29 May 2025

From Floppy Disks to Cloud Computing: A SUM-IT Success Story Over The Decades

Following our popular blog post "The Truth About Being a Farm Secretary in 2025", we're delighted to share another perspective on this vital agricultural role.

Look­ing Back On Life as a Farm Sec­re­tary and Why SUM-IT Soft­ware has Remained The #1 Choice

This fol­low-up fea­tures the expe­ri­ences of Sue Tay­lor, whose career spans sev­er­al decades of agri­cul­tur­al admin­is­tra­tion and show­cas­es how SUM-IT soft­ware has been cen­tral to her pro­fes­sion­al evolution.

The Pre-Dig­i­tal Era of Farm Administration

In our pre­vi­ous blog, we explored how the role of farm sec­re­taries has trans­formed in recent years thanks to the insight of Ann Davies. 

Sue Tay­lor’s jour­ney pro­vides us with a fas­ci­nat­ing his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive on just how far this pro­fes­sion has come.

Sue recalls the days of man­u­al cash analy­sis sys­tems and portable type­writ­ers — a stark con­trast to today’s inte­grat­ed dig­i­tal solu­tions. ​“When I first start­ed work in 1975 at the age of 21, I worked for an agency doing basic VAT record­ing using a man­u­al cash analy­sis sys­tem,” she explains. ​“There were no cal­cu­la­tors, com­put­ers or mobile phones. Wages were cal­cu­lat­ed man­u­al­ly and paid in cash.”

She recalls one of the first tech­no­log­i­cal improve­ments was get­ting a cal­cu­la­tor ​“as I recall the first ones cost around £80 in the 1980’s, which was expen­sive” This is the equiv­a­lent to around £500 today!

The SUM-IT Soft­ware Revolution

It wasn’t until the ear­ly 1990’s that com­put­ers became com­mon­place but as Sue notes ​“the first com­put­ers were very basic and with lit­tle mem­o­ry (remem­ber flop­py discs?).”

The turn­ing point in Sue’s career came in the ear­ly 1990s when she made a deci­sion that would trans­form her prac­tice: ​“Final­ly in the ear­ly 90’s I upgrad­ed to com­put­erised accounts. I went for SUM-IT soft­ware, as they were the only farm accounts pack­age that did invoic­ing, and the soft­ware has served me well since.”

This choice proved pre­scient. While oth­er farm sec­re­taries con­tin­ued to strug­gle with gen­er­al account­ing soft­ware ill-suit­ed to agri­cul­tur­al needs, Sue lever­aged SUM-IT’s spe­cialised fea­tures designed specif­i­cal­ly for farm businesses.

“Sup­port from Geoff Ley and Ben was always excel­lent, and con­tin­ues to be so.” Both mem­bers of staff have been there from Sue’s first intro­duc­tion to SUM-IT and con­tin­ue to sup­port users, includ­ing Sue, to this day!

Com­mon Misconceptions

Sue notes that ​“The most com­mon mis­con­cep­tions about the role of a farm sec­re­tary is that we are more than just a book-keep­er, and have oth­er skills such as fill­ing appli­ca­tions for envi­ron­men­tal schemes.”

Find­ing the right farm sec­re­tary, or as Sue points out, the right Rur­al Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tor, can be an immense­ly valu­able asset for a farmer.

Beyond Basic Account­ing: Com­pre­hen­sive Farm Management

What set SUM-IT apart from oth­er solu­tions was its com­pre­hen­sive approach to farm man­age­ment. Sue par­tic­u­lar­ly high­lights the soft­ware’s capa­bil­i­ties beyond sim­ple book­keep­ing: ​“I have always found SUM-IT soft­ware to be very easy to use, and the reports, espe­cial­ly the Selec­tive Reports, are always excellent.”

The soft­ware’s spe­cialised farm account­ing fea­tures allowed Sue to offer more strate­gic ser­vices to her clients — mov­ing beyond basic trans­ac­tion record­ing to pro­vid­ing mean­ing­ful finan­cial insights. 

“SUM-IT soft­ware is updat­ed and improved reg­u­lar­ly and is just so sat­is­fy­ing to use, for exam­ple doing accru­als & pre­pay­ments at the account­ing year end is a breeze!” she explains.

This aligns per­fect­ly with what we described in our pre­vi­ous blog as the evo­lu­tion toward farm sec­re­taries becom­ing strate­gic busi­ness part­ners rather than mere record-keepers.

Keep­ing Pace with Agri­cul­tur­al Evolution

As farm­ing prac­tices and reg­u­la­tions have evolved, SUM-IT soft­ware has devel­oped along­side them. Sue’s expe­ri­ence high­lights how the right tech­nol­o­gy part­ner can help rur­al busi­ness admin­is­tra­tors adapt to chang­ing requirements.

“I am look­ing for­ward to using the newest ver­sion of Total, just wait­ing for the Con­trac­tor’s Diary to be ready,” Sue men­tions — demon­strat­ing how the soft­ware con­tin­ues to evolve to meet new agri­cul­tur­al busi­ness needs. 

The Con­trac­tor’s Diary fea­ture that Sue ref­er­ences has been par­tic­u­lar­ly valu­able for gen­er­at­ing invoic­es for con­tract work, man­ag­ing reg­u­lar rental invoic­es and doc­u­ment­ing work done for clients through all man­ner of diver­si­fied rur­al businesses.

Client Rela­tion­ships Enhanced by Technology

Sue’s most amus­ing chal­lenge—​“per­suad­ing a farmer to invest in a decent com­put­er with a good sized screen and a suit­able office chair”—high­lights the human ele­ment of tech­no­log­i­cal adop­tion. Despite these occa­sion­al hur­dles, she empha­sis­es that SUM-IT soft­ware has enabled her to pro­vide supe­ri­or ser­vice to her clients.

“The biggest impact on the far­m’s suc­cess is hav­ing every­thing up to date, espe­cial­ly pay­ing bills on time to ensure a good cred­it rat­ing, and being able to work up a bud­get,” Sue notes. SUM-IT’s farm-spe­cif­ic report­ing capa­bil­i­ties have enabled her to pro­vide this lev­el of time­ly, accu­rate finan­cial information.

“The most inter­est­ing task I did was in the ear­ly days when I worked for sev­er­al pedi­gree Hol­stein breed­ers. It was nec­es­sary to do a sketch of the mark­ings of the calves onto a preprint­ed card with a calf shape on it, and this was sub­mit­ted to the Hol­stein Soci­ety to reg­is­ter the ani­mal. I used to real­ly enjoy doing them.”

Look­ing For­ward: The SUM-IT Advantage

As we look to the future of farm admin­is­tra­tion, Sue’s sto­ry demon­strates the val­ue of choos­ing soft­ware that tru­ly under­stands agri­cul­tur­al businesses. 

Her com­par­i­son with oth­er, more gener­ic account­ing solu­tions is telling: ​“I have used Quick­books as well over the years, but find the report­ing side of it very disappointing.”

For farm sec­re­taries and rur­al busi­ness admin­is­tra­tors read­ing this, Sue’s three decades of expe­ri­ence with SUM-IT soft­ware offers a com­pelling case study in how the right tech­no­log­i­cal tools can enhance ser­vice deliv­ery and client satisfaction. 

She has now trained a new admin­is­tra­tor to do the gen­er­al inputting for her and describes her­self as ​“pret­ty much retired now”.

A Sea­soned Farm Sec’s 5 Top Tips for New Entrants 

1. Mas­ter spe­cialised farm soft­ware — Sue rec­om­mends SUM-IT soft­ware specif­i­cal­ly for its farm-focused fea­tures, report­ing capa­bil­i­ties, and reg­u­lar updates that stream­line com­plex tasks like year-end accru­als and prepayments.
   
2. Val­ue your exper­tise appro­pri­ate­ly — Charge fair rates for your pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices and trav­el time; clients who appre­ci­ate qual­i­ty work will pay with­out hes­i­ta­tion, while those who don’t may not be worth keeping.
   
3. Main­tain pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment — Join the Insti­tute of Agri­cul­tur­al Sec­re­taries & Admin­is­tra­tors (IAgSA) and attend reg­u­lar refresh­er cours­es to stay cur­rent with chang­ing leg­is­la­tion and indus­try practices.
   
4. Keep finan­cial records metic­u­lous­ly cur­rent — Time­ly, accu­rate book­keep­ing ensures good cred­it rat­ings, enables sound bud­get­ing, and pro­vides farm­ers with the clar­i­ty need­ed for busi­ness decisions.
   
5. Cus­tomise your approach for each client — Devel­op flex­i­bil­i­ty in your work­ing meth­ods, as every farm busi­ness has dif­fer­ent needs and com­mu­ni­ca­tion styles that require adaptation.

Con­clu­sion: Farm Soft­ware as the Foun­da­tion of Excellence

Sue’s career jour­ney from man­u­al ledgers to advanced dig­i­tal man­age­ment cap­tures the essence of the mod­ern farm sec­re­tary’s evo­lu­tion. At the heart of this trans­for­ma­tion has been reli­able, pur­pose-built farm busi­ness soft­ware with a team who tru­ly under­stands the unique needs of agri­cul­tur­al businesses.

As she reflects on her career: ​“A career as a farm sec­re­tary can be very reward­ing… The role is var­ied and some­times chal­leng­ing, but there is great sat­is­fac­tion to be had in a good job well done.”

For Sue, SUM-IT soft­ware has been an essen­tial part­ner in achiev­ing that sat­is­fac­tion and deliv­er­ing excep­tion­al ser­vice to farm busi­ness­es across the UK.

Fan­cy see­ing SUM-IT’s easy-to-use, farm spe­cif­ic accounts in action? Book your free demo here.