Question for pros in the equine industry

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Grace67

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Hope this is okay to post here, if not please delete.

I’m doing some research for a piece I’m writing for my bookkeeping blog, hope it's okay to reach out to horse pros here. My background and interest is with driving horses and showing and I’m a bookkeeping/payroll professional by trade so I thought it would be interesting to reach out to professionals in the horse industry to ask what some of their “pain” points might be with their accounting systems, related technology and day to day business tasks with their clients. Some examples might be communication with clients, scheduling, invoicing, cash flow monitoring…..something related to the business side of your service you’d like to find a solution for or an easier way to make it happen.

Thanks for any insight you might be able to provide!
Lisa
 
My experience is primarily with the sale (or purchase) of horses. I don't have clients.

I learned over the MANY years of owning and selling horses that a contract that will hold up in court is critical....and then standing by the terms of that contract. Case in point - I live in Wisconsin, sold a horse to someone in Maine who was going to personally come pick it up, making final payment at that time. My gut was telling me not to accept their check because they could not look me in the eye, but I had nothing in my contract stating a personal check was not acceptable. Yes, it bounced. After repeated attempts to contact them about payment, I finally ended up filing in small claims court (because we had a contract, it is a civil dispute, not criminal horse theft). No, I never recovered the money, but I did file the court ruling with their court system so that it was on their credit rating for 10 years. I now will NOT accept personal checks if final payment is at time of pick-up.

Also, I do not let a horse leave my property until paid in full. If a payment is more than 10 days late, I learned the hard way that you have to be tough about it. Now if late, the contract is null and void. They don't get the horse, and they don't get any money back. "It's just good business" is something to be followed whether selling to someone you have never met....or a long-time friend.
 
Jean thanks so much for your response! Very relevant business practices to have in place no matter what type of business a person might be in. A written contract is a must and good to have a legal representative give it a review too. Also some sort of payment policy in place is crucial too. Better to have policies and procedures in place from the get-go than having to learn-as-we-go.
 

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