Accounting and Reporting

Understanding the numbers is at the heart of any well run business.  Morton Golf strongly believes that daily operating reports and financial presentations must be centered on who manages what and why.  Every manager must be able to see a daily operating report that lets them know instantly where they stand.  Managers should be asking themselves daily, are revenues exceeding, meeting or not reaching expectations.  Are inventories, cost of goods and/or labor costs meeting budgeted numbers as well as industry benchmark standards?  Morton Golf can even provide individual employee production reports letting management know each team members contributions to revenues and the bottom line.  Delivering daily operating reports to manage the facility requires extremely sophisticated point of sale systems that capture detailed data.  Every course managed by Morton Golf has the opportunity to receive one of the deepest and most sophisticated accounting systems available in the golf industry today.  Morton Golf believes we are only as good as our employees.  By providing the appropriate reports to staff members and management, the entire team will better understand how they individually and collectively make a difference.  Over time, every employee at the facility must work together to be on the same financial page.  It takes a quality accounting team, quality software, quality hardware and quality systems for a team to all end up together fully understanding how to be on the same success page together.

Strategic Planning

Morton Golf uses a bottom up approach to the budgeting process and long term planning.  Near the end of each year, every department at the golf course will conduct a SWOT Analysis with each and every employee that works in each department.  This is the time when every employee has the opportunity to present their ideas by listing all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that their department has in comparison to other facilities.  Once the lists are completed, the team members of each department create and submit a list of improved services and physical improvement goals they believe should be achieved for the next year.  When completed, each department presents their findings to the annual Executive Management Team budget meeting where management prioritizes the lists and builds in staff’s productive ideas along with the appropriate costs to grow future revenues.  In other words, the process works from the bottom up because Morton Golf believes those who are on the front line see every day what is needed and have learned over time when that information is added to managements understanding of what is needed success becomes far easier than a top down driven management style.  Morton Golf has proudly created some of the most reliable systems for strategic planning in the golf management industry.

Reporting

In January of 2014, Morton Golf underwent a major software overall, upgrading all POS and back-office reporting to a new Total e-Golf platform. It’s front-line Customer Relationship Management data capture service allows an unlimited amount of profile information for each client and the back-office Crystal reporting allows personalized daily reporting so critical for the facility manager to manage by numbers. The system allows for custom reporting by facility as well as a houses a full stable of canned reports that offer the manager near-limitless ways of analyzing their facilities’ metrics.

Analysis of Trends

These are fast moving times that includes at least five generations.  Each of those generations represents very different lifestyles from each other.  People’s interests, habits and lifestyles are constantly changing in each of the generations.  Within this era, free time for recreation and family involvement is harder to come by than ever before.  In an era where free time has become a luxury, people are finding less time for the game of golf.  Morton Golf believes to compete going forward, it is critical to be at the front end of leading new trends and even more important to understand the needs, wants and demographics of the different generations to create new trends.  The business of golf must be willing to create new and exciting ideas and be willing to pilot out of the box and even embark on creation of untraditional ideas to increase revenues.  Golf courses are beautiful green belts that can be used for a multitude of community revenue opportunities.  Morton Golf has always been at the forefront of developing and leading with new and innovative revenue producing trends.

Training

The business of golf is definitely considered to be in the hospitality industry.  Surveys have proven over and over again that people will patronize facilities where they feel they receive the best values and services for their hard earned money.  Morton Golf strongly believes for any golf facility to stand above the rest, it must provide internal ongoing training for Customer Service, Sales Training, Management Training, Product Training, Safety Training, Career Training and other personal growth training.  In today’s extremely competitive environments, it is easy to cut costs and minimize training.  However, there is an old saying that remains truer today than ever before, “People do business with those who know their business.”  Morton Golf has learned over time that revenues are directly related to staff training and they have spent the last several decades creating employee training courses to make sure customer expectations are exceeded.  Most every training course provided by Morton Golf either has books to read and/or tests to be taken to make sure every employee fully understand what is expected.

Policies & Procedures

It is said, “A business is only as good as its employees”.  Within Morton Golf’s human resource department are employee handbooks, clear job descriptions, defined Policies and Procedures and operational systems that are constantly be changed and rewritten to keep up with the trends, times and legal issues of each era.  Providing a talented staff originates with the hiring process.  Employment then begins with the orientation process and ultimately succeeds based on everyone having clear guidelines for what they are supposed to do, how they do it and knowing why they do it.  Systems are necessary for providing high level customer service, efficiencies and a safe and confident working environment.

Job Descriptions

All employees like to know what is expected of them and how they will be evaluated. Job descriptions can also be a great value to employers. Creating a job description often results in a thought process that helps determine how critical the job is, how this particular job relates to others and identify the characteristics needed by a new employee filling the role.  That is why Morton Golf Management, within its expansive policies and procedures manuals, has a detailed job description for each role at their golf courses.

A job description typically outlines the necessary skills, training and education needed by a potential employee. It will spell out duties and responsibilities of the job. Once a job description is prepared, it can serve a basis for interviewing candidates, orienting a new employee and finally in the evaluation of job performance. Using job descriptions is part of good management.

Point of Sale Software

Morton Golf utilized Total e Golf Club software, the last system you will ever need. Designed by golf industry professionals, Total e Golf is used at golf clubs and retirement communities throughout Canada and the United States. Total e Golf leverages the most cutting edge technologies to keep you ahead of your competition. As new technologies emerge, we focus in on how we can help you better attract, retain and manage your current customers using web and smartphone technologies including:

• Total e Golf Tablet – Increase Productivity with the Total e Golf Tablet – A mobile POS that allows you to access to your entire operation and processes payment from anywhere on the course.
• Golf Marketing Tools – Stay in Contact with Dynamic Sales & Marketing Tools – Send email blasts straight from your database at the click of a button.
• Tee Time Bookings – Book More Tee Times with Web and Mobile Tee Time Bookings – Give golfers access to your tee times from any computer, smartphone or mobile device 24/7