Hello. I own a livestock business and I need to keep track of the number of my animals. The number of animals increases with births and the animals I buy to sell, and decreases with sales. Sometimes there are transitions between animal groups because as the animal grows, its naming changes. For example, an animal that starts life as a kid later turns into a goat or a billy goat. I first tried to track these in inventory products, but since I wanted to know the values of my assets, when I entered the costs for them and purchased new animals, I saw that I could not track my costs correctly. For this reason, I tried to record my animals in fixed assets, but I am having difficulty because the numbers are not listed here either. By the way, since I am using the Turkish version, the naming may be different from yours. My question is: How do people who raise livestock do these recording and tracking procedures? I would be very happy if you could help. Thanks.
Nobody? Wow… OK.
I would suggest tracking them as Inventory Items. Use production orders for transition of an animal during their life.
For cost tracking you need to know your requirement. If you want cost details of individual animal, you need to create separate item for each animal and allocate costs to individual animal. But that would be too much work, i think.
I suspect you will be better off looking for a software package designed for livestock farmers instead of shoe-horning this in Manager, which is a simple accounting system
The lack of response says it all - very few, if any, use Manager to keep track of livestock
Manager like most pure accounting applications does not have the specialized biological asset tracking that you require. As @Joe91 explained you need to look for software that does (Google or AI it). Look for applications that are designed to track living assets such as livestock. These help manage the unique aspects of biological assets, including growth, reproduction, valuation changes, and movement between categories.
I think if your live stock is kept as parent stock, treat them as biological assets and dispose then accordingly when they loose their usefulness. However, if your live stock is kept for sale then they are stock and they should be treated as such.
You have also mentioned that this livestock graduates from stage to stage, therefore every stage is treated as a stock item with those unique names you have given your livestock. You need to involve production stages to this effect in order to graduate from one product type to a new product of live stock of course. Allocate all direct cost of production to a control a account under COGS.
Please note that the problem arising from this is that the stock valuation of your live stock along its useful life will be restricted to the initial cost allocated to it at acquisition if purchased and at birth if born by parent stocks, since all production cost is allocated somewhere and not attached to the livestock as it grows. I hope this can help.
Have you looked at adding a Production Orders Tab in the Customize Manager section? You would check the boxes for Inventory and Production. There might be other boxes you want, as well. For example, if an animal dies, that would be an inventory write-off.
I think a livestock business might be something like a manufacturing business. In the Guides (https://www.manager.io/guides/production-orders), it says at the very bottom, “By understanding and utilizing these features within the Production Orders tab, you can effectively manage and track your manufacturing processes in Manager.io.”
A livestock business might be likened to a manufacturing business because they both account for inventory and production processes.
- Raw Materials: In a livestock business, animals (e.g., calves, lambs) are similar to raw materials in a manufacturing business.
- Production Costs: The costs associated with raising the animals (e.g., feed, veterinary care) are akin to the production costs in manufacturing (e.g., paints, chemicals, labor).
- Stages of Production: Just as raw materials in manufacturing move through different stages of production, animals in a livestock business go through various life stages (e.g., from calf to adult cow).
To handle births, you could enter a purchase for a zero price. That would increase your inventory count with the date it happened.
I understand you have stages of an animal’s life that change it into something different, like an adult. You also want to track how the cost of the animal changes at each stage.
So maybe Manager’s manufacturing features might be used for a livestock business. This system would help track the costs and stages involved in raising and selling animals, much like how a manufacturing business tracks the transformation of raw materials into finished goods.
I think Manager can match your Costs of Goods Sold with your sales. If you don’t have the exact reports you need in Manager, Manager has easy ways to export them to a spreadsheet by copying and pasting them. Excel has features where you can just paste the data to get the report without needing to recreate the report from scratch every time.
I am not in the livestock business or any manufacturing business. So, my ideas are probably way off. Still, I hope this post can give you ideas that can lead you to a solution for your livestock business.
Ask your accountant for help to set up your chart of accounts in such a way that will facilitate the following livestock trading report, if that is what you require:
@Flesius Do your accounting in manager including inanimate fixed assets, consumables for the land and biologic stock, biologic stock purchase cost & sale returns.
Manage your biological stock separately including fertility rate, stock revaluation, rate of return per animal (or animal type).
This is the equivalent of using point of sale software in addition to Manager for accounting in a retail business.