Bookings
Every mating under one stud booking
Two or three matings on one visit is one job, not three. Group them under a single stud booking, with the fee and the outcome on it, and keeping track of what happened gets a great deal easier.
Bookings
Two or three matings on one visit is one job, not three. Group them under a single stud booking, with the fee and the outcome on it, and keeping track of what happened gets a great deal easier.
How it works
Customer, her dog, your stud, the date and the fee.
They go under the same stud booking, not a new one.
In whelp, no result, or still waiting to hear.
So when they come back next time, you have the last one.
Why it matters
Put three matings in a calendar and you have three appointments. Come to look back and it reads as three jobs and three bills. That is not what happened, and not what you charged.
A booking counts once. Three matings never turn into three sales at the end of the year.
One line for the booking, with “3 matings, included in the fee” underneath, rather than two lines at £0.00 for the customer to query.
Her next booking sits under the same customer, so whether the repeat has been used is a glance rather than an argument.
A repeat mating is normally entered at £0 because the first fee already covers it. StudBase doesn’t decide that for you. What a follow-up costs is your call, and you type it. It just stops the zero looking like a mistake.
The grouping carries through the rest of it too. A signed stud agreement covers the whole booking rather than a single mating.
On the card
One record, and everything about that visit is on it.
On one card, in the order they happened, with the dates you did them.
On the booking, not on a mating, because that is how you charge for it.
A cancelled mating stays, with a line through it. She was booked, and it came to nothing. That is worth keeping.
In whelp, no result, or waiting. It’s the booking that took or didn’t, not a single mating.
Twelve sources to pick from, StudMatch included, so you can see which adverts are earning their keep.
Every booking this customer has had with you, on one screen, before you pick up the phone.
Where the work comes from
Every booking records how they found you, picked from a list of twelve when you take it. It takes a second. A year later the report tells you how many bookings each one actually produced.
Most people have a rough feeling about which listing site is worth the money. The feeling is usually wrong, and being wrong costs whatever the subscription costs, every month, quietly. The figures settle it: renew the ones bringing work, cancel the ones that aren’t, and put the difference into what’s already paying.
I was paying Preloved £24 a month. Months would go by without a single enquiry from it, and when one did come it rarely turned into a booking. Seeing it written down is what made me look properly. I closed the advert.
It also shows you the ones you can’t buy. Word of mouth and returning customers usually sit near the top, and that’s worth knowing before you spend anything at all.
Why it’s built this way
None of this is a guess about what breeders need. It’s the list of things I kept getting wrong on paper.
— Gavin, StudBase
Two is typical. Some handlers will allow more for an additional fee. Whatever you settle on, say it in your terms, because it is the thing most often assumed rather than agreed.
If your girl does not fall pregnant, some handlers will offer a repeat at her next season at no charge. Not everyone does. It usually comes with conditions: that she is ultrasound scanned at around 28 days, and that you let the handler know once she is past her due date. Those conditions are there so both sides know where they stand, so they need to be written down rather than understood.
It varies. I take it after the first successful mating, and I do not charge for one that is unsuccessful. Some handlers take it on the second visit once there is a bit of trust, and some will split the payment. I do not split any more: I did it once, drove two hours there and two hours back, and got no answer at the door or on the phone. I never saw the rest of it, and that is half a day and a tank of fuel on top.
Start with the booking you took this week and see how it reads back.
Start free