Location/Region: Custer, SD
Industry: Horse training services, among others
Apps implemented: Accounting, Sales, Website, Studio, Contacts, Sign, Documents, Email Marketing, Events, Attendance
Number of users: 5
Software replaced: QuickBooks
Hosting type: Odoo Online
Running a family business that spans horse training, steel art, photography, videography, voiceover, and publishing is no small feat. For Reflectsody, keeping everything organized, from horse health records to client invoices, was once overwhelming. With Odoo, they found the all-in-one system that brought clarity, efficiency, and significant savings to their operations.
Starting with Windance Farms in 1975, Reflectsody has always been a family-driven enterprise. Windance Farms remains the flagship company, training horses and ponies in many different disciplines. Over the decades, their horses have earned National and World Championships, cementing their reputation in the equestrian world.
But Reflectsody didn’t stop there. In the mid-80s, the family launched an art business, Steel Reflections (formerly known as Eros and Decor by Shawn), which has grown into a nationwide leader in customized steel art. In 2019, Rhapsody Studios was founded to expand into photography and videography. More recently, Duck Bill Voice Studios spun off as a dedicated voiceover business, and book publishing has also joined their diverse portfolio.
“Reflectsody does several different things. Our primary is a horse training facility. That’s where we spend 90 to 95% of our time. With that, we do a little bit of photography, videography, some art, and we are just releasing into book publication.”
Before Odoo: Struggling to Keep Track
Managing so many ventures under one roof meant Reflectsody was juggling an immense workload. With 47 horses on the property, scheduling training, managing health records, tracking show participation, and ensuring billing was accurate was daunting.
William Schilling recalls that the biggest frustration was simply “trying to keep track of everything.” QuickBooks was in place for finances, but it didn’t provide visibility into day-to-day operations.
"QuickBooks it’s just not an ERP. It tracks finances, but I needed something to keep track of us. And when my subscription fee went through the roof, I said, you know what? I’m done with it."
At that point, he began searching for alternatives, even considering open-source solutions, before discovering Odoo.
Discovering Odoo’s
Potential
When searching for a QuickBooks replacement, Odoo was about the sixth option Schilling reviewed. What caught his attention was the flexibility, the ability to do everything in one system, and the “first app free forever” model.
"I did some research, some minor testing, and thought, ‘I think we could do this.’ Once I got our custom app built, my wife said, ‘How did we ever live without this? This is so awesome. I can’t believe the things we were losing track of."
The migration took about three months, and by September 2024, Reflectsody had completely transitioned to Odoo.
How Odoo Transformed Reflectsody’s Operations
The real breakthrough for Reflectsody was the creation of a custom “Horses” app built with Odoo’s development team. This app became the heartbeat of their operation:
- Tracks every horse individually, including health records, registrations, and whether they’re on-site or at an owner’s location.
- Stores and organizes show records, with plans to automatically publish results to the company’s website.
"My wife is in Odoo probably 15 times a day with the Horses app. If a client calls asking about something done to their horse months ago, I can pull up the record instantly, all inside Odoo."
The Accounting module integrates tightly with Horses. Regular charges for boarding, training, or scheduled care are billed at the start of the month, while unexpected treatments or additional services are tracked directly in the Horses app and pushed to invoices with a simple checkmark.
This visibility has had a measurable financial impact:
- $6,000–$8,000 saved annually by ensuring no service or charge slips through the cracks.
- More professional, transparent billing practices, which have strengthened client trust.
The company also relies heavily on Odoo Sign, which replaced a time-consuming process of drafting contracts, exporting them to Acrobat, emailing them for signature, and manually storing them.
"Now everything is in Odoo. I’ve got templates set up for every agreement. I just send it out, the client fills it, and it’s instantly attached to their record. It saves me forever."
Other Odoo apps in daily use include:
- Documents: centralizing client files and contracts.
- Sales & Contacts: managing customer relationships.
- Website: powering events such as local horse shows, where participants can register, sign waivers, and pay online.
- Email Marketing: for outreach and campaigns.
- Attendance & Employees: supporting HR functions.
“My Odoo dashboard has Horses, Sales, Accounting, Contacts, Sign, Documents, Website, Email Marketing, Events, Attendance… and it just trails off after that. We use it for everything,” William Schilling adds.
What is next for Reflectsody?
The future is just as ambitious as the past for Reflectsody. The company is preparing to launch “Through the Wire,” an AI-driven Bible devotional series. This project, years in the making, will integrate fully with Odoo for marketing, invoicing, subscriptions, and customer management.
"This week we’re launching Through the Wire with Odoo. It’s massive. What started as a simple eBook is now over 3,000 files, but Odoo ties it all together.”
Reflectsody also uses Odoo Events to host horse shows and is exploring ways to digitize horse training schedules currently managed on a whiteboard. Schilling envisions touchscreens in the barn where staff can update training progress in real time, providing even more transparency for clients.
From forgotten invoices to real-time client transparency, Reflectsody’s story proves how Odoo can bring clarity and efficiency to even the most complex, multi-faceted businesses. Whether you’re in horse training, the arts, media, or any other industry, the lesson is clear: the flexibility of Odoo allows you to tailor it to your unique needs, cut costs, and save valuable time. As Schilling puts it: “I tell everybody about it. People are like, wow, that’s cool. And it is.”
