A spreadsheet full of exceptions
Your livery price list is simple on paper: DIY, assisted DIY, part and full, plus grass livery in summer and a couple of retired horses on a special rate. The billing is not simple at all. One horse moved from DIY to part livery on the twelfth when its owner started a new job. Another went out on grass livery at the start of May but came back in for a week after a wet spell. A new horse arrived on the nineteenth, and one left for a competition yard at the end of the second week.
Each of those is a note in the margin of your billing spreadsheet, and each one needs a calculation. Do you charge by days, by weeks or by half months? What about the week it was away at a clinic? Last year you did it one way, this year someone else in the office did it another.
Why part months cause so much trouble
Most yards keep their billing in a spreadsheet with one row per horse and one monthly figure. That works when nothing changes. It struggles as soon as a horse's package, dates or status change within a month, because the spreadsheet holds the result of a calculation, not the facts behind it.
- Package changes are agreed verbally and recorded later, if at all.
- The effective date is not written down, so the calculation is guessed.
- Your rules for part months are not written down either, so they vary.
- Seasonal moves to and from grass livery repeat every year but are handled from scratch.
- Notice periods in your livery agreement may affect the final month, and nobody checks them.
The information needed to bill correctly exists. It is just scattered across conversations and memory.
Errors in both directions
Part month mistakes go both ways. Undercharging costs the yard directly. Overcharging costs trust, and liveries who find an error in their favour rarely mention it while those who find one against them always do. Inconsistency between liveries is noticed quickly on a yard where people talk.
Time is the other cost. Every package change adds a small calculation, a check and sometimes a conversation. In spring and autumn, when many horses change arrangements at once, month end becomes a long job, and the yard owner is the only one who knows how it should be done.
Billing built on dated changes and your own rules
We build a livery register that records the facts, then works out the bill from them.
- Each horse has a livery history: package, start date, end date, and any periods away. Changes are recorded with an effective date when they are agreed.
- Your price list holds each package and rate, including seasonal ones like grass livery.
- Your part month rules are set once: by the day, by the week, a minimum charge, whatever your agreement says. Your own agreement or adviser decides what those rules should be; the system applies them the same way every time.
- At month end, each horse's charge is calculated from its history and your rules, with a clear line on the invoice showing the dates and packages that applied.
- Anything unusual, such as a horse away for part of the month, is flagged for you to confirm before invoices go out.
- Invoices are created in Xero, QuickBooks or Sage, or exported in the layout you already use.
| Situation | Handled today | Handled by the register |
|---|---|---|
| DIY to part livery on the 12th | Worked out by hand | Split at the effective date automatically |
| New horse arrives mid-month | Remembered at month end | Starts from its arrival date |
| Seasonal grass livery | Set up again each year | Scheduled change with dates |
| Horse leaves | Final bill calculated manually | Final bill from the leaving date |
| Livery queries a figure | Recalculate from memory | Invoice shows dates and rates used |
The register also becomes the one place to see who is on which package today, which helps when planning staff time for full and part liveries.
Month end without the margin notes
When a livery asks to switch package, you record the change and its date in a minute. At month end, the invoice for that horse shows two lines: DIY from the first to the eleventh, part livery from the twelfth. Nobody has to explain the arithmetic, because it is on the page.
Seasonal changes are set up in advance. When grass livery ends in the autumn, the horses coming back in are already scheduled. Anyone in the office can run month end, because the rules live in the system rather than in one person's head.
Is part month billing catching you out?
- Your billing spreadsheet has notes in the margin every month.
- Different people have calculated part months in different ways.
- Package change dates are not written down when agreed.
- Seasonal changes cause a spike of billing work twice a year.
- Liveries have queried how a part month charge was worked out.