questions
Questions, and the short answers.
What the person who assigns, the person who pays and a referee or judge ask first. Each answer links the page that shows it. A chapter is your club, league or association.
If you assign
Somebody turns a game back on Saturday morning. What happens to the seat?
They decline the offer, or declare that they are out, and a seat on a game that has not started is offered to the next person who can take it, nearest first and then the better record. The trail says Assignary moved it. You can switch a game’s automatic re-offers off, and a seat on it that comes open then waits for you.
Do I still make the calls, or does it hand my games to whoever is next on a list?
You send every first offer. A declined or lapsed offer goes to the next person who can take it, nearest first and then the better record, and the trail says Assignary moved it. You can switch a game’s automatic re-offers off, and a seat on it that comes open then waits for you.
Does it know who is certified and current, and keep a ref off a game they have a conflict with?
It knows what your chapter records: each official’s level, the clearances they hold with the day each lapses, and the conflicts they have declared. A seat goes only to somebody free at that time, inside their own travel radius, at the level the game asks for, holding every clearance its sport requires when the game starts, with no declared conflict, no other game in the way and room under their own cap for the day.
Does it sync with a federation’s or a state body’s records?
No. The chapter records each clearance itself: what it is, who issued it, who entered it, who checked it and when it lapses. Assignary never contacts the issuing body, so what the record shows is who vouched for it and when.
Can I get the league’s schedule in without retyping it?
Yes. Import a .csv or .xlsx workbook and each row becomes a game, read on your chapter’s own clock. The switching page lists the columns it reads.
Will my refs actually use it?
An offer arrives by email. There is no app to install: the offer’s link opens in the phone’s browser. Its mail carries the seat, the game, its sport and level, when it starts and ends, the venue and its address, and the pay, and they answer Accept or Decline. Taking a seat and being paid cost them nothing.
My refs don’t read email. How does an offer reach them?
Email is the only way an offer is sent. An official who would rather not watch for one can say yes in advance, and a seat that matches what they said is theirs the moment it is sent.
Some of my crew are under 18. Can they use it?
No. Officials are 18 or older: nobody holds an account, or is paid, without stating that they are.
My state association requires another system. Does Assignary replace it?
No. Assignary does not replace a system an association requires.
Do I have to move everything over at once?
No. Assigning is free. You pay when you pay the refs. One weekend can be written here, with the spreadsheet kept beside it, before the rest moves.
I have never heard of you. Who runs this, and who else uses it?
Assignary is new. Your club would be among its first. Assignary is made and run by Brick Sofa.
If you pay the refs
Who pays the fees, the club or the refs?
The club. The fee written on a seat reaches the official whole, and the chapter adds $3.50 a seat plus 3.5% of that fee by card, or 1.25% by bank. An official pays nothing to take a seat or to be paid.
How soon are the refs paid? Is it faster than Venmo?
No, it is not faster. Assignary pays each official after the club’s payment, on a wait that depends on how the club paid: as a card charge clears where the card’s bank confirmed the cardholder, 6 business days after an ACH transfer arrives, and for a bank debit plan on 65 days after it clears. The settle page says each wait beside the button that chooses it, before you pay.
We pay the refs another way today. Is this cheaper, and what does the fee buy?
Assignary does not claim to cost less. The fee buys the pay list drawn from who took each seat and who was marked a no-show, a weekend paid at Stripe’s checkout with its lines set out, officials’ bank details held by Stripe and never by the club, a disputed seat held back until an assigner reads it, and no fee to the official.
Is there a contract?
No. There is no subscription and no setup fee, and you pay for a weekend only when you settle it. A season plan is a chapter’s own choice, and it never renews itself.
How big a club can pay through it?
One payment carries up to 50 seats. A bigger weekend is paid in batches of 50, earliest games first, each a payment of its own from the same settle page. A chapter starts with a ceiling of $5,000 on payments that can still be taken back at one time. A payment that would pass it is not taken. The ceiling rises to $25,000 once 3 of the chapter’s weekends have stood for 60 days: paid, their crews’ pay released, and never disputed.
Will it match the bank statement?
One payment carries up to 50 seats, and the settle page lists every payment in the dates you pick, with each seat it paid, how it was paid and the day its crew is paid. A chapter’s owner downloads one zip of spreadsheets for a range of dates: the games and every offer of a seat on them, the roster and members as they stand, and what the chapter was charged and its officials were paid.
What does it show me at the end of the year?
The settle page shows what the chapter paid each official in a calendar year, counted on the date the money moved.
What happens if a payment is taken back? Are my refs clawed back?
The chapter answers first: it owes what the payment taken back cost, and it settles no other weekend until it has paid. If the chapter has not paid within 30 days, each official that payment paid can have their share of the crew’s part of what is still owed, and no more, taken back from their Stripe account. It is paid back to them once the chapter has paid what it owes and that payment can no longer be taken back. An official is told this before they set up payouts.
Our purchasing office wants an invoice, not a checkout every weekend.
A season plan prepays the seat fees in a block, on one invoice paid by bank transfer and due 30 days after it is sent, carrying your purchase order number where you give one. Each weekend’s crew fees and percentage are still a payment of their own when the weekend is settled.
Who gets our bank details, and the refs’?
The chapter pays at Stripe’s checkout and opens no payments account of its own. Officials give their bank details to Stripe, never to Assignary. Where a chapter saves a bank account for later weekends, Assignary keeps its bank’s name, its last four digits and Stripe’s handles on it.
The board has to approve this. What do I hand them?
One page made to be printed: the season’s cost for a club of a stated size, who pays what, when the refs are paid, the limits, who runs it and where the data lives.
If you referee or judge
Do I have to install anything?
An offer arrives by email. There is no app to install: the offer’s link opens in the phone’s browser.
Does it cost me anything to be paid?
No. The fee on the offer is the fee, paid whole. It lands in your Stripe balance and reaches your bank on Stripe’s usual schedule at no cost. Having it sent at once is your choice: it costs 1.75% of what is paid out, at least $1, and the fee is shown before you confirm.
When am I paid?
After the chapter pays for the weekend, on a wait set by how it paid. The console shows the day each seat’s pay is scheduled for and what it waits on.
Who sees my bank details?
Stripe. You set up payouts on Stripe’s own pages: Stripe collects the identity and bank details that takes, and Assignary never sees them.
Can pay I have been sent be taken back?
In two cases. A chapter’s owner can refund a settlement, which takes back the fee it paid each official. If a chapter’s payment for a weekend you worked is taken back and the chapter has not paid for it within 30 days, the pay it sent you for that weekend can be taken back from your Stripe account, and it is paid back to you once the chapter has paid what it owes and that payment can no longer be taken back. Pay taken back after it has reached your bank can leave your Stripe balance below zero, and Stripe then takes that from the next pay sent to you or debits it from the bank account your payouts go to.
What does my chapter see if I am out for a medical reason?
The dates. A medical absence is one word, with no injury, no diagnosis and nothing written about it. Only you can record it, and the chapter is never shown the reason.
Can I say yes before I am asked?
Yes. A standing answer takes a matching seat the moment it is offered. You bound it by the levels you work, a radius, a cap for the week, weekdays you keep free, a fee you name and a pair of dates, and you can switch it off.
Can I take my record to another association?
Yes. You can draw a signed record of your own work in a chapter: offers, accepts, whether the work happened and the clearances you hold. No pay figure travels in it, and whoever you hand it to checks it against a published key without asking Assignary.