I had the old one and didn't like it very much at all. I went with the English software, forget the name, it was much nicer.
I use quickbooks premier for invoicing and book keeping and google calendar to schedule. I tried a few of the trials. I spoke with a professional bookkeeper and they convinced me to go with quickbooks premier. It takes a little setup time for quickbooks. You have to make items and give them a code and a price. For example, lets say you shoe a horse all the way around in steel. Your code might be 4SS. When you go to invoice that person in the item line type 4ss and then the description the customer sees on the invoice would be "Shod all the way around with steel shoes" or whatever you want the description to say. Then enter the quantity if it is anything other than 1, and the price you assigned the item will automatically be tabulated. Once you have that down you can set price levels for your customers if they differ. You can quickly duplicate previous invoices so you don't have to type a new invoice everytime you do the same work. Keeps track of taxes. If you work in multiple states, it keeps track of how much you owe to each state. You can generate reports to see where you are most profitable and where you may need to improve , print out yearly summaries for customers that need it, There are many other features but that is enough for 1 post Google calendar is pretty good for scheduling. Just open the calendar, click a time slot and enter the information you desire. Example FLUFFY PUFF @ River Farm. Then select the repeat funtion and set it at whatever interval you want. So most of my customers are set to repeat every 5 weeks. If you have to move things around just open the appointment enter the new time and save changes and it will change all subsequent appointments based on your update. If you are really motivated you can color code your appointments. So I started color coding them by area. That way I can do a better job of bunching stops together. Google Calendar emails you reminders. I set my email filter so that all calendar appointments go to a calendar folder. At the end of the day I open my calendar folder and delete the reminders of the horses I did. If I didn't shoe a horse for some reason I don't delete the email reminder, and it serves as a to-do list of horses that are past due.
I spent a LONG time working on an an efficient system. Still trying to make it better. The Quickbooks and codes stuff is a page out of Pethick's book. If you talk to most guys in that NJ area they would know what you meant if you said RFS FSP EPCS PS TH.
Eric knows the codes. He was the first one to teach me the codes. Here is what my sheet looks like for every horse I do, I quickly fill in the information and when I get home at night I enter it in quickbooks, print my invoices and stick them in the mail. Then I enter the date in the farrier charts that most of us are familiar with, That way I can see the horses at a glance. Horse ________________________________________________________________ Account ________________________________________________________________ Date _______________________ Next Due ___________________________ TF NFS RFS NFA RFA D&T PS B DI FSP W IM HP ______________________ TH NHS RHS NHA RHA D&T PS B DI FSP W IM HP ____________________ Tack-on N R Other _____________________________________________
Quick explanation. Horse is shod up front with frog support pads Equipack and pin studs, and trimmed behind. Enter all the info for the horse barn date etc. Then on the first line circle RFS (reset front steel) circle FSP (frog support pads) and write the number 2 above it, circle PS (pin studs) and write the number 4 above it, circle IM (impression material) or write in the blank EPCS for equipack and write the number 2 above it In the next line simply circle TH (trim Hinds)
I use Google calendar or everything . I never use it to email myself . But I have it email my clients. It saves time
