It’s Just Around the Corner . . .
It doesn’t feel like it yet while the ground’s still hard, the rugs are boxed up, and you’re still turning out naked horses, but, September is here.
In a few weeks, the clocks go back and running a yard begins to get harder. Horses will be coming in more and getting through hay faster than you budgeted for. Extra rugs, extra feed, and extra requests from owners whose timetables change as the days begin to shorten. All while the evenings get ever shorter, leaving more to do with less time.
Whatever system you’re running now is about to be tested and winter is the worst possible time to try and fix it.
The message that never made it to the yard
Many problems on a busy yard aren’t caused by carelessness, they’re caused by the messages that don’t get to the right place.
An owner catches you on their way out and asks you to leave their horse in tomorrow morning for an early hack. You’ll remember, and you also make a mental note of the alteration to the order of turnout. Except you’re half-way down the barn with a hose in one hand and bucket in the other, the farrier’s arriving in ten minutes (only two of the four horses he needs are in), and you’re not working tomorrow morning.
What happens next depends entirely on where you were standing when you were asked. Whiteboard? Text to yourself? Remember to message whoever’s on early shift?
Every yard runs on dozens of these small exchanges each week. For the most part, it works, albeit with a lot of unnecessary repetition which wastes time and apologies are needed when the messages don’t make it to the right person. This is so simple to change – make one request on the App – no need to repeat, no need to double check, no need to chase.
Who we are
LIVERYLive is a UK-built app for equine yard management, used by livery yards of every type and size across the country. We’re built around one fundamental idea: yards run better when everything lives in one place instead of being spread across WhatsApp groups, a whiteboard, a diary and a spreadsheet.
One place for every request
When an owner opens their app and submits that request – please keep him in tomorrow morning – it just takes them a few clicks (fewer than sending a text message). It lands straight on the yard’s to-do list with a time, a date and a digital trail showing who asked and when.
Nobody has to remember it, write it down or pass it on. Whoever’s doing the morning turnout opens the app and it’s there, along with everything else that needs to be done that day. The owner can see it’s been received, so they’re not messaging later to double check.
That’s the whole shift. Instructions stop depending on who happened to be standing where, and they stop being repeated three times just to be safe.
One calendar the whole yard can see
Arena bookings, clinics, yard events are all on one shared calendar rather than in separate lists only certain people can see.
Owners can book the arena from their phone and see straight away if it’s already taken, which matters far more once everyone’s competing for those floodlit hours after work.
We’ve recently rebuilt arena bookings so yards can take external bookings too, through a public listing page where riders search by postcode, filter by facility and pay on booking. An arena standing empty on a wet Tuesday afternoon is income you’re currently not collecting.
And the bit that quietly costs you money
Here’s where miscommunication leads to lost revenue. A request comes in, the task is done, and then it has to be remembered again at the end of the month when invoices go out. This often means a billing day in the office surrounded by notes, diaries and checking back through messages.
In LIVERYLive it doesn’t get missed. When a task is marked as completed, the charge goes on that horse’s bill on the day the work was carried out. Not reconstructed from memory four weeks later, not guessed at, not quietly forgotten. Owners see charges as they happen, which means far fewer awkward conversations when the invoice arrives.
This matters most in winter, when the extras multiply – rug changes, horses staying in, extra hay, feet picked out twice a day. One 30-horse yard told us they captured over £300 in extra charges in their first month with us, not by putting prices up, but by accurately billing for every extra service/product that had been requested.
The billing system can be tweaked if you want to keep a tighter rein on your cash flow – flag a specific item so it’s paid at the time of request rather than going onto the next bill. For example, hay and bedding could be paid for at the time it’s requested with all other extras on the bill at month end.
We’ve also added field mapping this year, so you can see at a glance which horse is in which field – incredibly useful when the ground starts turning and you’re rotating grazing.
Set it up now, not in November
Every yard already has a system. It’s usually a whiteboard, a group chat and a very good memory. It works, but it’s not foolproof, and if something goes wrong, it always seems harder to solve when it’s cold, dark and wet. Nothing gets lost in LiveryLive and, as long as you have an internet connection, you’ll access daily tasks, the yard calendar, arena bookings and bills on your phone or at your desk.
The usual hesitation is that you haven’t got time to set a new system up. We know – that’s why we can do it for you. We can get you started on a demo, or, send us your horses, owners and the services you charge for, and we’ll set up your yard in the App and hand it back ready to use. No evenings spent typing in livery details, no half-finished setup sitting there until you get a spare afternoon. You start using it, rather than start preparing to use it.
LIVERYLive also comes with a free six-week trial, so if you start now it covers you through the change in the weather – by the time it’s dark at four you’ll be up and running, not working it out on the hoof.
LiveryList readers get 50% off their first month after the free trial. Enter the code LIVERYLIST50 in the Discount Code field when you create your account at liverylive.com.