Clubmate gets Lion's share

By Keith Newman

Former Auckland chartered accountant Roger Thomas hopes to join the millionaires' club now that he has secured preferred supplier status with Lions International for his club software.

Mr Thomas, managing director of Clubmate software, has already won over the bulk of Rotary clubs in the world.

After two years of door-knocking he has convinced Lions headquarters in Chicago to toss out its custom-built software in favour of his product.

The Lions are about to tell their 44,000 clubs in 152 countries and territories that Clubmate's MemberNet financial and membership software is the way to go.

Clubmate has also been placed on the short list to supply a customised version of its software to Toastmasters clubs worldwide.

The New Zealand-developed software is now in 62 countries and has been translated into seven languages, including Japanese.

The four-year-old Auckland company has invested about $2 million in development and has grown to $1.5 million in revenue - although profits remain elusive.

Mr Thomas said the Lions deal was a breakthrough and would provide "tremendous credibility" when pitching to other clubs in the United States.

He said it had been difficult to break into the large service club market as they were very protective of their membership and had marketing restrictions.

Clubmate will now feature in the Lions International catalogue and magazine and will be promoted at their training sessions.

Mr Thomas said his big competitors were Microsoft, Intuit and MYOB, but typical business software fell down because club activities tended to be one-offs such as mailouts or invoicing rather than sequences.

MemberNet, the general-purpose club management product, now sells at $795, a significant rise in street price from $495 just over a year ago.

"A lot of organisations were confused at the low price when competing products were up to $1500-$2500," said Mr Thomas.

"Our product was much better than the competitors' so we put the price up and began selling more."

Clubmate is busy readying the next generation of its product line built on a 32-bit base with full GST and Y2K compliance.

The software will run across more databases and rather than hitting a ceiling at 5000 members, will be able to cope with 100,000.

It will contain event management features as well as full accounting and financial management.

Ultimately, Mr Thomas hopes there will be a spinoff product tailored for specific types of small clubs such as classic car, fishing and tennis, which all have specific needs.