askcust explains which agribusiness software an agricultural company needs: accounting and ERP, CRM, field maps and monitoring, telematics, grain elevator systems and IoT, and helps choose between a ready service and custom development. For owners and directors choosing a first system or bringing order to several they already have.
Agribusiness software is the set of programs an agricultural company uses to keep records and run production: accounting and ERP, field and operations records, field maps and satellite monitoring, machinery telematics, CRM, grain elevator systems and equipment automation. Unlike a single record-keeping program, it is usually a set of systems whose value lies in the links between them: fields, crops and inventory items must be the same in each.
The choice starts with the process where the farm loses the most, not with a product catalogue. Often the first need is not an ERP but field and operations records or inventory: they produce the primary data everything else is calculated from.
Agronomists work in one service, the engineer in a telematics portal, accounting in BAS, sales in spreadsheets. Without shared reference data and data exchange, management gets four versions of the truth that have to be reconciled by hand.
The service handles fields well but knows nothing about in-kind payments, an own grain elevator or non-standard land leases. The rest is kept in spreadsheets alongside, and the advantage of a ready product gradually fades.
Per-hectare or per-user pricing is convenient at the start, but as the area and the team grow, the cost of ownership over several years can exceed the cost of an own system. It is worth comparing the total for 3–5 years, not the monthly fee.
Years of field, operations and yield history are stored on the service's servers, and the export may be incomplete or in an awkward format. Before choosing, check whether there is a full export and an API, and who owns the data under the contract.
For each class: which tasks it covers and who needs it. askcust builds systems of these classes to order or connects the ones you already have.
Local accounting systems, such as BAS in Ukraine, for bookkeeping and tax, and e-reporting services such as M.E.Doc. Every company needs them; askcust does not replace them but integrates the other systems with them.
Costs per field and crop, inventory, purchasing, sales and budgets in one system. Needed when several departments keep records and the owner needs management figures, not only bookkeeping ones.
Fields and crop rotation, crop technology maps, planned and actual operations, fertiliser and crop protection applications. The agronomist's workspace and the basis of operations records, useful to a farm of any size.
Field boundaries, cadastral plots, Sentinel-2 imagery and vegetation index layers, the history of each field. They show what happens in the fields between visits and where the agronomist should look first.
GPS monitoring of machinery, worked area, idle time, refuelling and fuel drains. Needed as soon as the fleet is too large to follow every machine personally.
Clients, suppliers, deals and contracts that follow the season. Needed by distributors, machinery dealers and traders, and by farms that sell their harvest to several buyers themselves.
Weighbridge, lab, intake and shipment, and quantity and quality accounting of grain by lot and depositor. Needed by elevator owners and by farms with their own grain storage.
Irrigation, greenhouses, grain dryers and livestock farms: sensors, controllers and dispatching in one system. Needed where production depends on equipment, not only on machinery in the field.
| criterion | Ready service | Custom software by askcust |
|---|---|---|
| Fit with processes | Fits if your processes are close to the ones the product was built for, without major exceptions. | Built around your processes, including the exceptions that usually keep spreadsheets alive next to a product. |
| Data ownership | The data is yours under the contract, but it is stored by the vendor and available within its export. | The data and the code belong to you and run on your server or in your cloud. |
| Links to other systems | Through the vendor's ready integrations; if the one you need is missing, the link is made by hand. | Integrations are designed together with the system for the software you already use. |
| Support and development | The vendor develops the product for all clients, and your change request is one of many in the queue. | Development follows your priorities: the next release is what your farm needs. |
| Cost of ownership | A low entry price, but the per-hectare or per-user subscription is paid every year the service is used. | A higher entry price, but no yearly fee for the area; support by agreement. |
| When to choose | Standard tasks, a small team, a quick start needed and no resources for an own system. | Non-standard processes, several systems to integrate, data that must stay with you, or a subscription that keeps getting more expensive. |
A list of the programs, spreadsheets and services the company already uses: who works in them, which data they duplicate and where exchange happens by hand.
The audit produces a map: what to keep, what to replace with a ready service and what is worth building. askcust says so plainly when a ready product is a better deal than development.
For the systems chosen for development, a prototype of the key screens and a description of the data exchange with the other programs, agreed with the team before work starts.
The first module on real data, shared reference data and exchange with accounting, telematics or CRM, so that fields and crops are entered once for all systems.
Integration updates when ready services change their APIs, development of your own modules and a review of the systems map as the company grows or buys new software.
examples of askcust's work →not agriculture, but the same kind of task: records, CRM, automation
A farm accounting program records the operations of one area, such as fields, inventory or fuel, and calculates its result, while an ERP brings the accounting, purchasing, sales, finance and approvals of several departments into one system with roles. A farm of a few hundred hectares often needs only a field and inventory records program; an ERP is needed when several departments keep records and the owner wants costs and cash in one place.
Yes, if the ERP has no field map, crop rotation or crop technology maps: agronomists then need their own system, linked to the ERP through shared reference data for fields and crops. The bad case is fields kept twice, in the ERP and in the agronomy software, with different areas and names. The right setup is one system responsible for fields and the other taking them from it through data exchange.
When the ready service does not cover a key process, does not integrate with your systems, or the data must stay with you. For the standard tasks of a small farm a subscription is usually the better deal: a quick start and a lower entry price. Custom development pays off where processes are non-standard, there are several systems, and per-hectare or per-user fees grow with the company.
For a 5,000 ha enterprise the typical set is three or four systems: accounting (in Ukraine, BAS with M.E.Doc e-reporting), field and operations records or an agri ERP, machinery telematics and, if there is a sales team or an own elevator, a CRM or elevator system. You can start with one; what matters more than the number is the exchange between them: fields, crops and inventory items should be created once.
A ready service launches within days and is paid for by subscription per hectare, user or module. Custom software is paid for by the scope of development and support, and the first module launches after the analysis and prototype; askcust estimates it with a fixed scope. Compare the cost of ownership over several years, including integrations, training and the cost of switching if the service stops fitting.
In custom software the data and the code belong to the client: the database runs on the client's server or cloud account. In a ready service the data is formally yours but stored by the vendor, and you can take it back only to the extent and in the format the export allows. Before subscribing, check for a full export and an API, and what the contract says about the data after cancellation.
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