Accepting Play On! Vouchers
Turn on Queensland's Play On! Sports Vouchers for your club, and know exactly what changes for parents and for you.
Here's the short version
One switch turns the feature on. After that, a voucher either gets added by the family at checkout, or by you, if they hand you one directly.
- Gov’t site register your club as a Play On! activity provider — a one-off, before you accept anything
- Switch on "Accept Play On! Sports Vouchers?" on your club's Edit screen, then Save — this turns it on for parents and for you, together
- Either way a parent adds their own voucher at checkout, or you enter one for them in Manual Registration
- Gov’t portal redeem each voucher yourself, whenever suits — that's how the money actually reaches you
That's the whole lifecycle. Everything below is detail — including the one thing worth reading closely before you flip the switch.
6 things worth knowing before you turn this on
- The toggle controls both paths at once.
- Switching on "Accept Play On! Sports Vouchers?" makes voucher fields available to parents at self-checkout and to you in Manual Registration, together. There's currently no way to offer one without the other — you can't keep it hidden from parents while still using it yourself.
- It only covers membership and participation fees.
- Club store items — merch, uniforms, equipment — are always charged in full, voucher or not. Same rule on both sides of the app.
- One voucher covers one child, one registration.
- Both checkout and Manual Registration enforce this — voucher fields only appear once a registration is down to exactly one swimmer.
- Manual Registration collects no payment at all.
- Not even for a balance above the voucher. It's pure bookkeeping — use it once you've already sorted payment with the family some other way. More on this in Step 4.
- You're keeping the document, not just the number.
- The photo or PDF uploaded — by the family or by you — is what actually satisfies the program's 3-year retention requirement. It's a required upload, not optional paperwork.
- Redeeming is entirely manual, entirely outside the app.
- Swim Club Connect never talks to Government's systems. You log into their portal yourself to claim each voucher back.
Register as a Play On! activity provider
Before you switch anything on in Swim Club Connect, register your club with Queensland Government as a Play On! activity provider, through their Enquire portal — see qld.gov.au/recreation/sports/funding/playon.
Government does this, not us. Swim Club Connect has no part in registering your club as a provider — that's entirely Queensland Government's process, on their own site.
Start this before you need it.
Approval isn't instant. Register as a provider whenever suits — it's independent of when you turn on voucher acceptance in the app, so there's no reason to wait until a family is standing in front of you asking about it.
Turn on voucher acceptance
Switch to the Club Administrator role, tap CLUB ADMIN, then tap your club's name at the top to open its Edit screen. Under PLAY ON! SPORTS VOUCHERS, switch on Accept Play On! Sports Vouchers?, then tap Save. This is the only switch — there's no separate setting for "parents only" or "manual only."
This exposes both paths immediately.
The moment this is on, parents will see a voucher option at checkout, and you'll see one in Manual Registration. If you're not ready for parents to self-serve yet, don't turn this on until you are — there's no partial state.
What parents will see
Once the toggle's on, a parent registering a single swimmer can switch on I have a Play On! Sports Voucher at checkout, enter the voucher number and their child's date of birth, upload a photo or the PDF, and pay only the balance — the total updates automatically, with nothing for them to calculate.
Full walkthrough already written. For the complete family-side experience — screenshots, edge cases, what happens if a fee is under $200 — see Paying with a Play On! Voucher. Worth skimming yourself, since you'll field the odd question about it.
Processing a voucher yourself
If a family hands you a voucher directly — rather than using self-checkout — enter it through a manual registration. In Registrations & Club Store → Registrations, tap + Manual and pick the season's dues. Then, on the Select Swimmers page, select exactly one swimmer. A voucher only applies to one child, so with more than one swimmer selected the voucher switch is replaced by a reminder to select just one.
Switch on Family presented a Play On! Sports Voucher, then fill in:
- Voucher Number — as printed on the voucher.
- Child's date of birth (on the voucher) — required. If it doesn't match the swimmer's date of birth on file, you'll see a warning, not a block. It's a prompt to double-check you've got the right voucher, not a hard stop.
- Upload voucher — Take Photo, Choose Photo, or Choose File (PDF). This is required before you can save — it's what satisfies the retention requirement.
No payment is collected here — read this before you save.
Manual Registration never charges a card, even for a balance above the voucher's value. The save confirmation says exactly that: "No payment will be collected." Only use this path once you've already sorted any remaining balance with the family some other way — cash, bank transfer, whatever your club normally does outside the app.
Registering siblings, each with their own voucher?
Save one at a time. A voucher applies to exactly one child, so the voucher switch only appears with one swimmer selected — register each voucher-paying swimmer in a separate save.
Finding a voucher again later
Whether a parent added it at checkout or you entered it manually, every voucher-covered registration shows a Voucher row on its detail page — the number and amount applied — plus a View voucher document link that opens the uploaded photo or PDF. This works the same way on both manual and self-checkout registrations, in both the registrations list and the detail view.
Claiming the money back
The part that actually happens outside Swim Club Connect.
- Redeeming is a separate, manual step
- Log into Government's own portal and redeem each voucher yourself — entering the voucher number and the full fee charged. Swim Club Connect doesn't do this for you; there's no connection between the app and Government's system. Use Step 5 above to find the voucher number and document again when you're ready.
- Government pays you directly
- Usually within 3–10 business days of redeeming, by bank transfer — not through the app.
- No app fee on the voucher portion
- Swim Club Connect's usual service fee is only taken on what's actually charged to a card, never on the amount a voucher covers.
- Redemption has its own deadline — separate from the family's
- A voucher carries two dates: the family-facing expiry, and a later, separate deadline by which you must redeem it as the provider. Miss that second date and the provider terms make the club responsible for covering the fee yourself — it's not recoverable from the family at that point. Both dates are on the voucher document you uploaded, so check it rather than guessing.
That's it
Register once, switch on the toggle, and vouchers start flowing through either checkout path automatically. The only ongoing work on your end is redeeming them with Government and keeping an eye on that second deadline.
Questions about registering as a provider, or a specific voucher? Queensland Government's Play On! FAQ covers eligibility and the provider side. For anything about how this works inside Swim Club Connect, get in touch — we're happy to talk it through.