S&T Farm Supplies

Most people get into the feed business because they grew up around livestock. Nicole Patterson got into it because she saw a monopoly forming and decided somebody had to stop it.

In 2023, two feed stores served the Hot Springs, Arkansas area, and when one owner moved to buy out the other, Nicole and her family read the situation clearly: one buyer controlling both stores would mean higher prices and fewer options for every rancher, horse trainer, and cattle farmer in the county. The Pattersons already ran a large farm of their own, so they understood exactly what was at stake for their neighbors. They bought the store themselves in September 2023, not because they were looking for a new business venture, but because sometimes the best way to protect your community is to become their supplier.

The Sixty-Receipt Problem

S&T Farm Supplies isn't your typical walk-in retail operation. Roughly seventy percent of the business runs on charge accounts, with Nicole's team delivering feed to racetracks, cattle ranches, and horse farms across the county. Some customers receive sixty deliveries in a single month, and before Rundoo, the billing process for those accounts was a masterclass in operational absurdity.

On Lightspeed X Series, there was no way to generate consolidated statements. Nicole was literally handing racetrack customers a stack of sixty individual receipts at the end of the month and asking them to grab a calculator and add it all up. The system didn't integrate with anything else either, which meant every single order had to be double-entered by hand, every single day. It was the kind of workflow that makes you wonder if the software was designed by someone who had never actually set foot inside a feed store.

"I was having to double-enter every single thing for all orders every day. They didn't have any way of doing statements. So handing them sixty receipts and saying, hey, this is what you owe, get a calculator and add that up, it's just not rational."

The Real Cost of Invisible Bills

The sixty-receipt problem wasn't just an inconvenience for Nicole; it was actively costing S&T money. When customers can't easily see what they owe, they don't pay quickly. When they can't track their deliveries, they call the store constantly to ask about them. And when their bills are a pile of individual slips instead of a clear statement, the whole relationship starts to feel adversarial rather than trusting.

For a feed store carrying over $530,000 in outstanding receivables, which is a staggering number for an operation of S&T's size, every day of delayed payment compounds. The Pattersons weren't just running a feed store; they were essentially running a bank, extending credit to the community with limited tools to manage the float.

The Switch That Changed Customer Behavior

When S&T moved to Rundoo, the double-entry nightmare ended immediately and statements became a single click. But the real transformation came from an unexpected direction: the Rundoo customer app.

Nicole noticed the shift almost immediately. Customers who had been chronically behind on payments started paying faster, not because S&T was chasing them harder, but because for the first time they could actually see what they owed, when deliveries happened, and what was on their account at any given moment. The transparency didn't just speed up collections; it fundamentally changed the dynamic between the store and its customers.

"They're more comfortable when they can see everything and they know when it's getting delivered. They just go check it. Hands down, definitely better."

Customers who used to run three months behind now log in and pay the moment a delivery posts to their account. Nicole's phone stopped ringing off the hook with "hey, are you delivering this?" and "where's my bill for that?" because customers could simply open the app and see it all for themselves.

The Numbers Behind the Trust

The impact on receivables was substantial: at least a 20% reduction in outstanding balances, driven not by aggressive collection tactics but by the simple act of giving customers visibility into their own accounts. When people can see exactly what they bought, when it was delivered, and what they owe, paying becomes a natural next step rather than a dreaded chore that sits on the kitchen counter for weeks.

But Nicole is quick to point out that the numbers only tell part of the story. The bigger win is the trust it built. Charge account customers used to feel uncertain about their balances, which created friction and phone calls and late payments that strained relationships. Now those same customers feel in control of their accounts, and that peace of mind translates directly into faster payments, fewer disputes, and stronger loyalty to the store that gave them that transparency in the first place.

"We've got a couple of customers who, as soon as we deliver, immediately just log in, click, and pay. Where before, they would be three months behind."

Racetracks, Show Cattle, and the Joy of Delivery

Ask Nicole what her favorite part of running a feed store is and she won't mention the point-of-sale system or the reports or even the statements that finally make sense. She'll tell you about the delivery runs, because when you load up the truck and drive feed out to a racetrack or a cattle ranch, you get to see how these operations actually work. You get to see the horses, check in on the show cattle sponsored by Purina and ADM, and build the kind of relationships that keep a community feed store alive when the big guys come knocking.

S&T Farm Supplies bought its way into the feed business to keep the market fair, and Rundoo made sure the back office could keep up with the ambition. No more double entry, no more calculator statements, no more customers wondering what they owe. Just a feed store in Hot Springs doing what feed stores do best: keeping the animals fed, the bills clear, and the trust between neighbors as sturdy as a hay bale stacked ten high.