Help & FAQ

After signing up, you'll be guided through a short setup wizard: choose your sport, enter your club name, and add your own name. That's it — you'll land on your club dashboard ready to go. The whole process takes under a minute.

Members can log in and use Bowlside themselves. Once you invite them, they get their own account where they can view draws, propose and confirm match dates, enter results, make rink bookings, and manage their profile — no admin needed for day-to-day activity.

Go to Members → select any member → Send invite. They'll receive an email with a link to create their account and join your club. You can add members manually first (with just a name), or import a list from CSV, and invite them all at once.

Yes — Bowlside is a web app that works on any device. There's no separate app to download; just open bowlside.com in any browser on a phone, tablet, or desktop.

Yes. Go to Members → Import and upload a CSV file — email is the only required field, and everything else (names, member number, gender, phone numbers) comes along if it's there. Clubs moving from BIAS can import straight from a BIAS export: it keeps both phone numbers and creates any membership categories it mentions.

Roles mirror a real committee. Club Admin owns the club (billing, roles, everything); Committee runs day-to-day operations but never touches money; Treasurer sees payments and nothing else; Members run their own bowling. On top of that, clubs can grant exactly the rights a job needs — fixtures, competitions, leagues, rink booking, members, newsletters or duties — so a fixture secretary gets fixtures without becoming an admin. The full matrix is under Settings → Who can do what.

Yes. A Club Admin can grant roles from any member's page in the Members section. The last Club Admin can't be removed or demoted, so a club can never lock itself out.

Bowlside supports knockout draws (with seeding), round-robin groups, sections formats, and one-day competitions. Leagues with multi-season management are also available. You can configure sets or ends scoring, handicaps, and gender eligibility per competition.

Once you've added entries, go to the tournament's Draw tab and click Generate Draw. Bowlside will create the draw based on your chosen format, optional seeding, and handicap settings. You can also run a live draw if your club prefers to draw in front of members.

Yes. On the tournament overview page, click Share and toggle the public link on. Anyone with the link can view the draw and results without an account. Useful for noticeboards, club websites, or sharing on WhatsApp.

Either player in the match can enter the result. The other player is then asked to confirm it. If there's a dispute, an admin can step in to resolve it or award a walkover.

Once a draw is generated, players are notified of their match. Either player proposes a date; the other accepts or suggests an alternative. The whole conversation is threaded in the match detail page so there's a clear record. Admins can see all pending scheduling across the club from the dashboard.

Yes — members can book rinks for roll-ups and friendly matches directly from the Rink Booking page. Bookings show up on the shared calendar immediately. Admins can book any type (including league fixtures and club competitions) and can block rinks for maintenance.

Thirteen, colour-coded on the calendar: Roll-up, Friendly, Club practice, Coaching, League fixture, Club competition, County match, National, Tour, Charity, Club day, Maintenance, and a custom Other. Which membership categories may book which types is up to your club — set it under Settings, per category. Clubs that want a human check can turn on approval mode, so bookings wait for an admin before they're confirmed.

Yes — weekly or fortnightly recurring bookings (for example a standing morning roll-up). Recurring series can be cancelled as a whole or from a specific date onwards, and half-hour slots are supported throughout.

Yes, two: a Kiosk view for a screen in reception showing today's rinks all day, and a TV display board for the bar that rotates fixtures, duties, bookings and league tables. Both work with nobody logged in — copy the ready-made links from inside the app and open them on the screen once.

Yes — every new club gets a full year on the Club plan completely free, with no card required. You get the entire product for twelve months to run a whole season on it. After your first year you can subscribe to keep Club, or move to the free Starter plan forever — either way your data is never deleted.

As your free year nears its end we'll email you. You can subscribe to Club (£240/year, or £24/month) to keep everything, or do nothing and move to the free Starter plan. Starter keeps unlimited members, fixtures and availability, one active competition, one league, and rink booking for one green — enough to run a club's day-to-day, forever, for free.

Club is free for your first year, then £240/year (or £24/month). On top of everything in Starter it adds the treasurer & payments module, unlimited simultaneous competitions, multiple greens and leagues, automated availability and payment reminders, and priority support. Billed annually or monthly, cancel any time.

Yes — the Circuit plan (from £600/year) is a single licence for a league, district, or county association that gives every connected member club full Club-plan access under one annual bill. Inter-club capabilities — self-updating league tables, county competitions and selection, and association-wide announcements — are rolling out through the 2026/27 season, and Circuit associations get first say in what we build. Get in touch via the Contact page to set one up.

Go to Settings → Billing and click Cancel subscription. You'll keep Club plan access until the end of the current billing period. Your club data is not deleted when you cancel — you'll simply revert to the free tier limits.

Yes. Cancelling or downgrading doesn't delete any of your club's data. Your members, competitions, and booking history are all retained. If you'd like to export your data, contact us at support@bowlside.com.

Bowlside runs on Supabase (database and authentication) hosted in the EU, and Vercel (web hosting). We do not sell your data. See our Privacy Policy for full details of all data processors.

No — Bowlside requires an internet connection. It's a cloud-based web app, so all data is live and shared across your club in real time.

Click 'Forgot password' on the login page and enter your email address. You'll receive a reset link within a couple of minutes. Check your spam folder if it doesn't arrive.