Best Dairy Management Software

What is Dairy Farm Management Software?

Each of us uses a variety of dairy products every day. Ever wondered how the dairy industry or the people who are behind the process make everything happen so seamlessly and without any glitches? Well, dairy management software enables these professionals to relentlessly work towards making dairy products and make them reach almost every household effortlessly and like clockwork.

Dairy Management Software is specifically built to simplify dairy business operations. It automates several tasks to ease the working f dairies, dealers, and sellers. Right from the collection of milk from various farmers to the storage of milk, from the processing of milk and its different products being produced at various stages to maintaining daily transaction stocks and sales management, dairy software provides every solution for dairy.

Features of Dairy Farm Management Software

1. Data Management: Data management refers to maintaining and organizing data processes to meet ongoing needs. Data management is an essential feature of dairy management software as it helps in making decisions and taking actions that maximize the benefits of the dairy industry. Efficient dairy farm software must manage data including the number of animals and their history, amount of fodder purchased, daily milk yield, milk reception, society-wise milk not received, data transfer between milk centers, and more.
2. Stock Management: Dairy products have a limited shelf life. So, farmers or dairy owners cannot afford to lose money from spoilage because of inventory mismanagement. Therefore, your dairy software’s inventory must account for the expiration date from the moment the products arrive until you place it on shelves for sale. For perishable products, your inventory must have sell-by date controls.
3. Production Management: This feature takes care of an organization's production systems. It takes inputs in the form of raw material, people, machines, tools, technology, cash, information, and other resources and produces outputs in the form of product and services. Dairy software must look into this aspect as it plays a significant role in decision making.
4. POS Invoicing: With a reliable point of sale and invoicing dairy software, dairy owners and dealers can free themselves from the time-consuming process of bookkeeping accounting and inventory information. Milk dairy POS software keeps record about sales, customers, suppliers, inventory, and more. Some software is built to produce day to day sales reports to help you know which products are sold more. It also maintains the product inventory to provide you an estimation of how many products one requires daily. For products that are GST applicable, dairy farm software can calculate GST automatically.
5. Spend Management: This feature keeps a record of the total expenses milk producers and dealers make behind the farm and business operations, respectively. Depending on the software taken into use, it helps to create accounting entries for the milk collection transactions into respective account ledgers. Most of the dairy farm management software helps producers keep track of the total amount spent on cattle’s fodder, their treatment, and more.
6. Advanced Reports: Multiple reports in context to milk dispatch and account can be exported to Excel sheet from milk dairy software. Some software even offers you with a myriad of reports including Milk Purchase Registers, Milk Payment Reports, Profit & Loss, Stock and Election reports, and more.
7. Automatic Milk Collection: Dairy milk collection software automates the process of conventional milk collection and procurement that is being followed by the dairy industry. It enables milk producers to capture, maintain, and analyze the daily milk collection. It helps them get the right value of milk. Thus, the automatic milk collection system is a custom solution to manage all the tasks associated with distributed milk collection and milk procurement.

Benefits of Dairy Farm Record Keeping Software

Record keeping is an essential element of good livestock business management. If the farmers hold no written records, they have to completely rely on their memory when it comes to taking important decisions for their farm practices. But, memories are unreliable after a certain period. So, it is important to have a dairy farm record keeping software.

Dairy herd management software helps determine the performance of cattle if animals have some identifications or numberings. It is also useful to have records for production and financial transactions so that managing the farm becomes easy. Moreover, farmers can gauge the strengths and weaknesses of their farm operations.

It is essential to maintain the following records at the dairy farm:

• Livestock Register: Here, the record of the number of animals at the farm along with their identification number, date of birth, date of purchase, date of sale/death, and other related information is kept.
• Through this register, one can determine the calving that takes place on the farm. It maintains calf number, its sex, and date of birth, and other remarks.
• Milk Yield Register: Here, the record of daily milk yield performance of the herd is maintained.
• Daily Feeding Register: This register keeps a record of the amount of concentrate, green fodder, dry fodder, and other feeds given to the animals.
• Herd Health Register: Through this register, one can maintain the record of diseased animals, diagnosed diseases, type of treatment given, and the details of the veterinarian.

Here are some prime benefits of using a dairy farm record keeping software:

• Records help to evaluate animal history from the previous records. One can also determine animal culling through records.
• It helps in keeping a history of animals and designing breeding plans accordingly.
• One can detect abnormal conditions and disease status of the herd so that loss in milk production can be prevented.
• It also helps in finding the most common diseases occurring in the herd and thus take some precautionary measures like vaccination.
• It aids in analyzing the feeding cost and profits made through animal product outputs.
• Depending on the animal history, one can fix the price of animals for sales and purchase.
• It provides an accurate insight into the income and expenditure of dairy farm.
• It also helps in estimating the cost of milk so that one doesn’t incur any loss.

Things to keep in mind before buying Dairy Software

There are many dairy software available on the market. But, before diving into an idea of incorporating dairy farm management software into your business, it is crucial to consider the basics – how will it be useful or whether it will suffice dairy operations needs. Some of the things to consider before buying dairy software include:

• Simple & Easy Integration: There is no meaning of having a tool that one cannot use. Therefore, it is always recommended to get dairy management software that boasts a user-friendly interface and simple integration.
• Remote Access: Being a farmer or dairy owner, one cannot be found at the same place. So, it is a must to have remote access to the data stored in the dairy software. One must access the data from anywhere and at any time.
• Mobile Access: In this digital era, it is of utmost importance that one can view every data on their hand-held devices. As people tend to travel across different regions for their business, they require dairy software that goes along with them wherever they go.
• Data Management: This enables every business to manage multiple data and keep track of the entire business workflow.
• Integrated Data Analytics: Along with collecting, organizing, and maintaining data, it is vital to analyze the data accordingly. Data Analytics tools help business owners to gauge if the business is doing profit or loss. One can make critical decisions based on it. So, dairy farm software must incorporate data analytics tools into it.
• Scalable and Customizable: Dairy software should be customizable in itself. This can fulfill the exact requirement of business and fetch invaluable results.
• Evaluate the total cost: Money is an essential aspect while selecting dairy management software. It is must to consider both the direct and basic costs so that hidden fees don't pop up in the future. See to it if the training, set-up, maintenance, support integration, and update costs are included or not.
• Check for integration: Depending on the business operations in which one involves, the milk dairy software requirement varies. Check if the essential features required are included in the package one is buying. If not, see if the software supports integration with the existing or other systems utilized in the business processes.