One Operation, Many Hats: Managing Custom Work, Cattle & Crops in One Place

It’s late July, and Zachary’s phone buzzes for the fourth time before 6 a.m. A customer wants a custom tillage job quoted before the rain hits. His son texts from the field—one of the harvesters has a hydraulic leak. Meanwhile, a neighbor’s calf slipped through the fence into his alfalfa.

For Zach, this is normal. As the operator of a multi-entity family farm in southeast Kansas, he juggles cow/calf management, soybean planting, custom farming, and a growing hay business, all with only two full-time employees and a few seasonal hands.

In previous years, the sheer number of decisions, receipts, and moving parts meant Zach spent January buried in a shoebox of invoices and spreadsheets, trying to produce clean records for his lender and accountant. That changed when he started using FarmRaise Tracks, a purpose-built farm management tool that streamlined his operation from the field to the filing cabinet.

Here’s how Zach turned chaos into clarity. He kept his focus on what matters most: his land, his livestock, and his profit.

From the Ground Up: The Need for Simplicity in a Complex Operation

Zach’s operation spans over 3,000 acres and includes row crops like soybeans, sorghum, and cover crops, 200 head of beef cattle, and a custom operator service for nearby landowners. He also partners with a local dairy farm, swapping silage and labor in a long-standing handshake agreement turned written contract.

With each arm of his operation growing, so did the paperwork and record keeping.

He needed one place to:

• Log income and expenses across entities
• Track farm machinery use by activity or client
• Monitor inventory of pesticides, parts, and feed
• Generate clean reports for tax purposes, grants, and Department of Agriculture reviews
• Track depreciation and costs by asset

Tracks as the Central Nerve System

What drew Zach to FarmRaise wasn’t just its simplicity. It was its flexibility. FarmRaise Tracks let him create categories for every major part of his business and tag each transaction with the relevant crop, field, or entity.

He now uses Tracks to:

• Allocate fuel and repair costs between custom farming clients and his own fields
• Track custom rates billed to landowners, including labor, equipment, and chemical use
• Monitor cash flow across the growing season
• Record receipts in real time using the mobile app
• Pull audit-ready reports at year-end

“It’s not just software. It’s how I keep my farming operation running,” Zach said. “I don’t care how good a spreadsheet is. It can’t remind me when I’m low on pesticides or show what I spent last year per bushel of soybeans.”

Inventory: Visibility Across Enterprises

Before Tracks, Zach often double-purchased supplies like bale wrap or herbicide, unsure what was already in the shed. Now, he tracks:

• Feed for heifers
• Seed and chemical inventory by field
• Parts and repairs for each tractor
• Shared use items split between the farm and custom work clients

Livestock Management: Cost, Care, and Compliance

Zach’s cow/calf herd produces replacement heifers and feeder calves for direct sale. He tracks breeding, feed intake, and breakdowns in health or equipment that affect herd productivity.

With Tracks, he can:

• Log purchases for vet care, minerals, and fencing
• Tie silage and hay costs directly to the cattle enterprise
• Record sale weights and income
• Generate year-end summaries for tax purposes and USDA cost-share programs

That last point matters. Zach participates in several USDA programs related to natural resources and soil health, all of which require detailed expense and enterprise reporting. Tracks makes that process fast and defensible.

Custom Work: Clarity for Clients and the IRS

Custom farming now makes up over 30% of Zach’s revenue. It’s also the hardest to track manually. One tank of diesel might fuel both his baler for a neighbor’s job and his own swather. Repairs don’t discriminate between customers.

Using FarmRaise Tracks, Zach:

• Logs custom jobs by written contract
• Breaks down jobs by number of acres, input costs, and labor hours
• Assigns receipts to the correct income stream
• Uploads before-and-after field photos, ensuring transparency

Because of this, he’s avoided disputes with landowners over billed hours or material use and impressed his lender with up-to-date summaries.

Equipment and Depreciation: No More Guesswork

Zach’s team uses eight major pieces of equipment throughout the year, rotating between mowing, planting, and harvesting. Tracks allows him to log:

• Repairs and maintenance by machine
• Fuel use by activity
• Hours used on custom vs. internal jobs
• Annual depreciation summaries

By comparing operating costs of his farm machinery to last year’s, he made the data-backed call to retire one sprayer and invest in a more efficient unit.

Real-Time Budgeting and Forecasting

No more waiting until December to know where the money went. Tracks allows Zach to make decisions based on current numbers, not guesses. He reviews:

• Budgeted vs. actual costs per crop
• Break-even estimates based on custom rates and total cost per field
• Historical profit margins
• Upcoming payment obligations

Podcast, Partnerships, and Peer Learning

Zach first heard about FarmRaise on a podcast featuring a farmer from Texas who used Tracks during a busy growing season. Encouraged by the simplicity, he tried it himself.

Today, he shares his success story with other growers, encouraging them to try a tool that can adapt to the unique shape of their small business. He’s even used Tracks to demonstrate accountability in recent partnerships with conservation groups and ag lenders.

Clarity Builds Confidence

From seed ordering to custom operator billing, Zach’s entire farm runs more smoothly with the visibility and confidence Tracks provides. His accountant, his lender, and most importantly, his family all benefit from the improved organization.

He no longer dreads tax time. He can justify expenses. And he can measure profit, not just hope for it.

For farmers like Zach who wear many hats—ranchers, growers, custom operators, and more—FarmRaise Tracks is more than just ag software. It’s peace of mind in a business where margins are thin, time is short, and the next decision might come from the cab of a tractor with no signal.

Ready to get started? Sign up for FarmRaise today and start building a better future for your farm. Use code IT3H12B at checkout for 20% off or use this link to checkout now.