Finances
As the club manager you are also responsible for your team's finances. You pay the expenses and collect the income at the weekly update. You can see the exact time this happens in your league on the
Local Schedule page.
If you, for example, buy a player for 10 000 US$, the player is accessible immediately, and your "new signings" entry is increased by 10 000 US$.
Revenues and expenses
On the finances page you can see your budget for this week and last week's financial status. This is what the entries mean:
Revenue
Match takings: Your income from home league matches and all mid-week matches. See Chapter 10 'The Stadium' for more information on crowd income.
Sponsors: Each week you get a sum of money from your sponsors. Check the 'Fans and sponsors' chapter for more info.
Player sales: Whenever you sell a player, the income ends up here. See the 'Transfers' chapter for more info.
Commission: If you received any money for being the previous or mother club it will show here. See the 'Transfers' chapter for more info.
Other: Any other income is accumulated here, such as membership fees from fans and prize money.
Expenses
Wages: Each week you pay your players' salaries. For each player you pay 250 US$ plus a certain amount based on his skills and age. You pay 20% extra for foreign players.
Stadium maintenance: The weekly cost for running and servicing your stadium. See Chapter 10 'The Stadium' for more info.
Stadium building: Construction or demolition costs if you rebuild your stadium.
Staff: Each staff member costs you between 1 020 US$ and 33 840 US$ per week, depending on the level of the staff member (1 to 5) and the contract's length (1 to 16 weeks).
Youth scouting: The weekly costs for your youth academy, or your weekly investment in your scouting network.
New signings: Your costs for buying new players on the transfer market end up here. See the 'Transfers' chapter for more info.
Other: The remaining costs are accumulated here, such as firing staff and promoting players to your senior team.
Interest: If you're in debt you will have to pay some interest.
Cash funds and Board reserves
The Board limits the money available in cash to the manager for expenses such as salaries, player transfer fees, or stadium projects. Any assets beyond this working capital will be reserved by the Board to ensure the future stability of the Club. If needed, the Board will release money from the reserves into the working capital, but only at a measured rate.
The Financial Director you can hire for your staff can increase both the working capital and the rate of return from the cash reserves.
Debts and bankruptcy
There's nothing to keep you from spending money even if your balance is zero. You can run a small debt and still spend money, for example buying players or hiring a coach. However, once you hit 200 000 US$ in debt, your spending options become limited. You'll have a line of credit of up to 500 000 US$ at the bank. Be aware, though, whenever you go into the red, you'll pay some heavy duty interest on the borrowed money.
If you run up debts amounting to 500 000 US$, you'll be given a bankruptcy warning. If you do not return your balance to within the 500 000 US$ debt limit within two weeks of your bankruptcy warning, you will be forced to leave the Hattrick series system!Note that if a team has players for sale whose current bids are enough to reach the "safe zone," or if the team has plenty of cash in the board reserves, the team will not go bankrupt - but will still pay interest from its current account.