The Arbiter
 

Greetings:

Anyone familiar enough with this software to know the approximate cost for an organization? I assume its based on membership count but a ballpark figure would be appreciated.

Ballpark figure of about $4.00 or $5.00 per official per year.

Z

Thanks for the quick reply.

I believe there is an additional cost based on how many users will have administrative rights, but not sure.. Also keep in mind the cost breakdown is on per 50, if you need 52, you will need to purchase the licesnse for the additional 50.

For each person that you opt to give "assignor power" to, you pay $25.00
The ballpark cost will still end up being around $4 or $5 per official.

The breakdown is not "per 50." You do not pay for 100 officials if you have 52 officials. It's just that the more officials you have, the lower your "per official rate" is.

Contact Arbiter support for more info. http://www.thearbiter.net/Content/Support.aspx

Arbiter has been great for us. No server to maintain. Nightly backups done by them. Great support. 1099's, school invoices and official's paysheets automatically generated by our assignor. Our officials love it (and no, I am not a paid endorser of Arbiter). :)

Z

Ditto,

Although I wasn't sure of the exact numbers on the breakdown of the licesnes..

My association used the Arbiter prior to it becoming windows and web-based. I must say that it is a very worth-while tool. The customer service in customizing options that your particular assoc. needs is/was done at no additional charge. The customer service is great!

I invite anyone to have a look at my program. It does what Arbiter does and much more. We offer a no obligation trial. Go to www.reftown.com. We have many very happy customers.

I've used TheArbiter from the athletic administration side of things, and can't say I was incredibly impressed. I'm not sure, however, if it was due to limitations in the Arbiter software or due to the associations with which we contracted limiting our access.

That said, your first concern in picking assigning software should be the refs who you assign. Then be concerned with how easy it is for schools and programs to access the information.

I made the choice to use Arbiter this spring for baseball assigning.

The point where it goes from $6 to $5 per official is 80, at least it was for us. $400 for 80 officials, $49 for the payroll package, and $25 for a second assignor.

You are free to add/delete officials as you need to, so if you have some fill-ins who don't regularly officiate, you can delete those users after paying them and use the spots for other officials.

There has been some backlash from those that miss the "personal" nature of the previous assigner, but I couldn't care less about that. My job is to be as efficient as possible, and Arbiter has paid for itself in the postage we HAVEN'T used in mailing out schedules, like the previous assigner used to do.

For a total cost of $474, our assigning has been so much easier this season and I wouldn't do it Arbiter or a similar program again.

My association has used Arbiter for a couple of years and 99% of the officials like it. If my quickly fading memory serves me correctly, coaches are allowed to "scratch" 3 officials for the year. Other than that, they have no say in which officials are assigned to their game and they do not know who it will be until the officials show up. Coaches/administrators have no ability to access anything in Arbiter regarding my association.