Northstar vs Jonas Club Software (and Bubs)

Northstar and Jonas Club Software are two of the most established club management systems for private and country clubs, and a club replacing one often puts the other on its shortlist. This Northstar vs Jonas Club Software comparison sets the two side by side using each company's own public website, then shows where Bubs fits for golf and country clubs. We make Bubs, so read our section on Bubs with that in mind; the Northstar and Jonas sections describe only what each vendor says about itself.

Northstar vs Jonas at a glance

Both vendors offer an integrated suite that covers the tee sheet, point of sale, dining, events, member billing, accounting and a branded member app. Both serve several kinds of clubs, not only golf clubs. The differences are in how each describes its architecture, its hosting and the extra modules around the core.

Golf operations

Northstar offers a web-based tee sheet with rules and rates, shotguns, crossovers, multi-course support and automated member communications. Its lottery places individual foursomes and linked groups by the club's rules. Golf Events handles tournament registration through the member app and website, and an Activities module books lessons and practice bays.

Jonas offers The Sheet, with configurable restrictions, shotguns and crossovers, and an automated point-based lottery. Its tee time management application applies playing-time and guest rules, adds green and cart fees to the point of sale, runs team and singles match play with online brackets, and can email members reminders about missing scores. The Sheet lists integrations with Golf Genius and others.

Food, beverage and point of sale

Northstar lists an F&B POS, a Tableside POS, tabletop ordering, a kitchen display system that tracks pre-fire and fire stages, dining reservations with buddy lists, and Grab N Go ordering for locker rooms, halfway houses, pools and on-course delivery.

Jonas lists a dining, retail and event POS on stationary terminals, a mobile POS and a self-serve kiosk; dining reservations; a kitchen display system built with Logic Controls; and online ordering for pickup, curbside and on-premise delivery, including orders placed during a round. Jonas says its Mobile POS keeps working when the Wi-Fi or data connection drops.

Accounting, billing and payroll

Northstar lists accounts receivable that handles split receivables, member minimums and finance charges; accounts payable including reciprocal charges to member accounts; a general ledger with budgeting; an Excel-like Financial Report Designer; and timekeeping.

Jonas lists accounts payable, member accounts receivable with emailed statements, a general ledger with budgets and forecasts, online statements that show monthly minimums, and online payments. It also offers an in-house payroll application and an outsourced payroll and HR service, ClubPay.

Member app and engagement

Northstar's ClubNow 3.0 app carries club branding and offers reservations, statements, payments, digital access cards, self check-in, member-to-member messaging and on-course ordering. Northstar also lists a member website, CRM, campaigns, access control and Happometer for member feedback.

Jonas's ClubHouse Online app is branded to the club and offers tee times, dining, events, statements, a member roster and food ordering to the course, plus access control with partners, member arrival alerts and an AI concierge it labels as beta.

Northstar vs Jonas: which suits which club?

On their own descriptions, Northstar will appeal to a club that wants one platform across golf and a wider set of amenities — marina, spa, hotel, security or a residential community — with a single database and a customer advocacy model. Jonas will appeal to a club that values a long track record, a very large application catalog, payroll in the same family of products, and the choice between managed cloud hosting and its own server. Both are serious, established products. The better fit depends on which modules your club actually uses and how each vendor's implementation team works with yours.

Where Bubs fits

Bubs is all-in-one club management software built only for private golf and country clubs. It covers the same core as both incumbents, with a few deliberate differences:

• One append-only ledger. Every module writes to one ledger that the member statement, the F&B minimum and the club general ledger all read. The chart is aligned with the Uniform System of Financial Reporting for Clubs, and clubs can keep their accounting package with a mapped journal export per closed period.
• Offline-first registers. Every register — pro shop, grill, bar, halfway house — keeps working without a connection for everything except card payments and reconciles on reconnect. See the offline POS guide.
• Scoring and handicaps built in. Tournaments and live scoring, including flighted member-guest round robins, leagues, match play brackets and side games, run beside the tee sheet. Bubs is an official USGA partner: Handicap Index® values, Course Rating™ and Slope Rating® come from the USGA, and members post scores to the USGA from the app.
• A social member app. The white-label member app is published under the club's own name. Members follow their regulars and hear when they book, and can combine two twosomes into a foursome when both groups agree.
• On-course ordering on the member account. Members order from the hole they're on, to the cart or ready at the turn, and the charge posts as it's rung. See on-course ordering.
• Reversible migration. Staged imports from your current system, and a full data export at any time. See switching to Bubs.

What Bubs does not offer: marina, hotel, spa or community-association modules, or caddie scheduling.

Northstar, Jonas and Bubs, side by side

Entries for Northstar and Jonas reflect their public websites as of the date below. "Not listed publicly" means we did not find it on the pages we read; it does not mean the vendor lacks it.

How to choose between Northstar, Jonas and Bubs

Start with your club's requirements, not the vendors' feature lists. Our club software RFP template gives you the questions and the evaluation scorecard keeps the committee scoring the same way. In every demo, ask to see a member charge move from the register to the statement and the ledger, a register working with the network off, your hardest tee sheet rule, and a full export of your data.

Is Northstar or Jonas cloud-based?

Northstar's FAQ says it is fully cloud-based. Jonas offers Jonas Cloud, a managed environment on Microsoft Azure, and describes it as an alternative to a club's own server. Bubs is cloud software with offline-capable registers.

Which has more clubs, Northstar or Jonas?

Each vendor publishes its own figure: Northstar says it serves more than 1,500 clubs and communities, and Jonas says more than 2,300 clubs in 20 countries. Those are self-reported numbers that count different kinds of customers, so they are a poor basis for a decision.

Sources

Checked September 27, 2026.

• Northstar home page: https://www.globalnorthstar.com/
• About Northstar: https://www.globalnorthstar.com/about-us
• Northstar FAQs: https://www.globalnorthstar.com/faqs
• Northstar Golf: https://www.globalnorthstar.com/solutions/optimize-operations/golf
• Northstar Food & Beverage: https://www.globalnorthstar.com/solutions/optimize-operations/food-beverage
• Northstar Club Accounting Software: https://www.globalnorthstar.com/solutions/optimize-operations/accounting
• Northstar ClubNow member app: https://www.globalnorthstar.com/solutions/engage-members/member-app
• Northstar Membership: https://www.globalnorthstar.com/solutions/optimize-operations/membership
• Jonas Club Software home page: https://www.jonasclub.com/
• About Jonas Club Software: https://www.jonasclub.com/about/
• Jonas The Sheet: https://www.jonasclub.com/the-sheet/
• Jonas Tee Time Management: https://www.jonasclub.com/jonas-tee-time-management/
• Jonas Point of Sale: https://www.jonasclub.com/point-of-sale/
• Jonas Kitchen Display Systems: https://www.jonasclub.com/kitchen-display-systems/
• Jonas Online Ordering: https://www.jonasclub.com/online-ordering/
• Jonas Club Accounting: https://www.jonasclub.com/club-accounting/
• Jonas Payroll: https://www.jonasclub.com/payroll/
• Jonas ClubHouse Online Mobile App: https://www.jonasclub.com/clubhouse-online-mobile-app/
• Jonas Cloud: https://www.jonasclub.com/cloud-hosting/
• Jonas Marina Management: https://www.jonasclub.com/marina-management/
• Jonas Hotel Management: https://www.jonasclub.com/hotel-management/

Northstar is a trademark of its owner, and Jonas Club Software is a trademark of its owner. Bubs is not affiliated with Northstar Technologies Inc or Jonas Club Software. Product details come from public sources as of the date above and may change — confirm current capabilities with the vendor.