When you take your shoeing rig in for maintenance or repairs, you normally get a fully itemized bill. The same is true for a hospital stay, repairing the washing machine, having the phone fixed and for most of the other products and services that you need.

Since your clients are actually accustomed to getting itemized invoices, Ray Miller maintains that you need to do the same with your shoeing work. Otherwise, the Spring Green, Wis., farrier says you’re probably not charging enough.

As a result, the 41-year shoeing veteran uses the pricing schedule shown below. It’s a modification of a pricing sheet used by Livermore, Colo., farrier Dick Williams, who got the idea for developing an itemized shoeing schedule after wading through numerous doctor and health insurance bills.

Here’s What’s Expected

With a new client, Miller estimates the charges as best he can before starting to work on the horse. Once a shoeing appointment is scheduled with a new client, he sends them a pricing schedule, a sample invoice and a terms-and-conditions sheet so they fully understand how he operates his shoeing business.

“In some cases, they may cancel the shoeing appointment after they see these sheets because they don’t want to pay these hefty charges,” he says. “But I’d…