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25 July 2024

Could This Be the Best Accounting Software Solution for UK Farmers?

As the UK agricultural sector faces increasing economic challenges and complexities; managing your finances efficiently is now as critical as managing your crops and livestock. With the advent of numerous accounting software solutions, choosing the right one may be the key to the smooth running of your farm.

Under­stand­ing the Unique Needs of Farmers

Over the past few years, there has been a grow­ing increase in the num­ber of large gener­ic online account­ing soft­ware pack­ages, which many farm­ers are adopting.

Farm­ing, how­ev­er is unlike any oth­er busi­ness. It involves unique finan­cial intri­ca­cies, such as vast­ly fluc­tu­at­ing com­mod­i­ty prices, con­tra invoic­ing, sea­son­al cash flow vari­a­tions, and diverse income streams from live­stock, crops, diver­si­fi­ca­tions, sub­si­dies, and grants. 

When it comes to man­ag­ing the finan­cial intri­ca­cies of farm­ing, gener­ic account­ing soft­ware just does­n’t cut it. This often leads to farm­ers pay­ing unnec­es­sary fees to their accoun­tant or book­keep­er to over­come these short­com­ings. Stan­dard account­ing soft­ware often falls short in address­ing agriculture’s spe­cif­ic needs, which is where TOTAL2 Accounts steps in.

SUM-IT has been knee-deep in the farm­ing indus­try for over 40 years and knows exact­ly what pain points farm­ers expe­ri­ence ​‘on the ground’. Their spe­cial­ist team have put all their knowl­edge of farm­ing along with their devel­op­ment exper­tise and cre­at­ed the next gen­er­a­tion of account­ing soft­ware just for British farmers. 

Designed exclu­sive­ly for farm­ers, TOTAL2 Accounts offers a suite of fea­tures and ben­e­fits that stand out in the crowd­ed account­ing soft­ware mar­ket. But could this be the best account­ing soft­ware for UK farm­ers? Let’s delve into the fea­tures and ben­e­fits of TOTAL2 to find out.

Tai­lored Report­ing for Farmers

Along with all nec­es­sary accounts reports, one of the stand­out fea­tures of TOTAL2 is its advanced report­ing capa­bil­i­ties, tai­lored specif­i­cal­ly for farm­ing oper­a­tions. Unlike gener­ic soft­ware like Xero, TOTAL2 allows farm­ers to:

  • View Gross Mar­gins by Enter­prise: Whether you’re man­ag­ing live­stock, crops, or a diver­si­fied farm­ing oper­a­tion, TOTAL2 lets you view the gross mar­gins (and all the detail in between) of each enter­prise. This lev­el of detail is cru­cial for under­stand­ing which aspects of your farm are the most prof­itable and where you may ned to give extra attention.
  • Track Machin­ery Costs: With TOTAL2 Accounts, you can eas­i­ly track the costs and prof­itabil­i­ty asso­ci­at­ed with each piece of machin­ery. This can help in mak­ing informed deci­sions about equip­ment invest­ments and maintenance.
  • Car­bon Audit Report­ing: Eas­i­ly pro­vide third par­ties with the infor­ma­tion they need for Car­bon Audit­ing. All of this infor­ma­tion is gath­ered auto­mat­i­cal­ly by the pro­gram at point of pur­chase and sale.
  • Analyse Spe­cif­ic Units: TOTAL2 Accounts allows you to analyse the man­age­ment data down to cost per hectare, per ani­mal or any oth­er spec­i­fied unit. These reports can be real­ly valu­able in mak­ing deci­sions based on real-time data and not mere­ly hunches.

Sim­pli­fied Con­tra-Invoice Management

Farm­ing oper­a­tions often involve com­plex trans­ac­tions, includ­ing con­tra invoic­es which oth­er account­ing soft­ware doesn’t cater for. TOTAL2 sim­pli­fies this process by allow­ing you to input expens­es against rev­enues and view con­tra invoic­es with ease, all from a sin­gle screen. This stream­lined approach saves time and reduces the like­li­hood of errors, ensur­ing your accounts are accu­rate and up to date.

As well as con­tra-invoic­ing, TOTAL2 has many help­ful built-in farm­ing fea­tures such as agri-spe­cif­ic nom­i­nal codes and inte­gra­tion to oth­er farm­ing soft­ware such as live­stock and field man­age­ment and your own con­trac­tor diary.

Sim­pli­fied Finan­cial Management

SUM-IT is known for its has­sle-free record keep­ing and TOTAL2 Accounts cer­tain­ly lives up to this.

Their soft­ware offers a com­pre­hen­sive suite of account­ing fea­tures, includ­ing invoic­ing, expense track­ing, and VAT sub­mis­sions. Many farm­ers find the inter­face very intu­itive and sim­ple to use, reduc­ing the learn­ing curve and allow­ing farm­ers to focus more on their core activ­i­ties rather than spend­ing exces­sive time on bookkeeping.

A sig­nif­i­cant num­ber ofTOTAL2 users actu­al­ly decide to do a lot of the book­keep­ing them­selves as they find the pro­gram easy enough for them to ful­ly nav­i­gate them­selves. This has saved some farm­ers hun­dreds of pounds on sec­re­tar­i­al and account­ing fees.

Com­pli­ance with UK Regulations

Stay­ing com­pli­ant with the ever-chang­ing finan­cial reg­u­la­tions can be a daunt­ing task. TOTAL2 ensures that farm­ers are always aligned with the lat­est UK tax laws and report­ing require­ments.

SUM-IT update their soft­ware reg­u­lar­ly through­out the year so you can rest-assured your sys­tems will always be com­pli­ant. This com­pli­ance fea­ture helps avoid penal­ties and ensures smooth audits.

OPTION­AL Cloud Storage

It seems that near­ly all account­ing soft­ware is now Cloud-based which cer­tain­ly has its ben­e­fits but is not suit­able for all. Those farm­ers with poor broad­band for exam­ple will often find Cloud-based soft­ware quite frus­trat­ing as it means they only have inter­mit­tent access to their data.

TOTAL2 offers the flex­i­bil­i­ty of run­ning your accounts either in the Cloud or on your local PC. Here’s why that matters:

- **Cloud Option:** If you pre­fer the con­ve­nience of mul­ti­ple stake­hold­ers access­ing your accounts from any­where at the same time, the Cloud option is per­fect for you. It allows for real-time updates and col­lab­o­ra­tion with your sec­re­tary or oth­er stake­hold­ers in your business.

- **Local Stor­age:** For those with poor inter­net con­nec­tion or those who are more con­cerned about keep­ing their infor­ma­tion offline, the option to keep all your data secure­ly stored on your PC is a sig­nif­i­cant advan­tage. This way, you always have access to your data and retain full con­trol over your sen­si­tive finan­cial information.

Out­stand­ing Real-Life Human Cus­tomer Support!

So many soft­ware com­pa­nies now do not pro­vide you with an actu­al phone num­ber to speak to real peo­ple who can help there and then! Many offer online chats or sub­mis­sions of queries online or over email – all of which are pret­ty use­less at solv­ing your unique prob­lems when you need them, i.e. now!

When you do get in touch with their sup­port, they often under­stand very lit­tle about farm­ing, often result­ing in inac­cu­rate and unhelp­ful advice.

SUM-IT prides itself on its friend­ly, car­ing, and knowl­edge­able sup­port team. They under­stand farm­ers and their unique chal­lenges, which is why they can resolve 98% of queries in the first call. You are nev­er put in a queue or have to nav­i­gate end­less key­pad dials and are able to speak straight to one of their expe­ri­enced team 6 days a week.

“Won­der­ful, help­ful staff. Very kind and under­stand­ing” TOTAL2 Accounts User

This lev­el of sup­port ensures you can focus more on your farm and less on trou­bleshoot­ing soft­ware issues. Many TOTAL2 users find that they actu­al­ly save on hefty accoun­tan­cy bills as there are few­er phone calls to their accoun­tant as SUM-IT’s team answer a lot of their questions.

Pro­vid­ing your accoun­tant easy access to your data free of charge

SUM-IT appre­ci­ates that it’s crit­i­cal for any adopt­ed accounts sys­tem to ben­e­fit not only the User but also their accoun­tant. That’s why it’s always been stan­dard SUM-IT pol­i­cy to pro­vide Audi­tor ver­sions of their soft­ware com­plete­ly free of charge to any accoun­tant requir­ing client data for prepar­ing Year-End Accounts. Datasets can either be emailed direct from the soft­ware or, for those Users opt­ing for Cloud Data stor­age, their accoun­tant can log in to see the data real-time, once giv­en appro­pri­ate authorisation.

Afford­able and Trans­par­ent Pricing

Although their soft­ware is tech­ni­cal­ly advanced, SUM-IT are still a bit old-school in some of their prac­tices! They believe you should be able to own your own soft­ware and buy it out­right as a one-off fee rather than for­ev­er being tied in to pay­ing month­ly fees (which only ever go up!).

One of the biggest advan­tages of TOTAL2 is its cost-effec­tive­ness. SUM-IT offers TOTAL2 at a one-off afford­able pur­chase fee plus (option­al) annu­al sup­port start­ing at just £79 + VAT (per year, that’s only £6.59 a month!). This pric­ing is less than 50% of their near­est com­peti­tor, mak­ing it excel­lent val­ue for mon­ey. You get a robust, spe­cialised account­ing tool with­out break­ing the bank.

Why TOTAL2 Farm Accounts is the Best Choice for UK Farmers

Many farm­ers across the UK have already adopt­ed TOTAL2 and have shared pos­i­tive feed­back about their expe­ri­ences. Here’s what a few of them have to say:

“It is very easy to use and makes com­plete sense”

“You can always get hold of SUM-IT staff and their knowl­edge of the sys­tem is very impres­sive — who­ev­er answers the phone”

“Makes sense for farmers”

In sum­ma­ry, TOTAL2 Accounts stands out as the best account­ing soft­ware solu­tion for UK farm­ers due to its:

  • Farm-spe­cif­ic report­ing capa­bil­i­ties allow­ing you to make bet­ter deci­sions to grow your farm
  • In-built fea­tures for farm­ers mak­ing it more use­ful and sav­ing valu­able time
  • Excep­tion­al & acces­si­ble cus­tomer sup­port from a team that will make you feel understood
  • Abil­i­ty to offer you the choice of run­ning in the Cloud or not
  • Afford­able hon­est pricing

SUM-IT have also put togeth­er this short pre­view video here, out­lin­ing a few of these features.

If you’re a UK farmer look­ing for an account­ing solu­tion that tru­ly under­stands and caters to your needs, TOTAL2 by SUM-IT is def­i­nite­ly worth con­sid­er­ing. With its unique fea­tures and farmer-friend­ly approach, it could very well be the best invest­ment you make for your farm’s finan­cial health.

They are cur­rent­ly offer­ing free live demon­stra­tions of their account­ing soft­ware to give you the chance to see it on your com­put­er from the com­fort of your own office and ask their res­i­dent expert Ben John any ques­tions that you may have.

You can book your free one-to-one demo here, and best of all, there is absolute­ly no oblig­a­tion to buy.

Alter­na­tive­ly, you can get in touch and give their team a call on 01844 213003 and ask to speak to their Sales Direc­tor Ben John.