Farming software - help needed to bring us in to this century!

[lizzieS]

Hi!
We are looking into farm software and would like to hear some reviews from people actually using it please! Pretty much everything we do at the moment is still on paper. We need to get some kind of software asap to comply with MTD but also looking into crop and sheep software too. Any recommendations?!

I have been looking at the FarmIT 3000 Gold package today and it seems a reasonable price and pretty straightforward to use. Does anyone have any experience with it?

Thanks in advance!
Lizzie

 

[Boysground]

For accounts Xero seems to be very popular now I get on with it very well. For cropping it all depends how technical you want to get, for full precision farming, mapping and computers and machines talking to each other Gatekeeper is probably the best but expensive. I use muddy boots greenlight grower which does all the basics needed for assurance and in my case NVZ records, its cloud based and has an app for offline use which works very well, the only disadvantage is that the APP is iOS only.

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[Boysground]

Just looked at the FarmIt website, not sure I would use a company that has a spelling mistake on their homepage

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[Farm Matters Ltd]

Happy to help in your search so feel free to download the Trial from our website anytime and get in touch. Many thanks Neil

 

[neilo]

I don’t know about the accounts side of it, but FarmIT’s sheep and cattle recording has been going for years and is updated regularly. Everyone I know that uses it have been happy. Similarly Shearwell Farmworks software.
I think the crop/field recording side of both is very basic, but might be perfectly adequate for your needs (I find paper adequate for mine tbh).

For accounts, Quickbooks or Xero would have to be first choice for intuitive usability, but both cloud based and monthly subscription now.

 

[Extreme Optimist]

For beef and sheep, I wouldn't look any further than Farm Matters. The software is simple and easy to use yet covers every base management wise. The support is truly outstanding and Neil and Paul are more than happy to take on board any suggestions for improvements and often they are implemented very, very quickly.

Neil and Paul are not farmers and welcome input from their clients to make their software better suit everybody who uses it, which makes the software flexible and user friendly.

I think there is going to be some form of way to synchronise your tablet with your PC coming up in the near future which will make updating data taken outside onto the PC massively easier.

As for MTD software, I use Sage and hate it! Have got a bookkeeper to come in once a quarter and sort it!!

 

[foxbox]

For beef and sheep, I wouldn't look any further than Farm Matters. The software is simple and easy to use yet covers every base management wise. The support is truly outstanding and Neil and Paul are more than happy to take on board any suggestions for improvements and often they are implemented very, very quickly.

Neil and Paul are not farmers and welcome input from their clients to make their software better suit everybody who uses it, which makes the software flexible and user friendly.

I think there is going to be some form of way to synchronise your tablet with your PC coming up in the near future which will make updating data taken outside onto the PC massively easier.

As for MTD software, I use Sage and hate it! Have got a bookkeeper to come in once a quarter and sort it!!

I'd second this; we're using Farm Matters and have done for a number of years now. We've asked for a number of improvements and additions over the years and each time the implementation of them has exceeded my expectations. A great example is the medicines book; I first asked for the ability to manually record the concentration of antibiotics in a product and within a few months this had grown to the software importing the VMD database allowing it to pre-populate withdrawal periods etc. It's only a small detail but shows the lengths they'll go to in order to keep improving the software. If you opt for the free trial it's worth talking to Neil on the phone as you set it up; I was baffled to start with but his 5 minute walk through taught me much more than exploring it myself had done.

For crop recording we currently use the Muddy Boots Greenlight package; I've got a love hate relationship with it at the moment. It seems to do everything I want it to but finding my way around some of the reporting options is far from straight forward. The main tie to this software is our agronomist using it but I'm not sure we're really getting value for money from it on our scale.

We're currently using some bridging software for MTD meaning we can export the relevant details from our Excel accounts. I'm just starting to look at Pandle after someone else on here linked to it; they offer a free cloud accounting package and a premium package which is £5/month. Both will do the MTD bit but Premium brings bank feeds etc in to the software too. I've no real experience with it yet but it appears to be another (cheaper) option alongside Xero etc.

 

[farmerm]

Horses for courses... what exactly do you need software to do, simply store records or give you analysis and insight? For most farmers I don't particularly see a need for farmer specific accounts software. Cloud based Xero is pretty reasonable and Pandle is equally reasonable, and its free version has everything I need including MTD compliance.

I use paper and spreadsheets for everything else. But it all comes down to the scale and complexities of your operations.

 

[farmerm]

I'd second this; we're using Farm Matters and have done for a number of years now. We've asked for a number of improvements and additions over the years and each time the implementation of them has exceeded my expectations. A great example is the medicines book; I first asked for the ability to manually record the concentration of antibiotics in a product and within a few months this had grown to the software importing the VMD database allowing it to pre-populate withdrawal periods etc. It's only a small detail but shows the lengths they'll go to in order to keep improving the software. If you opt for the free trial it's worth talking to Neil on the phone as you set it up; I was baffled to start with but his 5 minute walk through taught me much more than exploring it myself had done.

For crop recording we currently use the Muddy Boots Greenlight package; I've got a love hate relationship with it at the moment. It seems to do everything I want it to but finding my way around some of the reporting options is far from straight forward. The main tie to this software is our agronomist using it but I'm not sure we're really getting value for money from it on our scale.

We're currently using some bridging software for MTD meaning we can export the relevant details from our Excel accounts. I'm just starting to look at Pandle after someone else on here linked to it; they offer a free cloud accounting package and a premium package which is £5/month. Both will do the MTD bit but Premium brings bank feeds etc in to the software too. I've no real experience with it yet but it appears to be another (cheaper) option alongside Xero etc.

I find self bill invoices make using bank feeds impractical in Pandle. I don't think xero copes with them either? You cant reconcile the single payment transaction from your bank feed with a separate payment and invoice transactions. I find it works better to manually export the data from the bank account, split the self bill transactions in excel and then import into Pandle.

 

[foxbox]

I find self bill invoices make using bank feeds impractical in Pandle. I don't think xero copes with them either? You cant reconcile the single payment transaction from your bank feed with a separate payment and invoice transactions. I find it works better to manually export the data from the bank account, split the self bill transactions in excel and then import into Pandle.

Thanks for that, I've not got as far as that yet as I've just been trying to compare packages but it's good to know someone else has already worked their head around issues that'll probably baffle me!

 

[TGM]

We supply the Kingswood farm accounts package - all recording types catered for, from users who just want to enter sale and purchase invoices and submit their vat, right up to a fully comprehensive system for agricultural contractors with an app for the driver to record work as it happens. Simple VAT only system costs £249 with 12 months support, £100 per year thereafter

 

[Grassman]

I have used Farmatters for a few years now. I had my first ministry sheep inspection recently and my records were excellent according to the inspector!

 

[curlietailz]

I have Sage for my accounts
And
Gatekeeper for farm records
Happy with both
But I accept that they are a bit dear compared to others available

 

[lizzieS]

I have used Farmatters for a few years now. I had my first ministry sheep inspection recently and my records were excellent according to the inspector!

Farm Matters don't do accounts though do they, isn't it just livestock and crops?

 

[Grassman]

Farm Matters don't do accounts though do they, isn't it just livestock and crops?

Yes. Keep the job separate. Farmatters and xero here

 

[lizzieS]

Yes. Keep the job separate. Farmatters and xero here

Is it not beneficial to have one software programme for everything so they talk to each other? Why do you prefer to keep them separate?

 

[Quaddog]

They’re two different subjects. Best not to be tied to one supplier anyway. I have Farmplan for accounts and Shearwell for beef and sheep records. Farmplan is good but hellish expensive, so I couldn’t really recommend it. It’s just that I’ve been with them so long and its hard to teach an old dog new tricks as they say.

 

[Grassman]

Is it not beneficial to have one software programme for everything so they talk to each other? Why do you prefer to keep them separate?

Same as @Quaddog says really. I can't see much benefit in an integrated system.

 

[farmerm]

Is it not beneficial to have one software programme for everything so they talk to each other? Why do you prefer to keep them separate?

It comes down to what you want to achieve? Do you want insights you can act on or just records for records sake? There is always a danger you end up working for the software rather than the software working for you, and paying for the privilege. I use Pandle for farm accounts and MTD vat returns (like xero but free), paper books for medicines and movements records and some spreadsheets or a note in the diary for everything else. It is far from a perfect systems but I can record what I want, the way I want, when I want.

 

[Boysground]

Everything is separate here. I find it best to use the software that is suits me best for the job in hand. I don’t have need for integration as most of the financial data I need is easily picked up through my accounts. The only other place I look at finance is crop gross margins and it is easy enough to put the costs in as I go along.

So I use
Xero for accounts, it has been revolutionary for me.

Greenlight Grower for cropping, it is improving daily and I don’t need the complexity of gatekeeper

Uniform Agri for the dairy records. Lots of data on it and simple for everyone to use.

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