How long do you spend in the office?

[Kentishfarmer]

Hours per/week/month/year or % of time or whatever is easiest how long do you all spend doing farm office jobs?
Or how much time should someone spend doing every conceivable office based task on a large mixed farm? (CS, SFI, Farm assurance, all bills paid and through xero, employment admin, residential let's, dealing with agents solicitors, government bodies, ordering all parts supplies etc etc)
Increasingly coming into conflict with other members of the farm who don't seem to grasp the scale of it and see desk work as shirking/laziness. I thought a few figures from everyone else might be helpful
Thanks

 

[Spud]

Hours per/week/month/year or % of time or whatever is easiest how long do you all spend doing farm office jobs?
Or how much time should someone spend doing every conceivable office based task on a large mixed farm? (CS, SFI, Farm assurance, all bills paid and through xero, employment admin, residential let's, dealing with agents solicitors, government bodies, ordering all parts supplies etc etc)
Increasingly coming into conflict with other members of the farm who don't seem to grasp the scale of it and see desk work as shirking/laziness. I thought a few figures from everyone else might be helpful
Thanks

Depends very much on enterprises, but I guess I spend 30-40% of my time in the office. Secretary does payroll, VAT, bank rec, invoicing and some of the FA stuff.

 

[PI Stsker]

Hours per/week/month/year or % of time or whatever is easiest how long do you all spend doing farm office jobs?
Or how much time should someone spend doing every conceivable office based task on a large mixed farm? (CS, SFI, Farm assurance, all bills paid and through xero, employment admin, residential let's, dealing with agents solicitors, government bodies, ordering all parts supplies etc etc)
Increasingly coming into conflict with other members of the farm who don't seem to grasp the scale of it and see desk work as shirking/laziness. I thought a few figures from everyone else might be helpful
Thanks

The other members, are they stake holders / family? I was at loggerheads once with a family member who had a similar opinion; I said spend next week with me then and do my job, once they realised it’s not easy they stood back and left it alone.

It’s a common misconception that the office is a place of slippers, cups of tea and afternoon naps but as you have correctly listed it is pretty full on.

I spend 3-4 days a week in the office keeping the train on the rails. In summer I manage to shelf some of it to help out at peak times but this leads to a back log over winter. Having said that I do all of our paperwork and just get the accountant to cast his eye over it and sign it off, I could get it down quite allot if I used outsourced services.
This isn’t including probably half a day a week on average of meeting / entertaining salesmen, reps, agronomists, specialists, etc etc

 

[Kentishfarmer]

Depends very much on enterprises, but I guess I spend 30-40% of my time in the office. Secretary does payroll, VAT, bank rec, invoicing and some of the FA stuff.

Roughly what is the going rate for a secretary out of interest?
It's a frequent point I make to the old man he would rather I was out doing £13/hr tractor jobs than in doing at least £50+/hr agent level jobs. I was wonder where a secretary sits on that scale

 

[MrNoo]

Do a day a month with a secretary pretty much, hate office work with a passion.

 

[Mc115reed]

1 day every few months be ages I ignore it for as long as possible

 

[Kentishfarmer]

The other members, are they stake holders / family? I was at loggerheads once with a family member who had a similar opinion; I said spend next week with me then and do my job, once they realised it’s not easy they stood back and left it alone.

It’s a common misconception that the office is a place of slippers, cups of tea and afternoon naps but as you have correctly listed it is pretty full on.

I spend 3-4 days a week in the office keeping the train on the rails. In summer I manage to shelf some of it to help out at peak times but this leads to a back log over winter. Having said that I do all of our paperwork and just get the accountant to cast his eye over it and sign it off, I could get it down quite allot if I used outsourced services.
This isn’t including probably half a day a week on average of meeting / entertaining salesmen, reps, agronomists, specialists, etc etc

Mainly the old man that keeps banging on about it. He used to sort of do the office work 10 years ago but because of a degenerative disease cant focus on that sort of thing anymore, so I can't just make him do it for a couple of days it won't happen. He perhaps looks back with rose tinted glasses on how much he was able to achieve in my opinion.
The employees sometimes have bit if a grumble but I'm an easy unfireable target and some do like a good moan

 

[Chae1]

Guessing a day a month.

Do the farm accounts on Xero, farm assurance, cattle records for 400 cows, movements, registering calves etc. Cropping records on greenlight.

Depends on the weather, lot less in summer/harvest. More wet days, winter when I can't get on the land.

Used to pay someone a day a week doing farm accounts only!. They were taking the pee..

Speak to some farmers wives who tell us there giving up there jobs to do the farm books on smaller businesses than ours. Amuses me.

 

[Timbo]

Probably 3hrs a week actually in office, doing stuff that can't be done on the fly, eg pricing, grants / rpa / defra stuff, vat, paye, analyzing sales etc.

 

[Chae1]

Depends very much on enterprises, but I guess I spend 30-40% of my time in the office. Secretary does payroll, VAT, bank rec, invoicing and some of the FA stuff.

Not having a dig, but interested what you do in office for that length of time and also have a secretary?

 

[MrNoo]

Not having a dig, but interested what you do in office for that length of time and also have a secretary?

Test match special obviously!

 

[Kentishfarmer]

Guessing a day a month.

Do the farm accounts on Xero, farm assurance, cattle records for 400 cows, movements, registering calves etc. Cropping records on greenlight.

Depends on the weather, lot less in summer/harvest. More wet days, winter when I can't get on the land.

Used to pay someone a day a week doing farm accounts only!. They were taking the pee..

Speak to some farmers wives who tell us there giving up there jobs to do the farm books on smaller businesses than ours. Amuses me.

Your guess does seem to make your very efficient, anything that you think you do differently to other farmers? Is it a very simple business model? Payments linked to Direct Debit or something?

 

[Tim W]

Roughly what is the going rate for a secretary out of interest?
It's a frequent point I make to the old man he would rather I was out doing £13/hr tractor jobs than in doing at least £50+/hr agent level jobs. I was wonder where a secretary sits on that scale

A secretary who can enter data into an accounts package, answer/ filter phone & email messages runs at £30+/hr

 

[Chae1]

A secretary who can enter data into an accounts package, answer/ filter phone & email messages runs at £30+/hr

Obviously wasting my time sat on a tractor then.

 

[Chae1]

Your guess does seem to make your very efficient, anything that you think you do differently to other farmers? Is it a very simple business model? Payments linked to Direct Debit or something?

No.

Guess it's a bit of a how long is a piece of string question.

Depends on size of your business and what it entails.

Don't like direct debits. Always seem to be pain to reconcile.

Pay most things by BACs, just schedule payments as I process invoices.

 

[MrNoo]

I would strongly advise not to have any utilities via direct debt, I had a water bill for £32k one quarter, they had estimated the meter readings for 2 years during this time there was a leak, meter was spinning like a top, they wanted their money but I argued that due to them not reading the meter for two years it was mostly their responsibility as they should have done every so often.
If that was on direct debit it would have gone out in full and you try getting money back from a water company.....

 

[Spud]

Not having a dig, but interested what you do in office for that length of time and also have a secretary?

Sit having a snooze supping tea, obviously.

Lots of enterprises, lots of papaerwork, chasing stuff up, procuring, selling, paying, researching, planning, crop records, analysis etc.

How @Kentishfarmer can do everything necessaery in a day a month I don't know - must have a much simpler business than mine

 

[Kentishfarmer]

I would strongly advise not to have any utilities via direct debt, I had a water bill for £32k one quarter, they had estimated the meter readings for 2 years during this time there was a leak, meter was spinning like a top, they wanted their money but I argued that due to them not reading the meter for two years it was mostly their responsibility as they should have done every so often.
If that was on direct debit it would have gone out in full and you try getting money back from a water company.....

I try to avoid them too, very difficult to get it back from utilities ones its gone out and they've made a mistake. It would cut out one step of the process thoigh

 

[Kentishfarmer]

Sit having a snooze supping tea, obviously.

Lots of enterprises, lots of papaerwork, chasing stuff up, procuring, selling, paying, researching, planning, crop records, analysis etc.

How @Kentishfarmer can do everything necessaery in a day a month I don't know - must have a much simpler business than mine

I can't! I'm probably more like 2hours a day at a guess
Its @Chae1 that can

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Around 20 hours week , but my office is also im my car or anywhere i may be with a laptop or phone in my hand