Arrival day and half the paperwork
A new livery's horse is arriving on Saturday. You sent the livery agreement by email last week. She printed it, signed it and is going to bring it. She has sent a photo of one page of the passport, which is blurred. The vaccination record is "in the car somewhere". Insurance is "being sorted". The emergency contact is her mobile, which is the same number you already have.
The horsebox arrives, the horse is unloaded and settled, and in the excitement nobody checks the paperwork. Two months later a vet visit prompts the question of when the flu vaccination was last done, and nobody on the yard knows.
Why paperwork is always incomplete
Most yards know what they want from a new livery. The trouble is the collection method: a list in an email, followed by texts, followed by a conversation on the yard, with nobody tracking which items have arrived.
- Documents arrive by email, text, WhatsApp and paper, so they end up in different places.
- Photos of passports and vaccination pages are often unreadable.
- The livery agreement is signed on paper and filed, or not.
- There is no checklist per horse, so gaps are only noticed when something is needed.
- Details change later, such as a new insurance policy or phone number, and the records are not updated.
When the missing record is the one you need
Missing paperwork rarely matters until it matters a lot. The emergency contact is needed at night. The passport details are needed when the vet visits or when a horse has to leave the yard in a hurry. The vaccination record is needed when a visiting instructor, a show or the yard's own rules ask for it.
It also costs time. Chasing documents by text across several weeks is a slow job, and it falls to whoever runs the yard office, which on most yards is the owner in the evening. And an unsigned agreement leaves both sides unsure what was agreed about notice, extras and responsibilities.
An onboarding flow that collects it all once
We build a simple onboarding process that a new livery completes on their phone before arrival.
- When you accept a new livery, they receive a link to their onboarding page for that horse.
- The livery agreement is shown in full and signed electronically, with the signed copy stored against the horse and emailed to both sides.
- They enter owner details, emergency contacts, the horse's name, passport number and microchip details, and upload clear photos of the relevant passport pages. The upload checks the image is readable before accepting it.
- They record the dates and details the yard asks for, such as vaccination dates and insurance details, and upload supporting documents.
- A checklist shows you, per horse, what has arrived and what is missing. Reminders go out automatically for missing items.
- Once the horse is on the yard, records with an expiry or due date, such as insurance renewal or the next vaccination date that the owner has recorded, trigger a reminder to the owner to update them.
| Item | Collected by | Stored as |
|---|---|---|
| Livery agreement | E-signature in the flow | Signed PDF, dated |
| Owner and emergency contacts | Form fields | Contact record for the horse |
| Passport details | Form plus photo upload | Number, microchip and images |
| Vaccination record | Dates plus photo upload | Dates with reminders |
| Insurance | Policy details and renewal date | Record with renewal reminder |
What your yard requires before a horse arrives, and what it does if something is missing, is your policy. The system only makes it easy to collect and easy to see.
Arrival day with everything in place
By the time the horsebox pulls in, you have opened the horse's record and seen a complete checklist. Staff can find the emergency contact on the tack room tablet at 11pm without ringing you. When the vet or farrier asks a question about the horse's records, the answer is a few taps away.
When an owner changes their insurance or mobile number, they update it themselves through the same link. The yard's records stay current without anyone chasing.
Signs your new livery paperwork has gaps
- You chase new liveries for documents by text for weeks.
- Some liveries have never returned a signed agreement.
- You could not find every horse's emergency contact quickly at night.
- Passport or vaccination photos on file are unreadable.
- Records are rarely updated after a horse arrives.