A new business management app called Ag-drive is helping farmers and contractors to move away from paper-based systems and save time when recording jobs, managing staff, inputting timesheets and invoicing.

It’s founder, Will Dunn, said businesses can save hours of time, and improve their turnover by going digital.

Launched in summer, 2021, the app – which also has a desktop version – enables users to assign and record jobs, send directions to operators, map fields, perform health and safety checks, and send invoices with job reports through integrations with popular accounting software providers Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage.

Users have benefitted from two updates in the past few weeks, made in response to user feedback. These included improvements to the design of the screens on the desktop and app versions to make Ag-drive simpler and faster to use. A new integration with Sage accounting software was the most recent update.

“One of the important changes we’ve made is to remove the need for users to enter their credit card details to start a 14-day free trial of Ag-drive. This makes it easy for contractors and farm businesses to see for themselves how much time they could save by switching to a digital system before committing themselves,” explained Will.

“Getting feedback from our users was incredibly important for us to continue the development of Ag-drive. We knew that there were parts of the app that could work better, but we needed to hear from our customers to ensure we made the right changes to meet the needs of their businesses.”

All actions can be done on the app, although the desktop version is mainly used for invoicing and processing time sheet information. The platform connects seamlessly with accounting software QuickBooks, Xero and now, Sage, for simplified invoicing and record keeping, ensuring customers know exactly what work has been completed and when. Each job report can be attached to the invoice for complete traceability between contractor and farmer.

What's it like in the field?

Farmer and contractor, Alistair Kingan, of Kingan Farms, near New Abbey, Dumfries, was one of the first subscribers to Ag-drive and had been using it since summer 2021. He said it had made a big difference to the efficiency of his business and saved him a lot of time.

“We’re a beef finishing business with contracting, renewables, and holiday cottages, so there’s a lot going on,” pointed out Alistair, who runs the business with wife Suzy, daughter Lily, and parents, Margaret and Russell.

“In terms of the contracting business, we operate roughly in a 25-mile radius of New Abbey and do a lot of silage, cereal spraying, combining, dung, hen pen and digestate spreading, granular and liquid fertiliser spreading, as well as some tillage and drilling.”

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He has two full-time employed team members and a full-time sub-contractor on the contracting side, plus two employed team members on the cattle side, who also help with spraying during the summer. Additional casual workers during the summer bring the team up to around 10 at its peak.

Before adopting Ag-drive, all staff timesheets were paper-based and Alistair estimates he used to spend around five hours a month just inputting timesheets and doing his invoicing.

Job recordings are also proving to be very valuable for his record keeping. He added: “Whether it’s mucking out sheds, spreading dung, or putting jobs in for when to spread fertiliser, it’s all stuff that could go in a diary, but it’s just easier with Ag-drive because that job recording goes with that field, and it stays associated with that field for as long as you want it to.

“This makes it easy to check back to see what’s been done and we can also help our customers track what activities have been done in their business too. So, it helps them maintain their own records as well as ours,” he explained.

Switching to digital job recording instead of paper timesheets has also made a big difference to cashflow. “Over the years, getting time sheets in from the team had been a bit hit and miss. If they miss a time sheet at the end of the month and I don’t get it until the end of the following month, it can be 60 to 70 days since doing the job before I get paid. Now, as soon as the job cards come in through the app, I can send invoices out,” said Alistair.

Switching to the system wasn’t as hard for his team as it might have been, as they had trialled another app previously and younger team members picked it up straight away. However, he said that because Ag-drive had been designed to be simple to use, even those who weren’t as tech-savvy were able to use it without much trouble.

Alistair is now considering using it to help manage the cleaners for his holiday cottages.

* Ag-drive offers a free 14-day trial to new users. After the free trial period expires, users are billed monthly based on the number of operators, starting from £10 a month.