Production trackers on Figured are used to keep on top of all the various forms of production on your farm - whether you're a sheep and beef farmer, a dairy farmer, a potato farmer, or something in between.
For milk you would have a milk tracker for each unique milk company you supply, and an additional tracker if you supply a single company more than once i.e. if you are a farm owner and then additionally a share milker on another farm.
Your milk tracker is where you will record your monthly kgMS, the monthly milk price, and the income received from that.
Using a milk tracker
The milk trackers in Figured are setup to use two main accounts - this season milk income, and deferred season milk income. No longer will you need to allocate monthly milk payments to a unique account!
The milk tracker itself uses a few key pieces of information - kgMS produced each month, milk price, and then you can choose to enter seasonal / capacity adjustments if your milk company offers those.
How the milk tracker works with actuals and forecasts
You enter actual, and forecasted milk income into trackers.
An example of how you would use your milk tracker in these three views is below:
You supply milk to Fonterra - you then have a Fonterra milk tracker on Figured
You would enter a forecast kgMS produced of 10,000 kgMS you're anticipating you'll milk in August
As the time draws closer, you’ve had a hard winter and the cows haven't fared as well as you'd thought. So you update this production in your forecasts with a lower number - 8,500 kgMS
Fonterra collects your milk in August, and they send you your milk statement. You pop this number into your actual production at 8,439 kgMS
The milk tracker then passes this information to other parts of Figured like your planning tab, and your reports.
NOTE: In the milk tracker for actuals, you never need to enter actual dollar value received as this flows straight from the accounting software.