Golf Courses & Country Clubs
Golf operations require departmental accounting. We track profitability across memberships, F&B, pro shop, and events so you know where the money actually goes.
The Industry
Golf courses and country clubs operate more like hospitality conglomerates than simple recreation businesses. You have multiple revenue centers under one roof. Membership dues, green fees, cart rentals, pro shop sales, food and beverage, banquet events, golf lessons, practice facilities. Each one should be tracked as its own profit center, but most course accounting treats everything as one big bucket where you can’t tell which operations make money and which ones drain it.
In Arizona, seasonality runs opposite to most of the country. Winter brings the snowbirds and peak rates. Summer empties out the tee sheet even with deeply discounted twilight specials. Your cash flow looks completely different in January versus July, but your maintenance crew, equipment payments, and insurance premiums stay roughly the same year-round. Planning around this swing requires financial visibility that most courses don’t have.
Who This Covers
Who This Covers
Golf courses, country clubs, golf resorts, driving ranges. Private membership clubs and daily fee facilities across the Phoenix and Scottsdale area dealing with multiple revenue streams, seasonal fluctuations, and hospitality operations mixed with recreation.
What Complicates It
What Complicates It
Membership structures with initiation fees, monthly dues, and food minimums that all need different accounting treatment. Pro shop inventory that ages and requires markdowns. F&B operations with their own cost structure. Seasonal staff and tipped employees. Deferred revenue from prepaid memberships and event deposits. Equipment and course maintenance that never stops.
What We Handle
Departmental accounting separates your profit centers so each one stands on its own. You’ll know if the pro shop actually makes money after accounting for inventory costs and staffing. You’ll see whether F&B operations contribute to the bottom line or require subsidy from golf revenue. Event profitability gets tracked individually so you can determine which tournaments and banquets are worth the effort and which ones tie up the facility without generating real margin.
Membership accounting gets handled properly. Initiation fees get recognized over the membership period instead of all at once when cash arrives. Monthly dues, assessments, and minimum spend requirements get tracked by member category. Pro shop inventory gets managed so you know what’s selling, what’s sitting, and what your actual margin looks like after markdowns. Food and beverage gets real cost accounting with food cost percentages and pour cost tracking.
Departmental Profitability
Departmental Profitability
Each revenue center tracked separately. Golf operations, pro shop, F&B, events, driving range. You see which departments carry the club and which ones need attention. QuickBooks configured to generate departmental P&Ls so you get clean reporting without manual spreadsheet work every month.
Membership and Inventory Management
Membership and Inventory Management
Initiation fees recognized properly as deferred revenue and spread over the membership period. Dues and minimums tracked by member category. Pro shop inventory managed with cost tracking, aging analysis, and margin reporting. F&B inventory with food cost percentages calculated so you know if the kitchen is running efficiently.
Common Problems
Most clubs don’t actually know if their F&B operation makes or loses money. The kitchen stays busy, the dining room looks full, but when you properly allocate labor, food costs, and overhead, many club restaurants run at a loss. That loss gets hidden when everything flows into one combined P&L. You think the club is profitable overall, but golf operations might be subsidizing a food operation that loses money every single month without anyone realizing it.
Seasonal cash flow catches clubs off guard every summer. Revenue peaks December through April in Arizona, but expenses don’t take the heat months off. Course maintenance, staff, equipment leases, insurance all continue at roughly the same rate. Without proper cash flow planning based on historical data, the club dips into reserves or credit lines every summer waiting for season to return. Then peak season arrives and the cycle repeats because nobody built a real plan.
Deferred Revenue Mistakes
Deferred Revenue Mistakes
Prepaid annual memberships recorded as income in January when payment arrives instead of spread across the year. Event deposits counted before the banquet happens. Gift cards treated as revenue when sold. Each of these distorts monthly financials and creates false pictures of profitability that don’t match when service is actually delivered.
Invisible Departmental Losses
Invisible Departmental Losses
Pro shop inventory sitting through two seasons before getting marked down 50 percent. F&B labor costs not allocated properly between events and daily dining operations. Cart lease payments lumped into general expenses instead of tracked against golf operations revenue. Without departmental tracking, you cannot identify which parts of the business need pricing adjustments or operational changes.
What Changes
Every department stands on its own in the financials. If F&B loses money, you see it clearly and can make informed decisions about menu pricing, staffing levels, or whether to scale back operations. If the pro shop margin is razor thin after accounting for slow-moving inventory, you adjust your buying or your pricing. You stop subsidizing underperforming areas without realizing it and start making decisions based on actual numbers.
Seasonal planning becomes proactive instead of reactive. Cash reserves get built during peak season based on actual historical data about summer shortfalls. Equipment purchases and course improvements get timed around cash flow reality instead of optimism. Board and ownership reporting shows clean departmental results that support real discussions about pricing, capital spending, and long-term strategy.
Decision Confidence
Decision Confidence
F&B decisions based on real profitability data instead of gut feeling. Membership pricing adjustments supported by cost analysis showing what it actually takes to serve each member category. Event pricing that accounts for actual labor and facility costs. Pro shop buying decisions informed by inventory turnover history and margin performance by product category.
Clean Financial Reporting
Clean Financial Reporting
Monthly financials that show departmental performance without manual spreadsheet assembly at month end. Revenue recognized when earned so monthly results reflect actual operations. Reports ready for board meetings or ownership reviews that support strategic decisions about staffing, capital improvements, membership structures, and whether that F&B operation is worth keeping as-is.
Full-Service Bookkeeping for Greater Phoenix
The Next Step:
A Quick Conversation
Tell us about your situation. We'll listen, ask a few questions, and give you a clear price to handle the work.