askcust develops ERP for agriculture to order: costs per field and crop, inventory, work orders and pay, harvest sales and settlements in one system linked to your existing accounting software. For farms where the financial result per field and crop is still calculated in spreadsheets after the year is closed.
An agricultural ERP is a management accounting and finance system in which costs, stocks, labour and sales are calculated with farming specifics in mind: cost per hectare and per crop, accounting by harvest year, in-kind settlements and input write-offs by field and operation. Unlike an agricultural enterprise management system, which covers processes and roles, an ERP answers the question of what it cost and how much was earned.
Costs of operations, inputs, fuel and machinery accumulate by field and crop as operations happen, and overheads are allocated by agreed rules. The preliminary cost per hectare and tonne is visible during the season, the final one right after harvest rather than after year-end closing.
Autumn sowing of winter crops, autumn ploughing and fertiliser applied for the next crop are costs of the future harvest. The ERP keeps records by harvest year, so this year's wheat cost is not distorted by costs that belong to next season.
Lease payments in grain, settlements with suppliers in future harvest and own seed from the previous crop are recorded as separate documents with their own valuation. Grain stocks and counterparty balances match without manual adjustments at the end of the period.
Seed, fertiliser, crop protection products and fuel are written off to a specific field and operation by the technology map rates, corrected by actual use. Overuse is visible for every field, not only in the total warehouse balance.
Piece-rate pay per hectare and per standard shift, and bonuses for quality and timing, are calculated from completed work orders automatically. The accounting system receives ready amounts for payroll and taxes, not a stack of paper work orders.
The set of modules is defined after the accounting analysis; bookkeeping and tax accounting stay in the local accounting system.
Direct costs per field, allocation of production and administrative overheads by the enterprise's rules, cost per hectare and tonne by crop, accounting by harvest year.
Seed, fertiliser, crop protection products, fuel and spare parts by warehouse and batch; issues for operations, write-offs to fields by rates and actual use, stocktakes and stock for any date.
Work orders for field operations and machinery, piece-rate pay per hectare and standard shift, bonuses; ready amounts go to the accounting system, where wages and taxes are calculated.
Contracts with buyers and traders, shipments of lots with grain quality taken into account, payments and receivables, margin per contract and crop.
Purchase requests with approval, supplier contracts, input financing repaid with the harvest, payables and the payment schedule for the season.
Lease payments accrued in money and grain, in-kind issues from the warehouse, settlements with landowners; detailed records of land shares (pai) and their contracts are kept in a separate module.
A season budget built from technology maps, plan versus actual by cost item, field and crop, and a cost forecast before harvest and after every major operation.
The local accounting system keeps the books and e-reporting stays where it is; the ERP exchanges reference data and documents with them.
| criterion | Ready ERP | Agri ERP by askcust |
|---|---|---|
| Costing | Calculated by general manufacturing logic; hectare, field and harvest year are added through customisation. | Hectare, field, crop and harvest year are the model's main dimensions, not extra analytics. |
| In-kind payments and input financing | Recorded as non-standard transactions by hand or through the accountant's workarounds. | Separate documents with their own grain valuation, stocks and counterparty balances. |
| Bookkeeping | Often means moving bookkeeping to the ERP's own accounting module. | The local accounting system keeps the books; the ERP sends it primary documents and receives reference data. |
| Data migration | Balances and reference data move by template, and history stays in the old system. | Reference data, balances and past seasons move from the accounting system and spreadsheets with checks. |
| Cost | Licences per user and module plus implementation by the vendor's partner. | Payment for developing modules and for support, with no licence for every seat. |
| When to choose | Standard accounting is needed, and there is little agricultural specific or the product already covers it. | Own costing rules, in-kind payments, input financing and exchange with accounting without replacing it. |
Together with the finance director and the chief accountant, askcust works out how costs are calculated now, which data comes from the accounting system and which from spreadsheets, and which reports the owner needs.
Overhead allocation rules, cost items, dimensions and harvest-year accounting are fixed in writing; a prototype of the key reports is built on last season's figures.
The first module is usually inventory with write-offs to fields, or costing; reference data and balances move from the accounting system, the season's history from spreadsheets, checked by the accountant.
For a quarter or a season the ERP runs next to the existing records; the figures are reconciled with accounting, discrepancies are explained, and only then are the spreadsheets closed.
Work orders and pay, sales and the budget follow as next stages; integrations are updated when the accounting system changes, and new reports follow the owner's requests.
examples of askcust's work →not agriculture, but the same kind of task: records, CRM, automation
An agri ERP calculates costs and results in dimensions that regular manufacturing does not have: hectare, field, crop and harvest year. It handles seasonality, where autumn costs belong to next year's harvest, in-kind land lease payments, input financing repaid in grain and write-offs of inputs to fields by technology map rates. In a standard ERP all of this has to be built through customisation.
No. The local accounting system, BAS in Ukraine, remains the bookkeeping and tax system, and reports are still filed through the e-reporting service. The ERP keeps the management accounts, including costs, inventory by field, work orders and sales, sends primary documents to the accounting system and receives reference data and settlements. Bookkeeping does not change, and management figures are no longer assembled in Excel.
The timeline is set after the accounting analysis and depends on the number of modules, the amount of migration and the integrations. The rollout goes in stages: the first module, parallel work with the existing records and reconciliation, then the next modules. The switch to the ERP as the main source of management figures is planned for the boundary between seasons or reporting periods, not in the middle of harvest.
On the number of modules, the complexity of the costing rules, the integrations and the amount of data to migrate; the number of users and hectares does not affect the development cost. After the analysis askcust estimates the first stage with a fixed scope and puts it in writing, and estimates further modules separately, once the first one works and it is clear what is needed next.
Yes, and that is the recommended start. Most often the first module is inventory with write-offs to fields, or costing that takes its data from the accounting system and spreadsheets. Each next module, such as work orders, sales or the budget, connects to the one already working, so the enterprise gets its first management reports right after the first stage.
The enterprise. The ERP code is handed over to its repository, the database runs on its server or in its cloud account, and financial data does not leave the enterprise's infrastructure without its decision. askcust has access only for development and support by agreement; the system can be developed further with any contractor.
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