We all use vehicles in our horse business, but we generally don’t do a good job tracking, documenting and managing their use. It is often said, ‘the tax man doesn’t know a lot about horses, but he sure knows a lot about mileage, trip logs, and vehicle personal use.

Time is a priceless commodity in any business, but particularly in a horse business – there is never enough. Many horse businesses that fail, fail because of the lack of business discipline in prioritizing their time so they have enough time to manage their business. In a horse business too many ‘things’ fall through the crack because of available time. Unfortunately, vehicles are too often one of those ‘things’. If you don’t make managing your vehicles one of your priorities it can cost you a lot of money in lost income and or unnecessary expense. A good horse business management system will organize your vehicles and make it easy for you to stay on top of their management.

If your business uses its vehicles to haul horses, it is critical that you know your vehicle’s fuel, maintenance, insurance, repair and depreciation cost per mile or kilometer so that you are pricing your hauling competitively, but still profitable. Charging what the ‘other guy’ does, does make your price equal, but not necessarily profitable or the hauling business of choice in a competitive market. Knowing your cost not only enables you to use horse hauling as a worthwhile source of cash and profit, it also allows you to price your hauling more competitively, thus giving you the opportunity to get more business than a competitor and still make money.

If you only use your vehicles within your business, knowing a vehicle’s cost is just as important. It helps you make the best decision when selecting a vehicle for doing a particular task. Knowing a vehicles cost helps you make efficient and effective use of your vehicle resource.

The following example is how a horse management system can assist you in managing the vehicles you use in your business. The management system should save your valuable time and money by:

• Documenting your vehicle’s use, purpose, destination, starting and ending mileage, and generating a trip log for management and tax purposes.

• Documenting your vehicle’s fuel consumption and calculating your fuel cost per mile or kilometer.

• Documenting your vehicle’s insurance, insurance renewal dates, and generating your insurance renewal reminders.

• Managing your vehicle’s routine maintenance schedule and generating maintenance reminders when a vehicle’s scheduled maintenance is due. Automatic reminders for regularly scheduled maintenance help minimize your use of cash and reduce your expense for unnecessary repairs due to poor maintenance.

• Documenting and tracking the scheduled maintenance preformed and its cost.

• Documenting and tracking your vehicle’s repairs and repair expenses.

• Managing your vehicle’s depreciation. If a vehicle is a depreciable asset it should automatically connect the vehicle’s balance sheet depreciation to your non-operating expense on your income statement.

• Provide intelligent reports that analyze and communicate your vehicle’s information.

Vehicle reports should include:

• Maintenance schedules and maintenance and repair expense.

• Total vehicle expense by month and year, and percentage of total business expense.

• Mileage expense by mile or kilometer, by vehicle and type of fuel.

• Trip logs including trip purpose, destination, start and end mileage, and trip expense.

• Monthly and annual vehicle repairs by supplier.

• Insurance provider, type of insurance and annual expense.

A good horse management system will manage your vehicles and report your vehicle’s use, income and expense. You cannot maximize your horse business success without a good horse business management system that assists you in all aspects of managing your horse business.

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Happy Trails, Good Management and Business Discipline Always!

Bob Valentine, Ph.D.
President
GenieCo, Inc.
Box 271924
Ft. Collins, CO 80527
970.682.2645 or 970.231.1455
bob@genieatwork.com