Alphamonkey

I've been managing lower league clubs for a couple of versions of FM now, and since several people seem to be struggling with debt at this level thought I might share some of the things I've found. Some of them may be obvious to most of you, and there are undoubtedly things I've missed, so feel free to contribute.

Transfers
If you have clubs bidding on or interested in your players then try renegotiating the structure of the payments. If your club is in long term financial trouble then structured fees will be more useful. Managing a semi-pro Swiss team, found that players who teams were only offering 10-15k up front could fetch in up to 100k over 24months. A couple of big fees over 24 months could secure your financial future for the next 2 years.

For players that are not worth a transfer fee, rather than releasing them try to offer them to clubs on a free transfer. If possible also try to get a sell on fee (clubs are normally willing to accept 40% or even 50% sell on clauses if they are getting a player for free). This is your safety net should it turn out you've released a potential gem. If there is sufficient interest then you may also be able to insert minimum league apps/goals clauses to further increase income.

Wages/Contracts
Take a look at your wages screen, both for first team and reserve players. If you have any players who do not feature regularly in your first but are earning high wages then try to offload them using the methods above. Setting their squad status to "not needed" will make them more willing to accept offers from lower reputation clubs. If you have first team players on high wages then try to renogiate their contracts. Players will sometimes accept lower wages than they are currently earning. If you are unable to renogiate, then assess how important the player is to your team and whether you would be able to bring in a adequate replacement for lower wages.

As a rule, only offer one year contracts to players. This means you can release them cheaply if you need to cut wages or if you find better players. If you have star players, then by all means offer them longer deals, but this should be the exception rather than the rule.

Your youth squad will generate players on 3 year £55/week youth contracts. If you untick the option where your assistant managers handles their contracts then you can offer them £55/week senior contracts, which come into effect on the players' 17th birthday. I recommend offerinf one year senior contracts to all your youth team players. If the player is promising then it means a bigger club cannot pick him up on the cheap; if you want to release the player then you will only have to pay off a one year contract rather than three.

I would also recommend heavily trimming your squad of fringe players. I usually run a squad of 16 senior players plus maybe 4 or 5 more loanees on zero wages. Just because you have been given a wage budget, does not mean you need to use it all.

Additional Income
High profile friendlies (must be home games) are a great way of generating finances. League/Cup friendly tournaments are even better as you also get gate receipts from the games not involving your team, since they are played on your ground.

A parent club is always a good idea as you get guaranteed loan players on free wages, and they will almost always accept your friendly invitations. Additionally, the club will pay you an annual fee.

Cup games against high profile opposition can be a potential windfall for lower leage clubs, but clearly cup draws are beyond your control. They are however an incentive to put out full strength sides in earlier rounds rather than resting players for league games.

Maviarab

Nice little guide, thanks for taking the time to type it up for us.

I'd even go as far to say that some of your guidelines can be common sense management even for bigger clubs.