Why keep cattle records?

Some producers, for years, have not kept records on their cattle at all and instead decide to keep all heifer calves and sell all male calves. While this may continue working for you, the current conditions have more ranchers making deeper culling decisions.

An often used phrase  ”You can’t manage what you don’t measure” comes to mind, and is so true.  With culling and herd reductions become more common, it’s critical to be culling the lowest performing cattle based on their actual numbers and history, rather than relying solely on visual appraisal.

Learn which cattle are truly productive. With good records, it is easy to determine which cows are your top producers and are worthy of maintaining and promoting.

Track sales and purchases for financial records. View your sales and purchases to learn where you are more profitable, and which breeders may be better for your herd. Come tax time, simply click a few buttons to have a list of expenses from last year, a list of cattle you purchased and sold in a nicely formatted report. This is much better (and easier on your accountant/tax preparer) than bringing in piles of receipts and hand-written notes for them to sort through.

Benefits to your record keeping investment

By committing to and using a cattle software program, you’ll realize a variety of returns that pay back your money and time investments over and over.  A few of the many returns on your investment include:

Save time – It does take time to get setup with any new program, but  you’ll realize time savings as you enter new records and update existing ones. Many of us would rather be outside and working with our cattle, so CattleMax is designed to help you make the changes/additions you need, print reports, etc, with minimal time and effort.

Quality and accuracy – Which would you rather work with at your pens or in the pasture – a printed list of cattle that you will be working, or multiple pieces of notebook paper that have a handwritten list of ear tags? Plus, CattleMax helps you be aware of possible data entry problems, therefore helping to keep your records accurate.

Improved decision making – This is a core benefit to keeping better cattle records and can be overlooked.

Understood by others – Your accountant, consultant, veterinarian and others helping with your ranch will appreciate nice, organized reports, plus they will have more information and details to work with thus providing you with even better recommendations.

What records to maintain

While the specific cattle details that are kept may vary by ranch, there are core records that most producers should plan to maintain.

Recommended records: Current herd inventory, herd bulls and breeding cows individually and uniquely identified. Start with gathering as much information about your current herd as you can and enter those details into the software. Later on (as you have the time and interest), you can enter historical records such as previous calving records, sales, treatments, etc.

Nice to have records: Pasture locations for cattle, current cow palpation results, calves individually identified, individual weaning weights for calves. Individual calf records are effective for most cattle ranches, but may be a limited option for others due to herd size, acreage, etc.

Investing in a management system

Wondering what’s involved to get started with an identification system for your herd?

There’s the setup time, which involves tagging cattle (such as with ear tags), entering their information into a cattle software program, and learning your way around your new record keeping solution.

To ensure your records stay current, you’ll want to enter details about your cattle as often as possible, such as the day you gave medical treatments, when a new calf is born, etc. Ideally, you get into a habit or schedule so your records are at least updated once a week.

Also keep in mind the up-front costs, such as  the purchase of a software program, identification needs (tags, applicator, etc) and possibly other hardware such as a weigh scale setup and/or Electronic ID reader.

Forage is the cattle nutritional program base and pasture stocking rates are a key resource. It is important to continually measure this resource with detailed pasture maintenance and use records.

Names or numbers are used to identify pastures and detailed notes are entered on employed maintenance and improvement practices; dates, type and number of cattle moved in and out of the pasture; and estimated forage production during each season. It is also a good idea to record average body condition of the cattle when they are moved from pastures. Keeping track of input costs such as seed, fertilizer, mowing, and brush removal provides a good foundation to tracking ranch expenses.

Records aid in grazing program evaluation and identifying overgrazed or under-grazed pastures. They also show whether maintenance practices and improvements are providing a positive return on investment. These records show whether changes need to be made to the grazing program for the coming year.

The second part of nutrition resource records and plans is money spent on feed, hay, salt and minerals. If nutritional resource costs are trending upward from year to year reducing profits, then examine your records to determine the reasons. Are feed costs escalating because of increased herd size? If you have more animals and profits are decreasing, re-examine the culling program by studying your cattle production records. The task of keeping and analyzing the cattle records, in addition to ranch expenses, can be made easier with a cattle software program such as CattleMax. Are all of your cows weaning a calf every year? Cows that are not paying for their feed should be sold.

A second question to ask yourself is whether you are keeping too many calves as herd replacements. Are your pastures over-grazed and more feed is purchased to fill the nutrient deficit? You may need to sell more calves or cull more cows to reduce your stocking rates.

If the pastures are in good shape and the feed bill is rising, then look for ways to trim costs. The first question to ask, “Are you giving your cattle too much feed.” Are they eating everything you give them or is feed left in the trough until it sours? Are your cattle grazing most of the morning or do they stand at the gate waiting for the feed truck? Determine quantity and quality of your pasture forage and then calculate the amount of needed supplement. You may be giving your cattle more feed than they need.

Good records provide an opportunity to calculate annual nutrient requirements and the data needed for negotiation of a purchase price during summer when feed prices are lower. Another alternative is to explore other protein sources. For instance, you may be able to feed distillers grain at a more reasonable price than range cubes.

Unreasonable feed costs may indicate that your mineral program needs to be evaluated. Are you feeding the right minerals? Are your cattle consuming the correct amount? Review the program with your veterinarian, county extension agent or an animal nutritionist. They may suggest changes.

Good records are invaluable in managing profits, especially nutritional resources. The ability to examine accurate up-to-date records makes it easier to pinpoint areas that need changing.

Experience as a tax preparer taught me I am not the only one who procrastinates in adopting a system for maintaining financial records. Ranchers brought boxes of papers and asked me to prepare their income tax return. I sorted through movie ticket stubs, their wife’s clothing receipts, register tapes from grocery stores and various other un-needed documents. Because of the oil stains and caked feed, it was evident that many of the receipts spent the year under the truck seat. This type of record keeping doesn’t create a good image of the operation.

Good financial records are not only necessary for accurate tax returns, but they also show up-to-date financial health of the organization. Frequently monitoring of an operation’s financial status highlights necessary expense and income changes to produce a year –end profit. Well-kept financial records make it easier to obtain bank loans and credit for major purchases. Even if you use an accountant to keep your books, they will be more accurate if you supply a spread sheet or ledger rather than a grocery sack full of receipts. There is less chance of forgetting a purchase or sale if records are maintained and updated frequently.

The Internal Revenue Service Schedule F, “Profit or Loss from Farming” provides a good guide for characterizing expenses and income. The primary expenses listed on the form are:

• Chemicals
• Custom hire
• Feed
• Fertilizers and lime
• Freight and trucking
• Gasoline, fuel, and oil
• Insurance
• Interest
• Labor hired
• Rent or lease
• Repairs and maintenance
• Seeds and plants
• Supplies
• Taxes
• Utilities
• Veterinary, breeding and medicine

For ranchers, income is usually divided between sales of breeding animals, livestock you raised or cattle bought for resale. If expenses and income are recorded by categories, preparation of income tax returns becomes easier. Maintaining records by categories also facilitate comparison of income and expenses across years and help you recognize important financial changes.

Financial records can be maintained several different ways and it is important to select the system in which you are the most comfortable. Software such as QuickBooks provides bookkeeping formats with the ability to transfer data directly into tax return preparation programs. A second option is use a spread sheet for each category either in a ledger or in computer software such as Excel. A good first step in record-keeping is to file receipts in a separate folder for each expense and income category.

In addition to keeping track of your cattle performance records, the CattleMax herd software can be used for maintaining financial records. On the home page, click on “Income and Expenses.” You will then be asked to click on either expenses or income. The expense page has a column for entering categories and listed expenses can be grouped together for each category by clicking on the column heading. Expenses can also be linked in CattleMax to an individual animal to track cattle that generate income or are costing more in expenses.  A report list of expenses and of income can easily be generated.

Hopefully we will all close 2011 with a good set of financial records and preparing the income tax return will be a breeze for us and our accountants.

Hilliard Ranches, which Jim manages, needed a simple way to keep track of their cattle. In 1999, we worked together to develop a software program to meet their needs, and he was using it everyday! I remember him telling us that recording sales was so much easier now with just a few clicks, where previously they would spend hours several evenings before selling a group of calves going through notebooks to mark them as sold.

Jim continues to use CattleMax, and has been one of the first ranches to upgrade to each new CattleMax version over the years.

When Jim’s encouragement and feedback, along with many others as well, we began selling CattleMax commercially. It’s now continued over 11 years later and is used by over 6,000 producers in 50+ countries.

Thanks so much Jim for all of your years of support!

Read the interview with Jim of Hilliard Ranches to learn more about how he uses CattleMax for their commercial herd.

Fall is upon us and can be a critical time of year if you’re an owner or manager in the cow-calf business. Selection of replacements and culls, marketing of calves and cull cows, even breeding for fall calving herds are at the top of the priority list – but that just concerns the cows.

The business management side of cow- calf operations is also important this time of year. Decisions have to be made on capital improvements, limiting tax liability and financial records have to be updated for year-end. Because finding time to get it all done is a daily challenge, thorough record keeping is becoming increasingly important in managing a profitable cow- calf business.

Effective Records Make a Difference

It used to be cattlemen could make a living just focusing on the cow and marketing a live calf. Now, costs are high and factors affecting profitability are many. According to Penny Miller, owner of CattleMax, “Cattlemen can become better managers of their business with better records.” Some cattlemen keep records on their leather gloves, some carry a small book to write in and others just commit their cows and related events to memory. Consequently, many producers are having to adopt new work habits surrounding record keeping. None-the-less, data pieces need to be organized and compiled into congruent, useful information, or managers will never know where they stand financially or productively in the cow-calf business.

There is a saying, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” An unproductive cow is a costly cow. “If you don’t have detailed information on the productivity of a cow, over time how will you know if she is costing more than she is making the operation,” states Miller. Recording sales and expenses with financial records is also critical and allows managers to determine where the limitations and opportunities are for profitability.

Record keeping takes time, which is something everyone is short on these days; time to investigate how to keep records (paper, spreadsheets or computer record-keeping systems), time to set up records and time to update records. Miller says, “The return on investment with record keeping software greatly outweighs the initial time and financial investment. Those owners and managers who are successful in fitting record keeping into their daily routine are finding the knowledge they gain from the information generated by cattle records is invaluable in making good management decisions.”

Getting Started

Great options are available to help develop an effective record-keeping system. The advantages of record keeping software over computerized spread sheet programs are many. According to Miller, “Most software allows users to import cattle data or information from external devices such as scales and tag readers. The reporting and information analysis tools are also already built into many programs.” CattleMax has software for commercial and seedstock producers. They tout the benefits of excellent customer support, money back guarantees and the development of their programs by ranchers.

“The first step in tackling cow-calf business records is to just get started,” states Miller.

First, she says, organize all the information and data pieces available on the operation. Consider record-keeping software programs and focus on those systems that provide features important to the success of the operation. “When setting up a software program and enterprise records, start with something simple, like current calving records,” says Miller. “As you become more comfortable with the system, add additional information and expand records.”

In order to be useful in management, records have to be maintained. “Developing a calendar or work schedule where you set aside time to update your records around the main events of a cow- calf production cycle will help you stay current and get the most benefit from your record-keeping system,” states Miller.

Realizing Improved Decisions

Useful cow-calf business records are not something the accountant in town can develop. The cattle business is complex and in order to get useful information out of data in records, you have to know the business.

The rate of return on an investment in cow-calf records is a consideration. After initial data entry and setup, computerized record-keeping programs are advertised to be more time efficient and accurate than other methods of record keeping. The analytical tools available can rapidly generate valuable reports from cattle data and financial data. “We call this capturing value from your records,” explains Miller. “Ultimately, the records do a certain amount of work for the manager and
are very beneficial in making critical management decisions.”

Now is the time to improve record keeping and operate in 2011 with the added information to make quality management decisions.

The CattleMax Team - Ken Lyon, Penny Miller, Terrell Miller and Nathan Boles

Did you know the CattleMax Team are actual customers who work at their own ranch location?

Several years ago we needed additional help for our growing CattleMax customer community. Rather than restrict our search to just the local Bryan/College Station area, we reached out to our customers about the positions. We thought “Who better to help with customer’s questions than actual customers themselves?” There was tremendous response and 3 years later, Ken Lyon and Nathan Boles continue to provide excellent service to cattle producers worldwide.

We all communicate with each other throughout the week, but it’s nice to catch up in person to help keep in touch. Last weekend, we all met up in Plano, Texas which is a central location for us all living in Texas. Terrell and I are in Bryan/College Station, Ken is in Yantis and Nathan is in Winters.

The meetups give us an opportunity to share questions and concerns of customers, and to discuss ideas to help producers and the cattle industry progress in the future. Great plans are in the works – stay tuned!

Terrell and I want to say a huge “Thank You” to Ken and Nathan, and hope you will join us in recognizing their efforts to help producers become better managers with CattleMax and make a difference in the cattle industry.

Simply click a link in the email you’ll receive after you register, and you’ll see and hear me demonstrate CattleMax. Plus, I will answer your questions right then and there.

What a way to learn CattleMax without the travel time and expense!

Learn more and sign up for the online cattle software workshops

Here are a few articles to help you with the process of getting CattleMax setup:

Information about multiple computers and additional licenses

Copying/restoring your herd file onto another computer

Additional details about the activation process

Working with CattleMax on a netbook

What questions can we help you with? Let us know here, or on our Facebook page, or give us a call or send an email.

(If you are on Facebook, be sure to Like the CattleMax page so you can keep up to date with cattle and software topics, plus see what questions other producers have posted.)

Watch and listen to a CattleMax presentation right on your computer screen. Have your questions answered by a team member. No travel required.

Concerned about your Internet speed? Not a problem – this presentation system works just fine on dial-up Internet connection. To get started, you’ll simply click a link that’s emailed to you, and you’ll see the demonstration and hear the audio (your choice – through your computer speakers or by calling a special phone number).

Workshops start at 8pm CST and usually last about an hour.

Join us tonight  (Tuesday, August 17) and/or Thursday, August 26

Learn more and sign up for the workshop

What questions can we help you with?

When you sign up for the free workshop, you’ll receive an email with all of the details of how to join the session. You can either call in by phone or listen via your computer speakers, and you’ll see my screen and hear me describe areas of the software and answer your questions. Everyone is in listen only mode, which means no one else will hear the dogs barking or when someone came into your room. To ask questions, you simply type in the questions box and I’ll instantly receive it and will answer you.

Whether you are checking out CattleMax for your record keeping needs, just recently bought CattleMax or have been using it for years, these online workshops are a great way to learn more about what the software can do for you, and also benefit from questions that other attendees have.

You can sign up at any time, even at the last minute. Hope you’ll join me!

Visit the CattleMax Online Workshops page for more information and to sign up