Regardless of industry, inventory management plays a critical role in your business’ success. Inventory management is the systems or methods used to monitor how goods move through the supply chain, meet customer demand, and generate revenue.
In farming, accurate grain inventory management can elevate an operation from producer to strategic partner. Growers who accurately and consistently capture the quantity, quality and location of their product have a reputation for being reliable and reinforce their position of supplier of choice with processors.
Who is using farm management software to support inventory management?
The Stratus Ag Research report “Dynamics of Data in Ag” shows that 55% of Canadian and 65% of US farmers use farm management software.
Farm operations of all shapes and sizes rely on inventory management to provide accurate product data to make informed decisions on supply chain management and, ultimately, sales. Depending on the size of your operation, tracking inventory can be a substantial expense. Collecting information from employees and manually tracking inventory on a spreadsheet is time-consuming, prone to error, and hard to scale as your farm grows.
With the right farm management software you can easily record and access accurate, real-time information. These solutions are particularly useful for operations that don’t require a comprehensive enterprise inventory management solution.
“We raise cattle as well, so when February rolls around I’m focused on calving, at the same time, trying to remember what bin has spring wheat and how much we need to pull to fulfill a contract. Being able to just go back to [Farm At Hand] and say, ‘Okay, yeah, there’s 800 bushel in that bin.’ That’s been the biggest thing for sure.”
– Abby, Majerus Ranch, Lewistown, MT
The Benefits of Accurate inventory management
Accurate recordkeeping allows you to make actionable decisions that directly impact your bottom line. Here are just a few of the benefits:
Storage Management – Create a virtual bin yard, then track the location and available capacity for your bins and bags in one place. Record your grain’s quality attributes to provide consistency and traceability to your partners along the supply chain for greater customer satisfaction all the way to the end consumer. If you have an expansive network of storage bins and bags, you can also create efficiencies with haul-ins and outs through strategic bin management when managing delivery trucks.
Contract Satisfaction – Inventory tracking solutions provide a real-time inventory status to marketers so that you can make informed decisions based on commodity price and available product. Knowing exactly where your product is also means faster deliveries, improving customer satisfaction and driving more sales revenue.
Enhanced insights – Accessing real-time information eliminates inventory management errors and takes out the guesswork in your sales position. Accurate reports offer a clear picture of your available space, available product, contract fulfillment, and year-over-year comparisons.
How to use Farm At Hand to manage your inventory
Farm At Hand has inventory tracking capabilities that allow you to record harvest dates, weather information, commodity, variety, and quantity in a centralized location that is easy to reference. Down the road, you’ll benefit from improved financial accounting and lifecycle management.
Once you’ve added bins (and storage) in Farm At Hand, you’ll be able to see your current inventory at a glance, right from your mobile device. Our users love seeing the “progress bar” go up and down as inventory is moved.
You can try Farm At Hand for free today. Sign up for an account and start a 30-day no-obligation Premium subscription to explore all of Farm At Hand’s features. Learn how here, then visit our Knowledge Centre to learn how to add a bin or bag to your farm in Farm At Hand.
Happy farming!
