Compare · Spreadsheet + WhatsApp group
A spreadsheet and a WhatsApp group, or DesiAuction?
Most leagues start the same way: a Google Form, a sheet somebody owns, and a WhatsApp group that becomes the league's memory. It works — until the sheet has three versions and nobody can find who paid.
Side by side
| What | Spreadsheet + WhatsApp group | DesiAuction |
|---|---|---|
| Registration | A Google Form feeds a sheet. Someone cleans duplicates and chases missing roles by hand. | One registration link. A player can register once per season, and roles and styles come from a fixed list. An existing Google Form's responses can be imported. |
| Approvals | A column in the sheet, updated by whoever remembers, and messages sent one by one. | Approve, waitlist or decline each player on the registration desk, and each decision sends the player a notification. |
| Entry fees | Screenshots of UPI payments in the group, matched to names later. | Each player's fee is marked pending, paid or waived on the desk, so the list of who still owes is always current. |
| Auction night | Bids are called out and typed into the sheet; the purse is worked out on a calculator. | Owners bid from their phones. A bid over a team's purse, below the base price or off the increment is refused, and every screen shows the same bid. |
| After the auction | Someone types up the squads and posts a photo of the sheet in the group. | Each team's squad has its own public page, and players and teams get share cards made for WhatsApp. |
| Fixtures and table | A fixtures tab and a points tab, each edited by hand after every match. | Round-robin fixtures are generated, a double-booked team or ground is refused, and the table updates from each result. |
| The money | Who owes what is worked out from the sheet; payments are remembered, not recorded. | What each team owes is set when the gavel falls, collections are recorded as cash, UPI or bank, and receipts are numbered. |
Registration
- Spreadsheet + WhatsApp group
- A Google Form feeds a sheet. Someone cleans duplicates and chases missing roles by hand.
- DesiAuction
- One registration link. A player can register once per season, and roles and styles come from a fixed list. An existing Google Form's responses can be imported.
Approvals
- Spreadsheet + WhatsApp group
- A column in the sheet, updated by whoever remembers, and messages sent one by one.
- DesiAuction
- Approve, waitlist or decline each player on the registration desk, and each decision sends the player a notification.
Entry fees
- Spreadsheet + WhatsApp group
- Screenshots of UPI payments in the group, matched to names later.
- DesiAuction
- Each player's fee is marked pending, paid or waived on the desk, so the list of who still owes is always current.
Auction night
- Spreadsheet + WhatsApp group
- Bids are called out and typed into the sheet; the purse is worked out on a calculator.
- DesiAuction
- Owners bid from their phones. A bid over a team's purse, below the base price or off the increment is refused, and every screen shows the same bid.
After the auction
- Spreadsheet + WhatsApp group
- Someone types up the squads and posts a photo of the sheet in the group.
- DesiAuction
- Each team's squad has its own public page, and players and teams get share cards made for WhatsApp.
Fixtures and table
- Spreadsheet + WhatsApp group
- A fixtures tab and a points tab, each edited by hand after every match.
- DesiAuction
- Round-robin fixtures are generated, a double-booked team or ground is refused, and the table updates from each result.
The money
- Spreadsheet + WhatsApp group
- Who owes what is worked out from the sheet; payments are remembered, not recorded.
- DesiAuction
- What each team owes is set when the gavel falls, collections are recorded as cash, UPI or bank, and receipts are numbered.
When a spreadsheet and a WhatsApp group are enough
A sheet and a group are enough for a one-off friendly between a few teams whose players all know each other, with no auction and no money changing hands. The more players, teams and rupees there are, the more a single shared record matters.
Questions organizers ask
Can I bring my Google Form responses across?
Yes. Import the responses and their columns are matched for you — name, phone, role and the sport's own details, like batting style or preferred foot; each row is checked before anything is saved.
Do we still use our WhatsApp group?
Yes — for talking. The registration link, the auction's public page and each season's page share into the group in one tap, so the group points at one up-to-date record instead of being it.
Can we export our data back to a spreadsheet?
Yes. The player list and the fixture schedule can both be downloaded as CSV.
See it for your league: by sport or by kind of league, or compare with a manual auction.