Any good farm management software out there?

[Marianne Prince]

Hey Everyone,

I am about to start my freelance farming career in full this new year, and I have been looking for software for managing my farm business. Something like quikbooks, but tailored to the farm. Does anyone have any recommendations?

My husband is a software writer, and we are wondering if this kind of software would be a profitable project for him to take on.

Thanks for all of your advice!

[Michael]

We also use Farmworks software. I really like it, its a good program that is easy to use. It produces almost every kind of record that is needed. My brother the CPA says it is the best software that he is around (they do alot of tax returns for farmers).

[K2]

I wrote my own spread sheets for budgeting/income/and free cash flow. I purchased FarmWorks this fall and have identified 2 bugs in the program. They have been sitting on my project since November. I went ahead and finished the year on Microsft Money. I finally tracked them down today with a fix it or send a refund conversation. I hope they fix it because I have quite a bit of data entered already.

[F. David Wells]

K2, My curiosity is killing me, since I first read your "Microsoft Money!" OMG! I teach Farm Management..., and that program slugs in, every now and then! My first recommendation is QuickBooks Pro, for farms with a dozen or less enterprises and approximately 2,500 acres, unless you are employing GPS. QBPro can be made to do some very good things, but Intuit gave up years ago trying to fit the farm community! Your accounting program doesn't produce anything..., except for sorting the facts you give it. MMoney, is a "no, no! I'd be curious how you are doing?

[Dustin Johnson]

Any recommendations if using GPS and wanting to track spray records along with manage the books and keep cost of production data, field by field and hybrid by hybrid?

[Sam]

We have Easi Suite from Mapshots and i've used that for many years and hate it 1. because if i went and sprayed a field of wheat or whatever with 30% or whatever the product maybe.. I would get done spraying take the card out of the INSight and if anyone knows anything about INSights they make two files a log file for the field and a smart report pdf. reading the INSight log file into Easi Suite and looking at the smart report the rates the applied acres and the total gallons would be two different numbers.. 2. its more geared for co-ops I'm probably going to switch to SMS, also looking at CDMS ADVISOR impressive web based software.. and maybe consider farm works i wouldn't go with SST they are way behind the last time i talked to them they could bring any log files from an Insight...

[Jari Salmela]

Hello,

 

This might come little bit late, but we have have web based farm/cattle management software service called NeuroCattle (inside EU) and Animal RFID 4Farmers (outside EU). Base is same for both, but there is just minor differences related to EU regulations.

Currently we are putting efforts to give better support also for sheep and goat farmers.

Software can give you great benefits when using it together with RFID tags and it has designed together with Finnish farmers so that it will really help every day life in farms.

 

You can get more information about those from our webpages:

www.neurocattle.com

www.animal-rfid.com

 

[Ray Hewitt]

The program my father has been using and I am starting to use now that I am starting to farm is called EZ Farm. It only does the accounting side but we have JD APEX for the gps side of things. It is a very simple program and once you get it all setup for your operation it is very easy. It can write checks it will setup tax forms so all you have to do is hit print and all the info you need is there. Our accountant loves it.

[Dan Coffman]

We use farmworks software.  We have the Farmworks "trac" to keep a record of machines, people, grain storage and fields, "site" to keep track of our field mapping, yield maps, soil maps, crop enterprises and for making VRT maps.  The "trac mate" and "site mate" with site mate scouting allow us to take a handheld GPS device to the field for scouting, soil sampling, making boundaries, etc.  This program can do a lot, I have barely skimmed the surface and I've had it for about a year.

[Kelly Meyer]

I found this because I Googled for a new software.  I have been using FarmWorks for 14 years.  Really like there program, but I started having a problem with it about 2 months ago. It seems they must be having trouble fixing it. It must have something severly wrong.  I can't get a straight answer from them.  Support tells me they have to talk with there supervisor and they will call me back,, nothing. After using this program for so many years, I do not want to change, but it doesn't do me any good if they can't fix it. Any one else having this problem with FarmWorks?

[Austen Germolus]

Has anyone had any experience with Finpack from the University of Minnesota? I used it as an undergraduate at North Dakota State University in a Farm Management class, but I didn't have an opportunity to get real familiar with the program. I have looked at Farmworks and it looks like a good program but don't know that much about it. Are there any other good programs out there? 

[William Morgan]

We use Farm Manager by Flexicode Solutions. It's web based and works good for what we use it for. What's nice is there is a mobile app that goes with it. It's cheap too, I think a subscription is less than $50 per year.