh sooner than later is totally valuable and and worth, you know, worth your money and worth your time. Um, well then this has been a success. Absolutely. You got anything else to add to that? No, that's good. No. All right. So um yeah, you know, if you want to also just grow your business, you need to have those operational systems, right? And those are going to be not impossible, but a lot harder to build with free and entry-level tools.[24:29] Yes. So, uh yeah, there you go. If ever you have questions, comments, suggestions for future episodes, we love to hear your comments. So just drop them wherever you can down below the video, wherever you listen to the podcast. And uh we we want this to be as always a conversation. So we look forward to seeing you in the next episode. See you. Bye. I will.

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