Farm Inventory Template: Inputs, Harvest Lots, Products

Farm inventory is everything a farm holds to use or sell: inputs like seed, planting material, fertilizer and packaging; the harvest in storage; and anything made from the harvest, from bagged produce to jam. Land, equipment and vehicles are assets, not inventory. A useful farm inventory template keeps three lists, inputs, harvest lots and products, and ties them together with a lot code on every harvest, so you can say what's on hand, what it's worth, and which harvest went into which product. In the example below, a taro farm holds $1,251 of inputs, has 175 kg of harvest left from four harvest lots, and has made eight batches of chips, kūlolo, poi and lilikoi butter, each traceable to the block it came from. Below is what counts, each list with its columns, how to value it, and a free template.

The short version

• Farm inventory is inputs, stored harvest and products made from the harvest; land and equipment aren't.
• Give every harvest a lot code: crop, block or field, and date.
• Record grades: what's sold fresh, what's processed, what's culled.
• Record which harvest lot every batch used, so a product traces back to its block.
• Calculate what's left of each harvest from what was sold and processed; a negative means a record is missing.
• Value inputs at what you paid; how to value the harvest itself is a question for your accountant.
• TaroStack runs the farm and the kitchen as one chain, from harvest lot to customer. More below.

What counts as farm inventory

Livestock and crops still in the ground are treated differently by different accountants, so they're left out here.

List 1: inputs

Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, grows taro on its own loʻi and makes products from it.

Huli, the taro tops kept for replanting, come from the farm's own harvest, so they carry no purchase cost, but they still belong on the list: run out of huli and the next planting waits. How to set each reorder point is in reorder point example.

List 2: harvest lots

The lot code is the block and the date: B3-1009 is block 3, October 9. On hand is grade A plus grade B, less what was sold fresh and what went into products, and the "into products" column adds itself up from the products list, so it can't disagree with it. If on hand ever goes negative, a sale or a batch wasn't recorded. How lot codes can be built is in how to create lot numbers.

List 3: products made from the harvest

With the harvest lot on every batch, any bag of chips traces back to its block and date. That's what a buyer asking about traceability wants, and what a farm making value-added products needs if a problem is ever found. What changes when a farm starts processing its harvest is in value-added products for farms.

What it's worth

Inputs are valued at what you paid: $1,251 in the example. The harvest is harder. Some farms value it at an estimate of what it cost to grow, some at what it would sell for, and how a farm values inventory for tax depends on how its books are kept, so ask your accountant before you pick. The template has a cost-per-kilogram column for whichever you choose; at $1.10 a kilogram for taro, the 175 kg on hand is worth $192.50. An organic farm also balances what was harvested against what was sold and processed, which these three lists answer directly; how is in organic mass balance audit.

Get the template

Download the farm inventory template. Three sheets: inputs with their value and reorder flags, harvest lots with grades and what's left, and the batches made from each harvest, linked by lot code. Type over the examples with your own crops, blocks and products. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

The lists work at a desk. The farm doesn't happen at a desk: the harvest is weighed in the field with no signal, graded at the wash station, and half of it goes to the kitchen on a Tuesday while the other half goes to market on Saturday. Someone types it all in on Sunday night, from scraps of paper. The batch sheet in the kitchen says "taro from Tuesday", not B3-1009, and the fertilizer runs out the week before planting because nobody looked at the list.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack runs the farm and the kitchen as one chain, from the harvest lot to the customer.

The farm and the kitchen are sites. A farm, a kitchen, a shop and a market stall are each sites, with stock kept per site, and moving the harvest to the kitchen is a transfer, with stock in transit until it lands. Each harvest goes into stock as a lot with its own code and dates. Counting works on a phone with no signal and sends itself later, so the field and the wash station aren't a problem.

Batches use harvest lots. A recipe holds the taro, oil, salt and bags. Recording a batch takes the taro from the harvest lot you used, and the other ingredients from theirs, notes them on the batch automatically, and gives the product its own lot code and best-by date. One report walks any harvest lot to every batch and customer, with what's still on your shelves.

And inputs that don't run out. The reorder list shows fertilizer, oil and bags in days of cover, against each supplier's lead time, and every adjustment carries a reason, so culls and spoilage are reported by reason, item and site.

Lots, recipes, batches and counting are on every plan, from $49 a month; more than one site, like a farm and a kitchen, is on Standard at $99. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

What is farm inventory?

Everything a farm holds to use or sell: inputs such as seed, fertilizer, feed and packaging, harvested crops in storage, and products made from the harvest. Land, equipment and vehicles are assets, not inventory.

What should a farm inventory record include?

For inputs, the item, unit, quantity, cost and reorder point. For each harvest, a lot code, the crop, block, date, weight, grades and where it went. For products, the batch, the harvest lot it used and the quantity made.

How do you value farm inventory?

Inputs at what you paid. The harvest at an estimate of what it cost to grow or what it would sell for, depending on how your books are kept; ask your accountant which applies to you.

Why give a harvest a lot code?

So every product made from it traces back to the block and date it came from, for a buyer's traceability question, a quality problem, or an organic audit.