Frequently Asked Questions

Most admins are fully set up in under 30 minutes. You create your club, import your member list (CSV or manual), and create your first event. Members need zero training — they just click YES or NO in their email.

None at all. It's designed for club secretaries and volunteer coordinators, not IT staff. If you can send an email, you can run HoursServed.

Yes. The Free plan supports up to 15 members and 2 events per month, with email invitations, service-hours tracking, and a view-only monthly report. It does not include export or PDF, and no credit card is required.

Pro adds unlimited members, smart nudge emails (14d, 7d, 48h, 4h), shift management with role-based signups, external volunteer management, dues & payment tracking, Interac e-Transfer reconciliation, branded PDF reports, at-risk member alerts, month locking, Lion Portal CSV export, and Google Calendar sync. Pro is USD $34/month or $340/year.

Never. Members receive a secure email with two buttons — YES or NO. One click and they're done. No account, no app, no password to remember. This is core to how HoursServed works — unlike Track It Forward or SignUpGenius which require members to log in.

Last click wins. They can click NO at any time using the same link and their response updates immediately. Every response is timestamped so there's a full, immutable audit trail.

Yes. Secretaries can add or remove any member from any event at any time before the month is locked. Sign-up sheet and basic time-tracking tools generally record what participants self-report rather than what was scheduled.

Yes. On Pro, you can invite external volunteers to specific shifts. They receive the same email-link experience as members but are tracked separately from your member roster. No login required for them either.

Yes. On Pro, you can capture guest count and meal cost per attendance record — useful for clubs that charge per-head or need to track catering costs.

Hours are frozen at event creation — you set the duration when you create the event and it never changes retroactively. The moment a member clicks YES, their service hours and commute time are captured instantly. No manual entry, no spreadsheet, no second step.

Frozen hours create a defensible, audit-ready record. Nobody can go back and inflate hours after the fact. Competitors like Track It Forward let volunteers self-log hours — which means the record depends on volunteers remembering to log, and can be edited any time. HoursServed's hours are locked at the source.

The Pro CSV export matches the exact column headers required by Lion Portal: Activity Name, Activity Type, Number of Volunteers, Duration (Hours), Total Volunteer Hours, and Total Commute Time. You can submit it to your district directly without reformatting anything.

When you "lock" a month, all totals are frozen for reporting. The secretary's 60-minute admin bonus is applied automatically. The audit trail becomes immutable — no further responses can be recorded for that period's events. Locking is how you finalize your district submission with confidence.

The at-risk report automatically flags members who are falling below your participation or hour thresholds before month-end. This gives officers time to follow up — something no spreadsheet does automatically.

Yes. Pro includes branded PDF monthly summaries you can send to district leadership or use for grant applications. You can also export raw CSV data for district portals like Lion Portal.

You can create standard recurring meetings (whole roster invited), single-day events, and multi-day events with complex shift schedules. Each shift can have named roles with min/max capacity limits (e.g. "Setup: 2–4 people", "Check-in: 1–2 people").

Smart nudge emails are automatic reminders sent at 14 days, 7 days, 48 hours, and 4 hours before the event — but only to members who haven't responded yet. Members who already clicked YES or NO are automatically skipped. You don't need to track who has replied or send follow-ups by hand.

For complex events like fundraisers or service projects, you can create multiple shifts across multiple days, each with named roles and capacity limits. Members and external volunteers receive an email to claim a specific role. The admin sees real-time coverage (filled vs. open slots) and can manage waitlists and cancellations.

Google Calendar sync pulls your upcoming events from Google Calendar into HoursServed — saving you from manually re-entering each meeting or event. Here's exactly what happens: 1. You connect your Google account (one-time setup in your dashboard). 2. Click "Sync Google Calendar" — HoursServed imports events from the next 90 days that don't already exist. 3. Each imported event lands in HoursServed as a Draft. Nothing is sent to your members yet. 4. You review each draft, confirm or adjust the duration and commute time (since Google Calendar doesn't always have those), then activate the event when you're ready. 5. Once activated, HoursServed sends the Attendance Request email to your members as normal. The sync is one-way: Google Calendar → HoursServed. HoursServed does not write back to your Google Calendar. Duplicate protection is built in — re-syncing won't create duplicates. This is a Pro feature.

Yes. You can create dues requests (e.g. "2025–2026 Annual Dues"), set an amount and due date, and track payment status per member as paid, pending, or waived — all without a separate spreadsheet. HoursServed does not process or handle payments directly. Instead, members send their dues via Interac e-Transfer to your club's email address, and your treasurer verifies the transfer in their banking app. Once confirmed, the treasurer manually marks that member as paid inside HoursServed. The optional reconciliation code makes it easy to match incoming transfers to the right member. This is built into the Pro plan.

Yes. Canadian clubs on Pro or District plans can pay via Interac e-Transfer. We generate a pro-forma invoice with a unique reconciliation code so we can match your payment.

Yes. You can configure your club's Interac e-Transfer email and auto-generate a unique reconciliation code per dues request, so you can easily match incoming transfers to the correct member.

Yes. Service clubs often run July 1 to June 30. You can align your billing to that fiscal year so your subscription renews in sync with your club year.

The District plan lets you manage multiple clubs under one account. You get district-wide rollup reports, a real-time club leaderboard showing which clubs are leading in service hours, and a dedicated onboarding call. Pricing is tailored — contact us or book a demo.

Yes, on the District plan. You get a real-time leaderboard and club-by-club hour breakdowns — available without additional configuration or add-on modules.

SignUpGenius is a sign-up sheet tool — it tells you who signed up, but it doesn't log service hours, send smart nudge reminders, lock months, or generate reports. HoursServed logs hours automatically the moment someone confirms, and includes audit trails, dues tracking, and district CSV exports. SignUpGenius pricing is tiered, starting with a free plan and rising through paid tiers; see their pricing page for current rates.

Track It Forward requires volunteers to self-log their hours in a portal — which means volunteers must remember to do it, and records are only as accurate as what they submit. HoursServed logs hours automatically when a member confirms by email. There's no portal, no login, and no reliance on volunteer memory. HoursServed also includes shift management, dues tracking, and district reporting that Track It Forward doesn't have.

Unison is a membership management platform. HoursServed is focused specifically on attendance, automatic service-hour logging, shift management, dues tracking, and district reporting. If your main pain point is "I need accurate service hours submitted to district every month," HoursServed covers that workflow end-to-end in a way Unison doesn't.

You can — but spreadsheets require someone to manually collect responses, update cells, calculate totals, and generate reports every single month. With HoursServed, every click is logged automatically, totals are always current, the at-risk report is instant, and your district CSV is one button. Automating attendance replies, hour capture and month-end reporting removes most of the manual follow-up a secretary would otherwise do by hand.

We store only first name, last name, and email address. No addresses, no phone numbers, no government IDs, no unnecessary data. We take a minimal data approach by design.

Yes. Each YES/NO link is a unique, time-limited token tied to one member and one event. Links expire after the event and cannot be reused for a different response once the month is locked.