Equestrian Entrepreneur Bookkeeping Strategies to Navigate Show Season With Ease
April 4, 2024
This is for the equine professionals who helps equestrians reach their competition goals; a mini-show season survival guide.
The equestrian summer show season is fast approaching, and we’re already knee-deep in tax season. Naturally, when it kicks off, I don’t hear from many equine professionals until about October—once they’ve survived show season and the inevitable turnover of partnerships that follows.
If you know you’re inevitably going to ignore your bookkeeping this show season, then let me help you make the post-show season chaos… a little less chaotic. I’m a fan of lists so here’s one of six tips to survive show season with enough of your bookkeeping in tact that you won’t be an easy target for tax agencies once you piece it together.
While reading this blog post, or anything I publish and share please note – these are suggestions from best practices, experience, and information I’ve learnt from my education and experience, mostly it comes from conversations and working with 300+ equestrian entrepreneurs in the last three years. Take what resonates and leave what doesn’t; I simply just want to see you live your horse girl dreams.
- Be buckin’ real with yourself
Seriously, though. If you think you’re going to balance a show team, lessons, boarding, camp, and all the administrative tasks that go along with that and keep some semblance of sanity in your personal life? Well, sorry to be your reality check, but you will drop balls, and that is okay. You’re not meant to juggle the whole circus by yourself. So, if you know you’re only going to have an hour each month to dedicate to bookkeeping, set yourself up. If you do manage all the balls without dropping them, my inbox is open.
2. Befriend technology in your equine business
As an aging millennial quickly approaching the big ole’ 3-0, I am beginning to understand all those requests from family members to help them with their phones and computers. Bookkeeping software exists that can automate a good portion of your tasks, including invoicing. The tasks I’d suggest streamlining or automating during show season would be recurring invoices, categorizing never-changing expenses, and payroll.
3. Put receipt folders in safe places.
… and not the kind of safe places you forget about for 5 years either. Purchase a couple of weather and horse-proof folders/bags to place in the office, the most-used truck, and your bag. Throughout the month, drop your receipts into these designated stations and round them up to put into a folder once digitized and recorded after you start breathing again.
4. Cash might be king, but he is not your friend.
You’re more likely to spend that cash at a vendor trailer than actually depositing it into your bank account. Beyond the impulsivity of cash and equestrians, cash demands good hygiene in a business. So, take it out of the equation—have clients pay through debit/credit/transfer and pay your expenses with your credit card.
I understand what I’m writing here is more than likely to elicit a response of “buck that”—I get it and the reasons you’d rebut with. However, I see the reality of the equestrian entrepreneur who purchases everything with cash, loses the receipts, and then doesn’t (and shouldn’t) record the expense, which leaves money on the table that ends up in the government’s pocket anyhow; you’re not beating the system. By removing cash, you’re improving your bookkeeping hygiene, and once it’s time to update your transactions, they are all on your bank statements and can be pulled into your bookkeeping software to sort and complete efficiently.
5. Outsource what you can.
If you don’t have the time and you do have the budget, I am obviously going to recommend working with a bookkeeper. Here’s a big piece of advice on that: you will need to set aside time to help them set up your process and system before it works well. I always recommend working with a bookkeeper before May at the latest if you’re going to. If you can’t outsource your bookkeeping, I bet you can ask your barn manager, working student, or bribe a pony-kid to digitize your receipts.
6. Give yourself grace.
Ultimately, you are one person who has to spread themselves out among human clients, equine clients, friends, family, and self while helping others reach their goals and hopefully a couple of your own too. If you drop the bookkeeping ball, it’s okay; just make sure you pick it back up and get it done by mid-October so you can start saving for taxes or lowering your taxes due with investments/expenses and see what needs to be changed for next year.
I’ve never been on the equine professional side of show season, and I likely never will be. I have been on the nearly-puking, barely-an-adult-amateur side of it, and that was busy enough. You’re doing a lot as an equine professional—you don’t have to be a fantastic bookkeeper too.
If you found this article helpful and would like to suggest other topics to cover, send me an email or message on social media.
All things horse girl dreams and money streams,
Christa Myers
