Agricultural Inventory Management System makes agricultural production pattern accessible to the detail of agricultural parcel and farmer. Moreover, animal and agricultural mechanization assets and their details are recorded at village and farmer level. Thus, it becomes possible to produce agricultural statistics which leads national agricultural policies and strategies by using reliable, in-situ data and support national commerce policies by annually, semi-annually, quarterly and monthly periods. In addition, with online up to-date data warehouse and data mining services, on-field checks of agricultural supports; monitoring agricultural activity seasonally; planning and timing activities like expropriation and land consolidation that can harm the crops; detection of production and farmers that are effected by natural disasters are made possible. System is controlled and managed by Control Center.
A successful farm operation will have a smooth-operating inventory system. This includes goods on hand, but it can also include the costs involved with storage space, handling, and risk and service. It’s a balancing act to zero in on the most efficient and profitable amount of inventory to operate with.
John Wodehouse is an extension educator at Penn State University and says inventory is a critical component of the balance sheet because it has a value.
"So therefore, it is important to count it and to assign it a value and organize it. How do we do that? We organize our goods," says Wodehouse. "And, goods are any farm product intended for sale. It could be vegetables, it could be hanging baskets, it could be your growing crops not yet harvested. It could be seeds not yet planted or in inventory, they have a different value than the planted seeds in the field that have yieldable fruit."
Unless you have a mind like a steel trap, you’ll need a way to keep track of it all. One of the most popular software systems for managing inventory is QuickBooks, but there are others as well. He explains why you should invest the time and money in a computer program.
"What I have found in my research is that inventory is complex and it’s way too much for us to remember. That’s point blank. And there are so many steps to integrate your inventory value, your ordering process, your pipeline and supply chain management to do it all by memory," he says. "But I think the biggest thing that I learned is that inventory trends and benchmarks are relatively simple to see in some of these different apps and softwares."
Inventory is the term that is simply used to indicate keeping track of the raw materials and the finished products that are in stock. Farm inventory management happens to be an extremely important thing for businesses that are in the sector. If making your food business greener is important to you, investing in food produce ERP software can be a great idea.
Here are some of the ways it can help you.
Proper Management Is Essential
When crops are managed from seed to a product that is sold to the end customer, a business is better able to manage its inventory. This can be great because it can use its resources in the right places so that wastage of such resources does not happen.
Better Seeds Used
When every seed is accounted for with the help of ERP software, it is easier for the business to be green. This is because every seed is accounted for and this is wonderful for the grower. With such software, the crop grower essentially finds himself in a position where he knows what each seed has produced because the produce ERP software tracks everything.
This ensures that the grower buys better seeds because he knows that the produce he gets from them will be of high quality. When this is done, the ultimate result is that the product that is got is always of excellent quality.
Less Wastage Of Resources
When everything is accounted for, from seeds to grow to harvesting and packing of the end product, it is easier to make sure that there is as little wastage of resources as possible. While it means that only as many seeds that are required are used, water is also used only in the quantity that is required.
This is great because, with less wastage of resources, the business itself can be as green as possible.
Better Stock Organization
With farm inventory management produce ERP system software at service, it is easier for a business to organize its stocks better. This is often a problem with farmers who are more traditional in the sense that they don’t use software to organize their stock. This can be problematic because stocks in the farming business can be difficult to deal with.
With software to help, this becomes a lot easier.
Better Crops
With such software, it is possible for growers and agro-based businesses to track and analyses seasons and what kind of crops grow in those seasons, how much water and fertilizer are required in these seasons and how the resources can be utilized in better ways.
It certainly aids in daily farm work.
Reduction Of Impact On Environment
Ultimately, farm inventory software helps in reducing the growers’ impact on the environment. This is great because it lets businesses work without worrying about the impact they are having on the environment.
Using farm inventory management software is a better choice for people and businesses who want to do their bit for the environment.
Farm management software helps you manage inventory with confidence
Inventory management is an necessary part of most businesses, and farms are no exception. Seed, fertilizer, pesticide, fuel, crops—there’s sure a lot to keep track of, which means more possibilities for errors. Have you ever caught a billing mistake from a vendor partner? Many farmers have.
Why do great records around inventory need to be kept and organizations held accountable in their dealings with the farm? Not only is it useful to know inventory levels at any given time for day-to-day decisions, it’s important to know that records are accurate. No one wants a scenario where they’re losing thousands of dollars because of a data entry error made by a seed company. Growers deserve to have solid records on their side so they can deal confidently in their businesses.
Talk is nice, but it’s a lot of work to ensure that good inventory management actually happens and farmers wear a lot of hats as it is. A farm management system (FMS) takes some of the pressure off and helps make sure your materials and products are being managed with accuracy.
Input management and tracking
Farmsoft allows you to track seed, chemical and fertilizer through all stages of the growing cycle.
During production, inventory is updated right as the work is completed. Curtis Neely is a Farmsoft customer who farms in the Texas panhandle. He works for Lone Star Family Farms, which consists of around 55,000 acres, so there are plenty of moving parts. Curtis appreciates the inventory control and insight Farmsoft enables.
“To plug the holes of leakage on something this size is pretty hard to do,” Curtis said. “So, making sure our inventories are right and the applications went to the right fields and we know what happened, is huge.”
Farmsoft' Machine Integration with Climate FieldView™ or John Deere Operations Center automatically updates input inventory levels based on what you’re using in the field. Farmsoft customer Aaron Lee is a corn and soybean farmer in Indiana. He really appreciates how machine integration helps him see what’s happening in the fields in real time.
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"I can pull up my iPad and see how many units of a seed that I have or how many gallons or ounces of a certain chemical. If we're running low on something, I can go back and order something without the lag time of waiting on [it] to come in."
Aaron Lee - Cornerstone Family Farms, Salem, IN
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Farmers recover money with robust input management
Money may go right down the drain without a constant eye on every detail and who has time for that? Whether it’s a vendor accidentally not delivering the right amount, or a farmer accidentally purchasing too much because they didn’t realize they had some left in the shed, these things happen.
Farmer holding soil with dollarsA customer recently told us about an invoice he caught where he was overcharged for chemical. In a records review, he felt something was fishy. Using Farmsoft, his team was able to easily see what happened: a product that typically came in 5-gallon containers had actually come in 4-gallon ones (each was exactly one gallon off). He’d been overcharged. The chemical was about $200/gallon and they’d been charged for 20 extra gallons, totaling $4,000.
One of our Customer Success Managers shared a story about another inventory management mistake. His customer stated that he’d recently found an error where his operation had been double-billed for seed. Due to some specific circumstances that year, they had stepped out of their normal routine in buying from this particular company, and the supplier’s billing system was, for him, not very user-friendly in the first place. All this led to the payment being entered into their accounting system twice!
Around six months later, by comparing their accounting software records with their records from Farmsoft, they found the error. This money would have been lost without the good recordkeeping in Farmsoft and it totaled around $90,000. Diligent recordkeeping—and the use of a great farm management software system—really paid off for this farmer.
Grain inventory management and tracking
It isn’t just inputs that need to be managed: it’s the finished product as well. Farm management software helps you ensure you get paid for every load that comes off your fields, and it keeps you informed of exactly how much you have left in the bins.
"Harvest is probably the best part, because I have something to match the assembly sheets that come from the elevator daily," says Carla Vigen, at Sproule Farms, a diversified crop operation in North Dakota. She explained one situation with a load that wasn't properly processed. "When the elevator's numbers came out a little different than ours, we talked to someone at Farmsoft and they were able to look back and figure out what happened."
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"They've also called me sometimes and said 'You have one out there that's sitting unattached.' It's great. I'm confident because of Farmsoft."
Carla Vigen, Sproule Farms
(Read the Sproule Farms case study.)
Michael Kitchen, who manages inventory control at Lone Star Family Farms, has seen the value of using farm management software over and over again. “I would say probably over the last six years that we've used Farmsoft on the harvest side, it's probably saved us 30 loads of corn that went to the co-op that they didn't have any record of,” said Michael. “It's been very instrumental.”
Lone Star Family Farms initially chose to implement Farmsoft on only wheat and canola, but ensuring no load was lost, misplaced, or linked to another farmer or field was more of a problem than they ever dreamt possible. “The canola is a high value crop and we lost a load and caught that, and it was worth probably $20,000,” stated Justin Crownover, General Manager at Lone Star Family Farms. “Then we had two loads of wheat that we'd lost out of 100-150 and it [Farmsoft] more than paid for itself.” Lone Star soon began implementing Farmsoft on all remaining crops.
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“At the beginning, it was like an 'aha moment' that we saved that $20,000 or $40,000. Today it's more like standard operating [procedure]. One thing is that the elevators know that we're using it, and so they make an extra effort to do a good job for you.”
Justin Crownover, Lone Star Family Farms
(Read the Lone Star Family Farms case study.)
Inventory management is crucial for success in most businesses: reliable systems for your inventory, whether we’re talking raw materials or finished goods, are imperative for an operation to survive and thrive. Farming is a complex business with lots of moving parts, so it’s essential that inputs and products are tracked and managed well.
A farm management software system like Farmsoft can help tighten up the inventory control on your operation and ensure you’re not losing any hard-earned money.
Farmsoft is the leading independent farm management system. How could we help support your operation?