Crates across the yard and nothing written down
Every morning, crates of potatoes, leeks and cabbages come up from the field. Eggs arrive from the laying shed in trays. Lambs come back from the abattoir and go straight into the butchery chiller. Milk for the cafe comes from the dairy. It is all your own produce, which is the whole point of a farm shop.
But the farm and the shop are often different businesses on paper, or at least have different accounts, different staff and perhaps different partners in the family. The farm wants to be paid fairly for what it supplies. The shop wants to know its real cost of goods. At year end, your accountant asks how much produce the farm supplied to the shop and at what value, and the answer is an estimate agreed round the kitchen table.
Why own produce is so hard to account for
Bought-in goods come with a delivery note and an invoice. Own produce does not. Nobody wants to write a delivery note for a crate of carrots carried from the field to the shop door, and nobody has agreed what that crate is worth: a wholesale price, a cost price, or a share of what the shop sells it for.
- Produce moves from field to shop without any record.
- There is no agreed price for own produce, or it changes by season.
- Meat from your own animals is valued differently by different people.
- Waste and unsold produce are not recorded against the farm or the shop.
- Year-end figures rely on an estimate made after the event.
How the farm and shop should charge each other, and how that is treated for tax and accounts, is for you and your accountant to decide. We do not advise on it. We build the records that make whatever you decide easy to follow.
What the missing record costs
Without a record, neither business really knows how it is doing. The shop may look very profitable because its produce is free on paper, or unprofitable because a guessed figure was charged at year end. The farm cannot tell which crops earn their keep through the shop. Family members involved in different parts of the business can end up disagreeing about figures nobody can check.
It also affects decisions. Whether to grow more of a crop for the shop, how to price your own lamb against a bought-in alternative, or whether the shop should buy in more, all depend on knowing what own produce is really worth to each side.
The farm-to-shop supply log we build
- A quick goods-in screen on a tablet at the shop's back door: pick the product, enter crates, kilos, dozens or carcass weight, and it records the time and who delivered it.
- An internal price list for own produce set by you, on the basis you and your accountant agree, which can change by season or by grade, with the date each price applies from.
- Carcasses from your own animals recorded with kill number, deadweight and the agreed value, linked to the butchery records if you have them.
- Returns and waste recorded against the right side: produce the farm takes back for animal feed, or produce the shop writes off, according to the terms you set.
- A weekly or monthly summary per product of quantities supplied and value, turned into an internal invoice from the farm to the shop, or a journal, in Xero or QuickBooks for both sets of books.
- A view of own produce against the shop's sales of the same products, so you can see what each crop and each animal really earns through the shop.
| Own produce | How it is recorded | How it is valued |
|---|---|---|
| Field veg and fruit | Crates or kilos at the back door | Internal price list by season |
| Eggs | Trays or dozens | Agreed price per dozen |
| Lamb, beef, pork | Carcass with kill number and weight | Agreed value per kilo deadweight |
| Milk for the cafe | Litres per day | Agreed price per litre |
| Returns to the farm | Crates back for feed | Credited or not, as you decide |
A month with the log
The field team puts crates down at the back door and a member of shop staff taps them in: three crates of potatoes, two of leeks, forty dozen eggs. It takes a moment. At the end of the month, the farm's internal invoice is generated from the log at the agreed prices, and it appears in both sets of accounts without anyone typing it.
When the family meets to talk about next season, the figures are there: how much of each crop the shop took, what it paid the farm and what the shop sold it for. Conversations that used to be about whose estimate was right can be about what to grow.
Your accountant gets a clear record instead of a year-end guess, which usually makes year end shorter too.
Is this how your own produce moves?
- Produce goes from the field to the shop with no record.
- There is no agreed internal price for your own produce.
- The farm and shop's figures are settled with an estimate at year end.
- Nobody knows which crops earn their keep through the shop.
- Waste of own produce is not recorded against anyone.