Armies of people study the dynamics of industries across the world. Bankers, investors, competitors, consultants—searching for clarity and insight on the factors that separate market winners from losers. Analysis of industry dynamics in every market is unceasing and those with the best information are poised to win.

Financial models are a central element of understanding both industry dynamics and the performance of an individual business within the market in terms of its financial sustainability and long-term success. Such models exist to unearth and convey the key drivers of financial success. Investors, consultants and companies spend significant money developing financial models so they can understand how revenue, costs, margins, overhead, leverage and other financial metrics impact profitability and growth. The quest for fact-based insight is a direct and necessary response to unyielding competition and business challenges. The private club industry can’t escape this reality.

Financial Sustainability

What does “financial sustainability” mean for a club? Think of it this way: If your current operational results and capital generation were continued for the foreseeable future, would the club be able to provide adequate funding for all amenities and member experience, and be able to re-invest back in the club every year to replace depreciating assets and facilities per a documented capital reserve study? As you consider the question, remember to maintain a clear separation of funds: No stealing of capital to patch up operational deficits and no consumption of cash reserves that were not part of a capital plan.

In order for a model to be effective in measuring and even predicting financial sustainability, it must be comprised of indicators that are:

1. Correlated to operational results and capital generation
2. Relatively easy to measure
3. Impacted by choices and decisions made by management and board
4. Able to be benchmarked

The Financial Insight Model for Clubs

For measures that correlate to operational results, we can refer to any Business Management 101 course or the Yahoo Finance page, with a bit of customization for the club industry. Historically clubs have eschewed measuring themselves like a business, but like any business, clubs have revenue, direct costs of revenue (COGS), resulting gross profit/gross margin, etc. Just as these measures are critical to industries such as automobile manufacturing or software, they are also critical to the club industry. We call our club model the Financial Insight Model (FIM). Please note that while data shown in this article is for clubs with golf, the model applies equally to City, Athletic, Yacht, etc. clubs with only minor variation.

Core Concepts of the Financial Insight Model

1. Separation of operating and capital monies and accounting for separate bottom line operating and capital results is a necessity.
2. All clubs raise and spend money on common activities and items regardless of geographic location, size or level of service. This “law of commonality” has been proven by the data collected by Club Benchmarking.
3. Recognizing a set of common departments present in every club leads to identification of direct costs (expenses directly tied to producing revenue), variable costs (expenses directly tied to sales volume) and fixed and independent costs (essentially overhead expenses independent of sales volume or department).

To understand how a club uses its gross profit, we present the information in a pie chart which can be used to answer several key questions: How is our spending divided between overhead and amenities? What is our spending split across amenities? What do those distributions tell us about the club’s culture and priorities?

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Financial Insight Model does not displace the Uniform System of Financial Reporting for Clubs (USFRC) which is the accounting standard in the club industry. Our model leverages the USFRC. We are presenting a business analysis and financial model, not an accounting standard.

The goal of the Financial Insight Model is to view clubs as businesses. Visit Yahoo Finance, Google Finance or any financial website and type in any stock ticker symbol (regardless of company or industry) and you will get a very simple, common view of an income statement like that shown in the Table below.

This common view, at a glance, reports on the operational health of a particular company or business. Understanding the financial model of clubs requires a similar common view. Each club inventing their own fluid view that changes over time to suit the preferences of the current board defies all business logic and common practice. The premise behind the presentation of a common income statement on financial websites is simple: Identify the revenue, identify and calculate the direct costs of producing the given revenue, identify the fixed expenses necessary to run the business, identify the costs of financing the business (interest) and finally, identify and calculate the money the business drops to the bottom line. In a given industry, companies produce and sell a common product or service in a basically similar manner. As a result, there tends to be convergence of gross margin and operating margin across a given industry.

Additionally, the Model includes two key operational measures:

• Dues Ratio (dues revenue as a percentage of operating revenue)
• Net F&B Ratio (net F&B result as a percentage of gross profit)

In follow-on articles we will discuss the Operating Ledger and Capital Ledger measures and why they are critical to a club’s Financial Sustainability.