Livestock codes have additional information.

Each Farm Focus farm business contains a default set of livestock codes, that are relevant to the farming template you chose when you created your farm business.
Livestock extended codes contain physical and financial information. This information needs to be correct to ensure your livestock reconciliation and production reports are meaningful.

If you want to add a new livestock or dairy code then you need to include this additional information. You can also edit this information to make it more relevant and meaningful to you and your farming business.

Additional information in livestock codes

Set Type as Stock

This ensures the livestock category feeds through to your livestock reconciliation. Once the Type is set as Stock, a Mirror Section setting will appear. This allows you to use one category and extended code for stock class sales and purchases i.e. buying and selling of deer. Set the mirror code to be the counterpart of the section already attached to the code i.e. If you add a code under INCOME, the Mirror Section will be PURCHASES.

Settlement delay

If you use this function when recording actual and planned sales and purchases, the sale/purchase date is automatically calculated based on the payment date in a transaction. Adding a settlement delay is optional ie it can be set at 0. If a number is specified, say 14 days Farm Focus will automatically calculate the payment date when recording invoices in the Needs Action screen and sale & purchase events in your plan. This is important for budgeting if the settlement delay crosses over the month. If you use multiple meat processors it is possibly better to leave settlement delay as 0.

Stock units in New Zealand or System in Australia

Stock Units - NZ

In New Zealand the term Stock Unit (SU) is used to calculate stock numbers between species and age groups based on relative feed demands. One SU is based on the annual feed needed for a 55kg ewe rearing a single lamb.

Within the set-up of your Livestock codes, you have the option to enter a stock unit measure. This will flow through into your reports and in particular your Livestock Reconciliation, where you can monitor the level of stock units per hectare to understand if you are farming at an optimum stocking rate. This information is also used in some reports eg carcass weight produced per SU. The SU in Farm Focus is the standard SU used by DairyNZ and Beef and Lamb NZ. You can amend these if you like.

System - Australia

In Australia, Dry Sheep Equivalents (DSE), Adult Equivalents (AE), Large Stock Units (LSU), and Livestock Units (LU) are used to estimate feed demand and stocking rates. Learn more.

Select the livestock system appropriate to your farm.

Age to

This is the aging process and it reflects industry standards and is also used for tax purposes. All livestock are assumed to age up at the end of the financial year. Movement in stock numbers, the difference between what you opened with at the start of the year compared to your closing numbers, can also have enormous impacts on your taxable profit. Click here to learn more about the aging process.

Breeding status

These are a means of calculating breeding percentages or allowing stock to be born on the farm. Options are

Breeding (ie your primary breeding stock eg, MA and 2th ewes, MA cows).
Secondary Breeding (ie your young first-time breeding stock eg, Ewe hoggets or R2 heifers). This is used if you want Farm Focus to calculate different breeding percentages of your primary and secondary stock and is more relevant for Sheep farmers.
Progeny (ie Animals that are born on the farm (i.e. lambs, calves and fawns). This allows the stock event 'birth' to be created.
None (ie male stock bulls, steers, rams, wethers and anything too young to produce offspring)

Default unit of measure

Livestock codes default to either Carcass weight or Live weight. This means that when you are coding, the default will be selected. You can override the default when coding your invoice. Having the option to put in the weight information for your livestock will help significantly when analysing the efficiency and outputs of your business. If you are unsure which carcass weight yield to put into your codes, we recommend using the Beef and Lamb NZ figures as a start. If your particular breed of livestock is a typically higher or lower-yielding breed, then you can alter the yield percentage to suit.

Generally, dairy farmers would set their default as carcass weight as the majority of their animals are sold to the meat works.

Yield %

This is the proportion of ending live weight yielded after being processed at the meat works. Industry standards are used as default but these can be altered. The Yield % is used for calculating carcass weight from live weight, or vice versa, depending on the information you are recording. This ensures all reports and averages are consistently reporting the same thing. See below for some standard carcass weight yield percentages.

Add a livestock Category

Add the livestock Category as you would for a standard New Category.

Click here to learn more about creating a new category code.

Click on Settings > Codes > Farm Codes

Click on the 3 vertical dots in the appropriate Section i.e. INCOME or PURCHASES.
Select New Category
Enter the Category code, this will be a shortened version of the name (eg D)
Enter the Name (eg Deer)
Choose your GST type (Most likely Business)
Leave Accountant Code blank - this is what your accountant will complete
You may choose to apply a tag
Ensure the Type is set as Stock. This ensures the livestock category feeds through to your livestock reconciliation
Once the Type is set as Stock, a Mirror Section setting will appear. This allows you to use one category and extended code for stock class sales and purchases i.e. buying and selling of deer. Set the mirror code to be the counterpart of the section already attached to the code i.e. If you add a code under INCOME, the Mirror Section will be PURCHASES.
You will need to select a KPI reporting group for your category code, the KPI reporting group determines how your information is displayed in the reports. (eg. Deer Livestock)
Click Done to save.

Add a livestock Extended code

Add the livestock Extended code as you would for a standard Extended code. Click here to learn more about creating a new extended code.

Select the 3 vertical dots on the category code that you want to enter an extended code underneath (eg: Deer).
Select Extended code, this will be a shortened version of the name (eg: F)
Select the name (eg Fawn)
Ensure the Type is set as Stock.
Once the Type is set as Stock, additional information is required:
1. Settlement delay
2. Stock units
3. Age to
4. Breeding status
5. Default unit of measure
6. Yield %.
You will need to select a KPI reporting group for your category code, the KPI reporting group determines how your information is displayed in the reports. (eg. Deer Livestock)
Click Done to save