How to pay referees and umpires: a process and a pay sheet

Every official should know what a game pays before they accept it. Write the fees down once, in one table, and publish it to your pool with the season’s first assignments. Decide:

• Fee by level. Usually by division or age group, because older age groups mean longer games and harder ones.
• Fee by position. Center and assistant referees are often paid differently, as are plate and base umpires.
• Tournament rates. Per game, per day or per session. Tournament games are often shorter, so a per-game league fee may not fit.
• Several games in one day. The same fee per game, or a day rate. State which.

Settle the adjustments in advance too

A pay question is quick to answer when the situation was decided before it happened. Put a line in the fee schedule for each of these:

• Same-day fill. Whether an official who takes a game on the morning of it gets anything extra.
• Travel. Whether you pay for distance, and how it is measured.
• No-shows. No fee, and what happens to the official who covered.
• Rainouts and called games. Called before the call time, called at the field, called after the start. The guide to rainouts sets out the usual options.
• Games that end early on a mercy or run rule, or a forfeit at the field: the full fee, or something less.

The schedule shows who was supposed to work each game. The pay record has to show who actually did. Build it after the games, from the final schedule, and check each row against:

• Late swaps. An official who traded a game with a colleague by text, without telling you, is still on your schedule. Pay the person who worked.
• No-shows.Nobody tells the schedule that someone didn’t turn up. Ask site managers or crew chiefs to report it on the day.
• Rainouts and called games, under the policy you published.
• Cover by someone outside your pool, such as a parent running a line. Decide whether they are paid and record it either way.

Pick a pay period and a pay date and keep to them: for example, games from the 1st to the 15th paid on the 20th, and games from the 16th to the end of the month paid on the 5th. Every two weeks works too. Tell officials the date before the season so nobody has to ask when they will be paid.

If a pay date slips, tell the pool before the day, with the new date.

The person who builds the pay record shouldn’t be the only person who checks it. Often the assignor builds it, because they know who worked, and the treasurer approves and pays. The approver checks a sample of rows against the schedule, looks at every adjustment and its reason, and signs off before money moves.

For a small league this can be ten minutes. It catches mistakes, and it protects the volunteer who handles the money.

1. 1. Close the period

   Wait until every game in the period has been played or called and the no-show reports from the last weekend are in.

2. 2. Build the rows

   One row per official per game worked, from the final schedule, with the published fee. Add adjustments with a reason, and set the amount due for rainouts and no-shows from your policy.

3. 3. Total per official and approve

   The approver checks the totals and the adjustments and puts their name on the rows.

4. 4. Pay, then record it

   Fill in the date paid, the method and the reference on each row as the money goes out, not later from memory.

5. 5. Tell each official what the payment covers

   A short statement saves most of the questions you would otherwise get.

Riverside Youth Soccer: pay for Oct 1 to Oct 15
Oct 3, Harborside FC v Millbrook United, Center: $55
Oct 11, Harborside FC v Cedar Ridge SC, Center: $0 (rained out, called the night before)
Total: $55, paid Oct 17 by bank transfer, ref TX-20491
Questions about this payment: treasurer@example.org by Nov 16.

Each method trades convenience against record-keeping. Whatever you choose, the record should show the date, the amount and a reference you can look up.

• Check. A clear record and a check number for every payment. Slow, and someone has to write and deliver them.
• Bank transfer or ACH. A good record and no handling. Needs bank details for each official, held securely, and your bank may charge for transfers.
• Payment apps.Fast and familiar to most officials. Check each app’s fees for business payments, whether your league’s account is set up for that use, and its age rules for account holders. Export the transaction history for your records.
• Cash at the field.Officials like it, and it works for officials without bank accounts. It is the hardest to account for: someone carries cash, there is no automatic record, and a discrepancy is one person’s word against another’s. If you pay cash, have the official sign for it.

Many youth leagues use teenage officials, and many of them don’t have their own bank account. Agree with a parent before the first game how their child will be paid: into a parent’s account, by check in the official’s name, or in cash. Put it in writing, and record the payee on the pay sheet so the payment can be traced to the official who earned it.

Many US leagues collect a W-9 from adult officials before their first payment and issue 1099s after the year ends. The rules and thresholds change, and they depend on how your league is set up, so ask your league’s accountant and check the IRS’s current guidance rather than relying on what was done last year.

Either way, collect any forms before the first payment. Chasing them in January, after an official has moved on, is much harder.

One row per official per game, filled in from games worked, with the fee, any adjustment and its reason, who approved it and when it was paid. A rained-out game stays on the sheet with what your policy says is due, even if that is nothing.

• Referee pay sheet

  CSV

  One row per official per game worked, with the fee, any adjustment, who approved it and when it was paid.

  15 columns · 4 example rows to overwrite

  Download referee pay sheet

Totaling a pay run

The quickest way is a pivot table: official_name as rows, the sum of amount_due as values, filtered to one pay_period. Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers can all do it.

For a formula instead, SUMIFS adds up column K (amount_due) where column F (official_name) and column A (pay_period) match:

=SUMIFS(K:K, F:F, "Ana Ferreira", A:A, "2026-10-01 to 2026-10-15")

On the example rows that returns 55: Ana’s worked game, plus nothing for the rained-out one. To see what is still owed across all periods, match a blank paid_on in column M instead:

=SUMIFS(K:K, F:F, "Ana Ferreira", M:M, "")

With those, most questions take a minute: find the official’s rows, read off the games, the amount and the reference.

Publish a disputes process

1. 1. One contact

   Name the person officials ask about pay, usually the treasurer.

2. 2. A window

   Ask for queries within a set time after the pay date, such as 30 days, with the game date and what they think is wrong.

3. 3. A reply and a fix

   Answer within a stated time, and correct any underpayment in the next pay run as an adjustment with its reason, so the history stays readable.

In Ref Grid you set a fee on each position of each game. The official sees it with the assignment before accepting. There are no default fee tables and no mileage; the fee is whatever you put on the position.

The pay report covers a date range you choose. It lists accepted assignments on games that weren’t cancelled and whose start time has passed. Ref Grid doesn’t know whether a game was actually played or who turned up, so check the report for no-shows, unrecorded swaps and rainouts before you pay. A cancelled game is left out entirely, so a show-up fee for a game called at the field has to be added by hand. Each row uses the fee that was on the position when the assignment was sent, so a later change to the game’s fee doesn’t rewrite it.

The report exports three ways:

• Detail CSV: one row per game per official.
• Summary CSV: a total per official, with a count of games that have no fee set. Those games aren’t in the total, so check that count before you pay.
• QuickBooks Online bills CSV: one bill per official, one line per game. You set the expense account name from your own chart of accounts first. Check that your QuickBooks plan can import bills.

If an official is paid under a different name in your accounting system, such as a business name or a parent, add a payroll reference to their record and the exports use it.

Ref Grid doesn’t pay anyone, doesn’t mark anyone as paid, and doesn’t collect W-9s or issue 1099s. Adjustments, approval and payment stay on your pay sheet or in your accounting system.