Have you ever thought about how software can help an agricultural business? Technology, or agtech, aids the agriculture industry in a number of ways. It can assist with livestock or commodity management, improve record keeping for auditing and regulatory compliance, it can support financial aspects such as forecasts, budgets and so much more.

Perhaps you are more familiar with the term farm management software, farm management entails monitoring, analysing, and reporting on all aspects of an agriculture business from operations, finances, and accounting through to payroll, even health and safety. This kind of software allows farmers and agricultural businesses to make informed decisions supported by real-time data. Aimed at the farming sector, farm management software often includes websites, mobile apps and computer programs.

It doesn’t matter if you are a big or small enterprise, data is king.

Did you know that agriculture is fast becoming digitalised, and science driven? This type of innovation and development increases efficiency, combining learnings from every aspect of a farming business to become more precise, in turn generating actionable insights for farmers. You don’t need to be a large corporation to benefit from data collection and record keeping. 

Most farming businesses will integrate a combination of software. Think of the number of apps currently active on your mobile, each of them serves an individual purpose, but together they keep your world spinning.

What software is used in agriculture?

There are plenty of agtech solutions on the market, especially for farming and agriculture. The ideal combination of software should help you to reduce wasted time and costs, increase income and market access, all whilst improving efficiencies and productivity.

You should consider software to help streamline the below areas of your farming business:

Financial, budgeting and forecasting

Analyse the financial performance of your agribusiness, farm, or ranch, access ratios, metrics, trends and targets. With an understanding of your financial performance, you can establish forecasts with estimates of revenue and expenses.

Commodity Management

Built for managing commodity inventory across procurement, sales, and risk management. This software spans your supply chain. It can help you track and report on cashflow, and other financials and logistics. 

Livestock and Mixed Farm Management

Allowing you to track your livestock throughout their lifecycle, improving profitability through data collection. Farmers and ranchers can reduce costs and labour by identifying genetic performance, weight gain/loss and fertility, traceability of individual animals and managing herd health.

Precision Agriculture or Land Management Software

Designed to maximise your yield and revenue relating to crops, precision agriculture software supports the profitability, efficiency and sustainability of farming activities whilst reducing environmental impacts and labour costs. 

Health and Safety Software

An effective health and safety management system should establish and maintain hazard identification and risk management through a range of policies, procedures and plans that minimise the risk of injury or illness. Developed to support a safer working environment, your health and safety management system should provide a solution to:

• Capture, manage and report incidents
• Mitigate risk with risk assessments
• Create checklists, inspections and assign actions or tasks
• Digitally manage worker records
• Manage your farm assets: tools, equipment, plant or PPE
• Provide data for audit and compliance

Farm Equipment Maintenance Management

Farm equipment maintenance software or asset management software should make scheduling and tracking machinery maintenance simpler for your farm or ranch. It should manage all of your farm assets in one location including repair history, costs, service requirements, etc. 

Labour Management

HR and payroll management software provides data to optimise agricultural business operations through reducing labour costs. It allows you to roster farm workers, providing a forecast of labour costs and assists with budgets, helping you to schedule the right workers when required.

Labour manage software should help you to identify when a worker clocks on and off, if they are on location or if they have left the property for the day. Some labour management software also provides communication functionality and a task manager.

Did you know an operational software like Safe Ag Systems can help you manage your assets, workers, contractors, regulatory compliance and of course safety!

How can Safe Ag Systems help farmers??

Farm management software is ideal for anyone that wants a complete overview of their farm or ranch operations. The perfect solution is when you invest in software without having to spend a lot! That software you select should not only be reliable, but it should also provide data to support multiple areas across your farming business.

Did you know Safe Ag Systems, doesn’t just focus on safety, but can supplement parts of your farm management system? Providing a cloud-based solution, Safe Ag Systems supports your health and safety compliance with policies and procedures, safety checklists and safety inspections, but it also offers:

Inventory Management

Did you know Safe Ag Systems offer an machinery maintenance feature that can help you digitally manage your machinery? Stay on top of maintenance requirements, schedule servicing, tagout unsafe equipment and capture machinery hours. Safe Ag Systems even has a spot for your chemical inventory! List your stock, track your usage and add spray notes with location and weather conditions. 

Hazard Mapping and At Work Functionality

Have you discovered Safe Ag Systems geo-fencing technology? Did you know that it lets you trigger a fire or medical emergency via the mobile app? It even pins the emergency GPS coordinates to the noticeboard. Workers can log if they have arrived “on site” allowing you to view their last location, also providing you to confirm hours worked for payroll.

Task Management

The Task Manager makes it easy to assign and track tasks for your workers. See a task that needs to be followed up while out in the field? Jump onto the App to quickly assign tasks to your workers. Just enter the task details, assign it to one of your workers and set a priority and due date. 

Audits and Regulatory Compliance

Monitor your operations and safety status in one place. Track completed inductions, safety checklists and worker tasks. With the reporting feature you can delve further into each area for more details.

As a producer and grower, it is an important factor for vendors and regulators that you can understand the full extent of your supply chain. Safe Ag Systems software can help you manage and track important information for compliance including harvesting practices, chemical usage, visitor records and irrigation records. Your safety management system can be the main point of storage and reference. Learn about the other records you can manage for compliance and record keeping. 

Risk Assessments

The interactive Risk Assessment Tool will help any business complete a risk assessment, but of course it is developed for health and safety in agriculture. With Safe Ag Systems Risk Assessment Tool you can assess the potential mechanical risks of new machinery, equipment or tools prior to purchase, not just for the inventory you own.

The farm management software you invest in, to support health and safety in your workplace, to improve record keeping and to increase productivity should all work together to serve one purpose, to reduce the paperwork and enhance your farming operations. Talk to our team at Safe Ag Systems today and find out how incorporating a safety management system can supplement your business efforts. Don’t silo your data.

Topics: Farm Management Software

Disclaimer: Content on this website may be of relevance to users outside of Australia, but content links and examples are specific to Australia. Please check with your local authority for your country and industry requirements.