Audience: Riding school owners, equestrian centre managers and solo instructors
Overview
Riding School Management is Horsify's booking and day-to-day operations toolkit for riding schools, equestrian centres and independent coaches. It gives you an appointment book for lessons and facility hire, online booking through your own club site, instructor profiles and availability, school horse records with workload tracking, client profiles, lesson packages, gift vouchers, e-signature waivers, lesson enquiries and student progress tracking, all in one place.
This article is the map of the whole feature set. Each section tells you where a tool lives, what it does, and which detailed guide to read next.
Subscription
Two plans include the riding school tools:
| Plan | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Instructor | $15/month | A coach teaching on their own: one instructor profile (you), lesson bookings, clients, availability, horses, facilities, waivers, packages, gift vouchers, student progress, payments, email broadcasts to your clients and your own booking page. |
| Riding School | $39/month | A school with a team: everything in Instructor, plus unlimited instructors, the Booking Hours page for school-horse bookings, and staff rosters. Includes all Premium features (email marketing, member management and the rest). |
Most of the toolkit, school horses, facilities, waivers, lesson packages, gift vouchers and student progress, is on both plans. The practical question is whether you teach on your own or with a team.
Both are standalone plans (you don't need a Basic or Premium subscription first), both come with a 60-day free trial, and both set up your riding school page for you when you subscribe. Online payments from clients cost 2.5% + 30c per transaction, all-in (Stripe's card processing included), or the Riding School plan can connect your own Stripe account and pay Horsify nothing per transaction. Manage your plan under Finances → Subscription in the organiser menu.
Club Site Premium ($59/month plus a one-off setup fee) also includes the riding school tools, alongside a full club website. The $10 Club Site plan does not.
On the Instructor plan the same pages appear with first-person labels (Your Bookings, Your Clients, Your Profile, Your Horses, Where You Teach for Facilities, Your Waivers), and Booking Hours and Staff Roster are hidden. See Instructor Tier - Solo Instructor Guide for the differences.
Where to find everything
On horsify.com.au, the organiser menu runs down the left of every organiser page. Under its Riding School heading (or the name you've set as your Name in the menu bar) it has one row per area, in order: Bookings, Clients, Instructors, Staff Roster, School Horses, Facilities and Programs & Packages. The other pages of an area are tabs in the bar along the top of the page: Enquiries, Waitlist, Progress and Waivers beside Clients, Booking Hours beside Instructors, the Day Sheet beside Horses under School Horses, and Programs, Lesson Types, Packages and Gift Vouchers under Programs & Packages. The curriculum opens from Progress, and your riding school page settings are under Settings → Riding School. The arrows at the top of the menu fold it back to icons and open it out again. On a phone, tap the small tab on the right edge of the screen: the phone menu carries the same items.
On your own club site, the same rows sit directly under Organiser (no submenu), alongside Dashboard, Manage Site, Analytics, Club Site & Theme, Messages and Settings.
The Organiser Dashboard (Dashboard at the top of the organiser menu) has three views, chosen in the bar along the top: Today (what needs you, today's lessons, who is on and this week in numbers), Bookings (the next 7 days day by day, with what is owing and any cancellation requests) and Events. See Your Organiser Dashboard for each view.
Instructors who have a Horsify account also get My day in their profile menu (see Instructors below).
Menu not showing? The Riding School menu appears once your organisation has a Riding School or Instructor subscription, as long as Lessons or Facility hire is switched on under What you offer. Clubs on another plan that have riding school features added must also bring their riding school page online (the Your riding school page card under Settings) before the menu appears.
Help while you work
Every riding school page has a ? beside its title in the bar along the top of the page (on Bookings, beside New booking). It opens the help article for that page in a new tab, so you don't have to come looking for it. On the Bookings page it opens this article, on Booking Hours it opens Setting Your Riding School Booking Hours, and so on.
Getting set up: Riding School Page Settings
Settings → Riding School (the Riding school settings page; choose Settings in the organiser menu, then the Riding School tab, which carries your own name for the menu if you've set one) is where you manage your public riding school presence and define what you sell. Its sections, in order:
- Finish setting up: a checklist, shown until it's done or dismissed, to choose your site's look, add your instructors, add the lessons you run, take payments online, and point your Google Business Profile at your Horsify site.
- Your page and booking link: the Your riding school page card shows your public page's state (Live, Draft, Not set up or Offline) with its address and actions such as Publish page. If you don't yet have a club site, its Enable Riding School Site button sets one up for you. Take bookings offline (under More options) turns the public pages off after a confirmation; your page content, instructors, lesson types and bookings are kept and you can bring bookings back online at any time.
- What you offer: switch Lessons and Facility hire on or off. Each one adds an option to your Book now page and its screens to your organiser menu.
- Booking a lesson: who chooses the instructor, how far ahead riders must book, and whether Riders can move their own lessons (and until how close to the lesson).
- Lesson pricing: a lesson's price comes from the lesson type (one flat price) or from each instructor's own rate on the Instructors page (the default). Charge extra for a school horse adds an hourly charge as its own line on the booking. Charge a lesson's balance (hours before the lesson) sets when the rest of a deposit lesson is charged to the client's card (0 to 336 hours; 0 charges it when the lesson starts).
- Lesson types: the menu of what you offer, with name, description, lesson duration and the time it blocks in the diary, price, whether it allows group bookings and the maximum participants, and whether it's active. Every booking is made against a lesson type, so set these up first. Changes here save as you make them. The same list is also on its own page, Programs & Packages → Lesson Types.
- Facility hire: the deposit hirers pay (none, a percentage or a fixed amount) and when the balance is due.
- Website and menu: your website's address, Show a Book now button and Show an Our instructors link in your site's menu bar, the Name in the menu bar (blank uses your organisation name), your Address in the Horsify directory (horsify.com.au/riding-school/...), and booking links for the buttons on a website of your own.
- Moving from another booking system: a Paid elsewhere until date, only while your clients still pay in your old system.
The landing page's own content (hero, text, which blocks appear) is built in the club site page builder using the standard content blocks; the settings page tells you which page slug to edit. See Riding School Setup Guide (End to End) for a start-to-finish walkthrough.
Bookings: the appointment book
Riding School → Bookings is your diary for lessons and facility hire.
- Calendar (the default) shows every booking across instructors. The bar along the top holds the date arrows, Today, a Day, Week and Month switch, Instructors or Facilities for one column per instructor or per facility, Filters (instructor, status, and colour by status or by instructor), the colour Key and New booking. The ⋯ menu holds Block out time, the other views (Work week, Timeline day, Timeline week), List view and Refresh. On a phone the same controls sit in two short rows above the diary, with Month in the ⋯ menu. Use Block out time to close the whole school for a period (a clinic, a public holiday). Blocked time is hidden from the client booking pages and shown to your team as a dashed diary block. Click a booking to Confirm, Complete, Cancel, refund a payment (see Refunds below) or open its details.
- List (⋯ menu → List view) shows bookings for a date range (today plus seven days by default) with a status filter, and per-row actions: view, Confirm a pending booking, Approve or Reject a client's cancellation request (approving cancels the lesson but refunds nothing: if the client paid, make the refund from the booking's card or from Payments, see Refunds below), Mark as Paid (amount, method (Cash, Bank Transfer, Cheque, EFTPOS, Other), date and notes), Edit and Cancel (with a reason).
- New booking opens the lesson booking form. The arrow beside it offers Next available (start on the earliest free slot), Facility hire (when facility hire is switched on) and Export bookings.
- Cancellation requests waiting for you show as a red number on the corner of New booking. Click it to see each request with View, Decline and Approve. The school's bookings email address is also emailed when a client asks to cancel. The same number also counts clients whose emails aren't arriving (see Clients below).
A note for the day. In Day view a small note box sits above the instructor columns, for anything the office wants the team to see that day ("Farrier 10am, Biscuit and Rosie off until he's done", "Indoor closed 12 to 2"). Each note belongs to one date: move to another day and you see that day's note, or an empty box. The note saves itself a moment after you stop typing and when you click away; if a save fails you're told and your text stays in the box. Clear the box to remove the note. A note can be up to 2,000 characters. Staff with the Bookings area at Manage can write in it; at View they can read it. It isn't shown in Week or Month view, or on an instructor's My day. If two people change the same day's note at once, the last one saved is kept.
Booking a lesson for a client: choose the client (or Add New Client on the spot), the instructor (or leave the instructor to be assigned later), the lesson type, which sets the duration and price, then pick from the instructor's Available Times, or tick Manually create lesson (overrides validation) to enter any date and time. Optionally choose the arena, a school horse (or Client using own horse), the maximum participants for a group lesson, client-visible and staff-only notes, pay from a client's lesson package, tick Generate Payment Link to email a secure Stripe payment link, and make the booking recurring (weekly or fortnightly, up to 52 occurrences, choosing what to do when a time isn't free). If the client has no signed waiver, one is emailed to them automatically when the booking is created.
Booking details show the who/what/when, group participants, add-ons, notes, the payment position (price, paid, owing, and a Send Payment Reminder button), reminder history, and any cancellation request awaiting your decision.
Booking statuses are Pending, Confirmed, Checked In, Completed, Cancelled, No Show, Waitlisted and Pending Cancellation. Bookings made online with an instructor lesson, or paid online, start as Pending until you (or the instructor) confirm them; clients are told they'll get an email once confirmed. When a client cancels a confirmed booking themselves it becomes Pending Cancellation for you to approve or reject.
If a lesson is marked Completed by mistake, press Undo complete on its card in the appointment book or on the booking page. On a group lesson card it puts back every rider who was completed. The lesson goes back to Confirmed with the same time, horse and package credit, and any prep tasks closed when it was completed are reopened. The client isn't sent a confirmation again. Undo complete is for the office only: instructors can't use it from My Day.
A lesson Cancelled or marked No Show by mistake can be brought back too. Press Reinstate lesson (or Undo no show) on the booking page, on its card in the appointment book or on its row in the List. The lesson goes back to Confirmed with its notes, horse and price. If it was paid from a lesson package, the credit the cancellation gave back is taken again; if the block has no lessons left, the lesson comes back owing. For a cancelled lesson still to come you can tick Tell the client the lesson is on again (email). If the coach or arena has been booked since, you're told and can still choose Reinstate anyway. A cancelled facility hire, and a lesson that was refunded, can't be reinstated: book it again instead.
Online booking for clients
▶ Watch: Booking a riding lesson (1:03)
▶ Watch: Checking your upcoming lesson (1:10)
With the landing page enabled, clients book from your Book Now page, which asks What would you like to book? and offers, as you have them: Lessons (choose an instructor), Packages (buy a block of lessons outright), Term programs & holiday workshops (when you run programs), Programs & events (your upcoming events; called Clinics & events when you also run programs), Trail & horse rides (choose a school horse first; the instructor is assigned by you later) and Facility hire (choose a facility). A row only appears when there is something in it. Each booking flow is a short wizard (lesson type, date and time, contact details) that adds the booking to the cart, and the client pays at checkout. Visitors who aren't signed in are asked to sign in or create an account at the details step, then carry on where they left off. Deposits or full-payment-upfront rules come from the instructor's lesson rates. If online booking isn't set up yet, the page points visitors to the lesson enquiry form instead.
Signed-in clients see their bookings under My Lessons (profile menu → My lessons), with Upcoming, Past, Cancelled and Packages tabs. From there they can open the details, request a cancellation, or Book again from a past lesson. If you turn on Riders can move their own lessons (Settings → Riding School → Booking a lesson), they can also Reschedule an upcoming lesson to another available time, same lesson and coach, with your booking rules applied, up to the cut-off you choose; inside the cut-off they're asked to contact you instead. Without the setting they see no Reschedule button.
If a lesson is owing and nothing has been paid on it yet (a lesson you booked from the office, say), My Lessons and the lesson's details page show a Pay $X button, or Pay deposit $X when the instructor's lesson rate takes a deposit. It opens a card checkout, and the payment is recorded against the lesson. The button needs your club to take card payments through a connected Stripe account. It doesn't appear on a lesson that is already part-paid, on the waitlist, or part of a program or package.
Which times a client is offered depends on which flow they use: see Setting Your Riding School Booking Hours for the three separate schedules (booking hours for horse-first bookings, instructor availability for lessons, facility availability for hire).
Instructors
Riding School → Instructors lists your teaching staff with their employment type, commission and Active status; Add Instructor creates a profile.
- Profile: name, email, phone, biography (shown publicly), photo, employment type (Full Time, Part Time, Casual, Contractor), commission %, Active, Bookable Online, display order and calendar colour.
- Send Horsify sign-up invite (on by default when adding): the instructor gets a sign-up link, or is linked automatically if they already have a Horsify account. This is what unlocks My day for them.
- Use the club's booking hours as their availability (when adding): copies your Booking Hours into their weekly schedule as a starting point. An instructor with no availability cannot be booked, so either tick this or set their hours next.
- Availability: on the instructor's detail page: a Calendar View where you drag to create weekly or one-off available slots, block out time, or Block Dates for holidays and leave, and a Time off and dates list of what has been blocked or set for one day. The usual week is set on the Weekly hours tab, under each venue the instructor teaches at. Slots can be limited to a venue or facility.
- Qualifications: name, issuing organisation, certificate number, date obtained, expiry and notes; the public instructor listing shows current qualifications.
- Lesson Rates: the price (inc. GST) for each lesson type, with optional Requires Deposit (percentage or fixed) or Requires Full Payment Upfront.
My day (profile menu → My day) gives each instructor their own view, built for a phone at the arena: the Day (today's lessons with check in, no show, complete, a lesson note and horse allocation), Everyone (the whole school's day, for staff allowed to see it), the Week (their roster shifts and timesheets, if they're on the roster), a Calendar of just their lessons with a Calendar Feed, a private link to subscribe in Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or Outlook, which can be regenerated or revoked, and their Availability editor. Confirming, moving and cancelling lessons stay with the office. (Until September 2026 this was the Instructor Dashboard; its old address still works.)
See Instructor Management System and Syncing Your Instructor Calendar to Apple Calendar.
School Horses
Riding School → School Horses holds the horses used for lessons.
Each horse card shows its status, whether it's available, any current injury, this week's workload against its limits, when farrier, worming, dental and vet care are next due, and its suitability. Add Horse / Edit records:
- Horse Information: stable name, sex, date of birth, breed, colour and photo.
- Suitability & Restrictions: Suitable For Level (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, All Levels), minimum and maximum rider age, maximum rider weight, and which lesson types the horse may be used for.
- Workload Management: Max Hours Per Day and Max Hours Per Week; the horse drops out of online availability once it would exceed them.
- Notes & Care Instructions: temperament, handling notes, feeding notes, and a public Horse Description (about 300 words) shown on your site.
- Availability: Status (Active, Retired, Spelling, Inactive, In Training), Available for Lessons, Bookable Online and an unavailability reason. A horse can be booked online only when it is Active, Available for Lessons and Bookable Online.
The horse's detail page adds vaccination records, maintenance reminders and its feed plan. Delete removes a horse permanently if it has never been booked; a horse with any bookings is set to Inactive and made unavailable instead, so your history stays intact. The confirmation tells you which will happen.
Facilities and facility hire
Riding School → Facilities shows each bookable facility on your venue with three tabs: Availability Settings (weekly hours and blocked dates), Rate Cards (hourly, half-day and full-day prices, with optional day, time-of-day and seasonal conditions, and Add this rate to lessons held here when each rider in a lesson there should also pay the hourly rate; new cards start with it off) and a read-only Booking Calendar. Clients hire facilities online by the hour, half day or full day, and you can book on their behalf from the arrow beside New booking on the Bookings page (Facility hire).
See Facilities and Facility Hire for the full guide, and Venue Facilities for adding facilities to your venue.
Booking Hours
Riding School → Instructors → Booking Hours sets the weekly window for online bookings where the client doesn't name a coach: the horse-first flow, and lessons booked without choosing an instructor if you have that turned on. A lesson booked with a named instructor follows that instructor's own availability instead, and facility hire follows the facility's. Until you save this page, those bookings default to 7:00 AM – 6:00 PM every day.
See Setting Your Riding School Booking Hours.
Clients
Riding School → Clients is your list of the people who take lessons.
- Search by name, email or phone; filter All, Active, Inactive or Pending Waiver; switch between cards and a table; and Export CSV of the filtered list (the CSV leaves out health details).
- Each client has riding details (experience level, preferred lesson type, weight, height, medical conditions, dietary requirements, special needs), guardians and emergency contacts, and a Horsify account link once they've accepted an invitation. To record health details you tick that the client (or, for a child, their parent or guardian) has agreed to this health information being recorded.
- Emails not arriving: when emails to a client bounce, the Clients page shows "Emails to 1 client aren't arriving" (or the number of clients) with a Review button, and the client's card shows a warning with Correct the email and The address is right.
- Per-client actions: Add alert (a Warning or Info banner your team sees), Waiver history (including Send waiver request), Lesson packages (sell and track), view/edit details and edit contact details. Contact details are locked once the client manages their own Horsify account.
- New clients are created from the booking forms (Add New Client); giving an email address sends them an invitation (valid 30 days) to create their Horsify account for online booking. Clients who book online are added automatically.
See Client Management.
Lesson Packages
Riding School → Programs & Packages → Packages sells blocks of lessons at a set price, for example a 10-lesson group block.
Create a package with a name, description and lesson type, then one or more block sizes, each with its own number of lessons, total price, validity in days and whether that size is on sale online. The page shows the per-lesson price for each. Packages sell two ways: online, where the client buys through your Book Now page or riding school page and pays on your own Stripe account (credits appear once the payment lands), and at the front desk from the Clients page (Lesson packages → Sell a package → Record sale), which adds the credits immediately while you collect payment however the client is paying. The client's remaining credits ("x of y left") and expiry are shown there, and when booking a lesson (yourself or the client online) you can pay with the lesson package, which uses one credit and takes no payment. Cancelling a package-paid lesson returns the credit. If a block shows the wrong number of lessons left (for example one carried over from your old system), use the pencil (Correct the lessons left) beside it in the client's Lesson packages; it can't go above the block's size less the lessons already booked from it. Deactivate a package to stop selling it; blocks already sold keep working.
See Lesson Packages for the full walkthrough, including validity periods, the lesson-type rule, what editing a package does (and doesn't do) to blocks already sold, and troubleshooting.
Gift Vouchers
Riding School → Programs & Packages → Gift Vouchers issues and tracks vouchers.
Issue Voucher takes a value and validity in days, optional recipient and purchaser names and emails, and a message; Horsify generates a unique code. Filter by Active, Fully redeemed, Expired or Cancelled, see the remaining balance on each, and Cancel a voucher that's still active. Vouchers can't yet be bought by clients online or entered at checkout, so redeem them by hand: apply the value when you take payment (for example via Mark as Paid) and keep the voucher list up to date.
Waivers
Riding School → Clients → Waivers manages your waiver templates.
Create a template with a name, description, type (General Liability, Photo Release, Medical Consent, Equipment Use, Other), the waiver text, and whether it requires annual renewal and a guardian signature for minors. An active template is emailed automatically to a client without a signed waiver when you create their booking, and you can send it any time from the client's Waiver history. The client opens a secure link, reads the waiver, types their full legal name and signs on screen (a parent or guardian signs for a minor); the signature is time-stamped and recorded. Use the Pending Waiver filter on the Clients page to see who's outstanding.
Asking riders to sign before they book online. Under Settings → Riding School, in the Booking a lesson section, tick Riders sign your waiver before they can book online (it's off by default). A rider who hasn't signed your waiver, or whose signature has run out, is then asked to sign it as part of booking a lesson or a program that needs one, before anything goes in their cart. A parent signs for their child. Staff booking for a client are never held to it: the booking form and the confirm dialog still warn you instead, and you can confirm anyway. If you tick the setting before publishing a waiver, the page warns you that riders have nothing to sign and won't be asked. The same section shows your school's own signing link (/sign-waiver on your club site), which riders can use to sign ahead of booking and which you can put on your own website.
A template can also ask the signer for the rider's height and weight, a health declaration, an emergency contact and their riding experience, each Not asked, Optional or Required, and the answers are saved on the client's card. Your bookings email address is emailed each time a client signs. See Client Management and the Riding School Setup Guide (Step 10) for details.
Enquiries
Riding School → Clients → Enquiries is the inbox for two things:
- the Riding Lesson Enquiry form on your club site (name, contact details, who is riding and their age, riding experience, own horse, the lesson they are interested in, preferred days and times, questions). Where you have lessons on your booking page, the form lists those lessons by name.
- Send an enquiry on your booking pages. A rider who can't work out which lesson to book, or can't find a time that suits, taps Send an enquiry (or Ask for another time under the times) and tells you who is riding and when they would like to ride. It carries the lesson and venue they had chosen. These are marked with a small calendar icon in the list.
New enquiries are highlighted as unread and counted on the Organiser Dashboard; View opens the details and Reply by email opens a reply in your own email program.
Where each enquiry is up to
Every enquiry has a stage, shown as a pill on the list and counted in the buttons above it (tap one to see only that stage):
| Stage | What it means | How it gets there |
|---|---|---|
| New | Nobody has been in touch yet | Every enquiry starts here |
| Contacted | You've spoken to them | Mark contacted in the enquiry |
| Trial booked | They have a lesson booked | By itself, as soon as a lesson is booked for them |
| Became a client | They've had a lesson | By itself, once a lesson has taken place |
| Lost | Closed without a booking | Mark as lost (you can say why); Reopen puts it back to New |
The two booked stages follow the bookings, so you never set them. If the person books online themselves, or a parent books in their child's name, the enquiry moves on without anyone touching it. If the lesson is cancelled, the enquiry goes back to Contacted so you can chase it again. You can also keep Your note on an enquiry ("Rang Tuesday, calling back after the holidays"); only your staff see it.
Reading enquiries needs the Bookings area at View; changing a stage, keeping a note and booking need it at Manage.
Book a trial lesson
Book a trial lesson in an enquiry opens the booking form with what they asked for shown at the top, and the Add New Client box already filled in from the enquiry (name, email, phone). Check it, press Add Client, then choose the lesson and time as usual. Saving the booking links it to the enquiry, which then reads Trial booked with a link to the booking.
The button reads Book this lesson when the enquiry names one of your lessons: the booking form opens with that lesson, and the venue where they chose one, already selected. When the enquiry came from someone who is already your client, they are chosen as the client and nothing is added.
An enquiry can say who's riding. When a parent who is your client names a child you already have, the child is chosen as the client. When they name a child you don't have yet, the parent stays chosen and Add child opens with the name filled in: check it and press Add child. For someone who is not a client yet, add the parent first, then add the child with the same email and choose Add as their child, so the lesson is booked in the child's name.
Automatic follow-up (optional)
Turn on Follow up lesson enquiries that haven't booked under Settings → Communications → Booking Notifications → Enquiries and reviews. Three days after someone enquires (or three days after you mark the enquiry contacted), they get one email in your school's name asking if they're still keen, with a Book a lesson button when you have lessons that can be booked online, and your contact details.
- One email per enquiry, ever. Nothing is sent if they have booked, or you marked the enquiry lost.
- An enquiry more than ten days old is never followed up, so turning this on doesn't email last term's enquiries.
- It goes inside your quiet-hours window, and each open enquiry shows the day its email will go.
- It is off until you turn it on.
Review requests (optional)
Under the same Enquiries and reviews heading, paste Your review link and tick Ask clients for a review. To get the link, open your Google Business Profile, choose Ask for reviews and copy the link; any review page works as long as the link starts with https://.
A couple of hours after a client's third lesson (or a later one), they get one email asking for a review, with a button to your review page.
- Each client is asked once, ever. A parent is asked once however many of their children ride.
- It starts with lessons from the day you turn it on, so your whole client list isn't asked at once, and no more than ten requests go out in a day.
- Everyone is asked in the same words. Review sites don't allow asking only the clients you expect to be happy.
- Anyone who unsubscribed from your emails isn't asked.
Both messages are listed under Automated messages on Communication Settings, with how many went out in the last 30 days, and every one sent appears in the sent-message log on Messages.
Lesson waitlists
When a group lesson is full it doesn't vanish from your public booking wizard: it is shown as a full slot with a Join the waitlist option, along with how many riders are already waiting. Riders see their waitlisted lessons above the upcoming list on My Lessons, with their place in the queue, and can leave the queue there. The place is counted from who is still waiting, so it moves up as riders ahead of them book or leave.
When a place frees up (someone cancels, or a checkout hold lapses), Horsify tells the waiting riders itself, by app notification and email, within a few minutes. Three rules matter:
- Being notified does not reserve the place. The first rider to book gets it, and the message says so.
- Each rider is told about an opening at most once. If as many riders are notified as there are free places and none of them books, the rest of the queue is not notified in their place: they wait for the next opening, or for you to tell them (below).
- A rider who gets a place comes off the waitlist, however they got it: booking it themselves, a parent booking it for them, or you adding or moving them into the lesson. The next opening in that lesson then goes to the next rider in the queue.
Riding School → Clients → Waitlist shows each upcoming full group lesson that someone is waiting on, how full it is now, and the riders in queue order with their phone, email, the note they left, when they joined and whether they've been told a place opened. Filter it by lesson type or instructor.
- Tell them a place is free sends that rider the same app notification and email Horsify sends itself. It appears while the lesson has a place free, for a rider who hasn't been told yet, so you can tell someone further down the queue when the rider ahead of them hasn't booked. A rider is only told once; after that, call or email them from the links beside their name. A child with no login of their own is told through their parent.
- Add to lesson opens the same Add rider step as the appointment book, with that rider already chosen, so price, package credit, the waiver request and the client email work as they do there. You can still add a rider to a full lesson; you're warned it goes over the limit. Once the rider is in the lesson they come off the waitlist.
- Remove takes a rider off the waitlist, after asking you to confirm.
A rider marked Couldn't be reached, call them has no app account or email address Horsify could send to, so the message wasn't sent; the next rider in the queue is told instead.
Staff with view-only access to bookings see the queue but not Tell them a place is free, Add to lesson or Remove.
Student Progress and Curriculum
Riding School → Clients → Progress → Manage curriculum defines your skills framework (levels, and the skills within each) or seeds a ready-made Learn to Ride curriculum you can edit.
Riding School → Clients → Progress lists your students; open one to mark each skill Not started, Introduced, Developing, Competent or Mastered, and Certify level when they've reached it. Riders see the same picture (and their badges) under My Progress.
See Tracking Student Progress.
Refunds
Refund a booking from its card in the appointment book: click the booking and use the refund button, which shows the amount that can still be refunded.
- Paid by card online: Refund sends the money back to the client's card through Stripe. You can refund part of the amount, and the reason you give is recorded in the booking's staff notes.
- Paid by cash, bank transfer or another offline method: Record refund keeps the record straight, but Horsify can't send the money back: return it the same way you took it.
- Paid from a lesson package or program enrolment: there is no money to refund. Cancelling the lesson gives the lesson credit back instead.
A card payment for a completed or cancelled lesson can also be refunded from Payments. Both places count the same refunded amount, so between them they can never refund more than the client paid. Approving a client's cancellation request refunds nothing by itself: the confirmation tells you how much the client paid, and you refund it here.
Related Features
- Riding School Setup Guide (End to End)
- Setting Your Riding School Booking Hours
- Facilities and Facility Hire
- Instructor Management System
- Client Management
- Tracking Student Progress
- Instructor Tier - Solo Instructor Guide
- Instructor Tier vs Riding School - Feature Comparison
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wiki/features/RIDING_SCHOOL_MANAGEMENT.md \nLast synced: 2026-10-21 13:14:46 UTC