How UK livery yards invoice extras without a second spreadsheet
Tuesday, 8:40am. The farrier's van is already on the concrete. The owner is on a train. You hold Copper for twenty-five minutes, they get shod, you put them back in the field. You mean to write it down. Then the hay lorry arrives, then a late pickup, then Thursday's wormer. Month-end the invoice goes out as "DIY livery, August". The hold is not on it. The owner did not forget. You did.
That is how extras leak. The rent is the easy line. Extra hay, a farrier or vet hold, extra schooling, arena hire, late pickup, rug washing, holiday cover: those are the lines that never make it from the yard to the spreadsheet. This is a how-to for livery yard invoicing of extras. It is not legal advice. Your yard terms decide what you can charge.
What is in the package, and what is an extra
Write the split down and give it to every new livery before the first invoice. If it lives only in your head, you will lose the argument in October. Yards differ. This is the usual UK split, not a contract.
Full livery usually covers the daily pattern: muck out, turn out and bring in, a set hay and hard-feed ration, rugs on and off as listed. It does not automatically cover a farrier hold, extra nets, a school you rode, a rug wash, or covering the horse while the owner is away.
Part livery sits in the middle. Anything the owner normally does, that staff did because the owner was late or away, is an extra unless your terms say it is included.
DIY is usually the box, the field, and whatever hay or bedding is written down. Holding, extra hay, schooling, arena, late pickup, rugs, holiday cover: extras, unless you have written them in.
Extra | What to log
Extra hay / extra nets | Date, horse, number of nets
Hold for farrier or vet | Who held, horse, minutes, date
Extra schooling or exercise | Who rode, horse, date, minutes
Arena hire | Date, slot, horse or rider
Late pickup | Date, how late
Rug washing | Date, which rugs, how many
Holiday cover | Dates, which jobs
If a job is not on that list and not in the package, do not invent a fee after you have done it. Agree the rate first, or do it as a favour and leave it off.
A weekly logging habit
A second spreadsheet for extras is how the farrier hold disappears. Keep one list on the yard that staff can add to before they go home. You do not need new livery yard management software to start it. You need five fields: who did the work; which horse; what they did, in ordinary words; the date, and minutes if it was time; the agreed rate, or a pointer to the rate on the yard terms.
Do it the same day if you can. If you cannot, pick a fixed slot: Friday, fifteen minutes, walk the week against the diary, the farrier book, and the arena book. Missed holds show up there. So do extra nets you put in because the field was a bog.
WhatsApp is not a log. "Can you hold him Tuesday" is useful evidence, not a line you can invoice from. Copy the request into the list, or you will be scrolling in the dark on the 28th.
If you already keep horse health records (https://yardforge.co.uk/horse-health-records) for jabs and shoeing dates, put the hold on the same horse. The farrier visit and the hold belong together.
Keep the status board and the extras list in one place on YardForge yard management (https://yardforge.co.uk/yard-management). Core yard tools: free during alpha, no card. Yard tools are free to use while we keep building (https://yardforge.co.uk/what-else-we-are-building).
Write the invoice line so the owner recognises Tuesday
"Extras £35" starts a dispute. The owner cannot see Tuesday. They can see a lump.
Write the line the way you would say it over the stable door: Hold for farrier, Copper, Tue 12 Aug, 25 min, at the agreed hold rate; Extra hay, Copper, 8 nets across w/c 11 Aug, at the extra-net rate on the terms; Arena hire, indoor, Thu 14 Aug 17:00-18:00, Copper / Sam; Holiday cover, 18-22 Aug, morning and evening, as booked.
Put the horse's name on every line. Owners with two horses will query the wrong one. Put the date. Put the rate you already agreed, not a new one. If you charge VAT on rent, charge it the same way on extras. This post does not tell you whether you should be VAT-registered.
Send extras on the same document as the rent if that is how they already pay. A second PDF for a few nets of hay is how extras get ignored.
When to bill
With the rent for the small, repeat extras: extra hay, short holds, one arena slot, a late pickup already in the terms.
At month end, even if rent is paid in advance. Plenty of yards take rent on the 1st by standing order, then bill extras after the month has happened. That is clean if extras do not sit for six weeks. Say in the terms which month an extra belongs to: the month you did the work, not the month you remembered it.
Straight after a one-off. Holiday cover, a week of extra schooling, a clip, a set of rugs: bill when the work finishes.
Do not bill a surprise from March in September. If you find an old hold in a notebook, leave it. Charge from the week you started logging.
If rent goes by standing order and extras by transfer, say so. "Pay the extras to the same account, ref COPPER-AUG" is enough. Do not invent a new payment method because you opened an app.
Disputes
Most extras rows start because the owner does not recognise the line, or because the rate was not in the terms when they arrived.
Keep the log. If they asked on WhatsApp, keep the screenshot with the date. If they signed terms that list a hold rate, point at that paragraph. Do not write a new fee after the row. "We always charge for holding" is not a term if it was never written down.
If you forgot to agree the rate, eat the job once. Write the rate, put it on the terms, and bill it only after they have seen it. Check the week before you send, or two staff will log the same hold. If a hold was for the vet and the farrier on the same morning, say so.
A calm reply is: here is the log, here is the term, here is the date you asked. If you cannot show those three, take the line off.
Keep the board and the invoice together
You can keep monthly rent on the sheet you already have. The leak is the extras column. If the wider question is whether the whole yard still belongs in Excel, there is a separate piece on yard software and spreadsheets (https://yardforge.co.uk/blog/yard-management-software-vs-spreadsheets). This one is only the extras.
If you already pay for a yard app, stay there if extras already land against the horse. LIVERYLive is a UK yard app with billing, staff tools and arena booking, and a 6-week App Store trial. At The Yard publishes Shetland at £30 a month for up to 10 horses, up to Clydesdale at £90 a month for up to 40, with a 60-day trial. Equestrian Systems is UK riding-school and livery software and asks for a demo.
If you are still on a book or a sheet, keep the status board and the invoice in one place (https://yardforge.co.uk/yard-management). YardForge yard tools already hold a horse status board and livery invoicing as PDF invoices. Free during alpha, no card. Yard tools are free to use while we keep building (https://yardforge.co.uk/what-else-we-are-building). Log the hold when you do it, then send the bill the way you already do.
A digital management checklist (https://yardforge.co.uk/blog/livery-yard-digital-management-checklist) helps if the log is the first thing you are taking off paper. Start with extras.
