The number of farm software companies is on the rise — but not all solutions are built to truly solve local farmers' pain points. Learn how to find what you need.
It’s 7 a.m. on a Friday during harvest season. You’re weighing squash for a wholesale order, a chef is texting you about substitutions, and somewhere in your inbox are the numbers for that invoice you meant to send yesterday.
Anyone who runs a farm knows the job entails a lot more than growing crops. We’re running complex businesses with multiple types of buyers, perishable and sometimes unpredictable products, and dozens of everyday decisions that directly affect our bottom line.
Software companies have noticed. Investment in agricultural technology has surged over the past decade, and farmer-facing startups have multiplied with it, according to McKinsey. But more software hasn’t necessarily meant better outcomes for those of us selling food and flowers locally. Many platforms are built for large-scale agriculture and — importantly — are not informed by our day-to-day realities as farmers. Too often, small and midsize farms spend months learning a new system, only to find it can’t handle something as basic as eggplant sold by the case, but priced by the pound.
The right tool can replace a tangle of spreadsheets, notebooks, and guesswork with one system that keeps inventory, orders, and communication in one place. So what should that tool actually do? Here are five must-haves for farm software that works for farms like ours.
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1. Data must sync across processes, from planting to harvest to sales.
Software that isn’t designed to sync between orders and harvest, packing, and inventory means manual entry, double-checking, and time wasted. As producers, we don’t have time to duplicate work, especially during harvest season when we are most reliant on our systems. Rooted was developed by farmers and hub managers, so we put in the legwork to make sure it serves our members when it counts most — not just when we first developed the platform, but also in how we iterate across seasons and production years.
Pro tip: You’ll want a platform that enables order edits and refunds, so as a seller, you can add/remove product, edit quantities, and edit pricing on open orders. Those changes should be automatically tracked on-platform to ensure clean record-keeping.
2. Coordinating all buyer types has to happen in one place.
One of the unique elements of running a farm is the need to manage radically different sales channels simultaneously, such as wholesale, direct-to-consumer, hub or collective sales, restaurants, and wedding or event planners — just to name a few. Without a streamlined place to manage those channels, we wind up with a pile of needs and requests about everything from packing to invoicing, all buried in text messages, emails, and phone calls. (Feel that cortisol rising?)
Pro tip: A single platform that manages order specifications, invoicing, and communication enables you to transfer information from one person’s brain (yours!) into a centralized location so a full team can access and manage it. Replace a disjointed tangle of stress-inducing data points with a single, intuitive system anyone on your team can hop into, understand, and use.
3. Farm product inventory requires specialized management.
Inventory management that may work wonderfully for nonperishable items, such as t-shirts or toys, doesn’t translate to produce, meat, or flower inventory. Perishable inventory requires dynamic unit pricing — that box of eggplant, for instance, sold by the pound won’t always weigh exactly the same. Add to that, customers have different requirements for how they order produce. For example, a community-supported agriculture (CSA) pickup will need a certain number of zucchini, while a grocery store will want to order boxes of zucchini by the pound. The platform will need to offer transparency for customers to be able to order what they need and understand how that is translated into an invoice, which may be by the pound or by the specific amount of product sold.
Software that is not designed to meet the specific and varied realities of farm sales often becomes a time burden and can actually impede clear communication with customers, resulting in damaged buyer relationships and leading farmers back to their antiquated, disjointed systems.
Pro tip: Ready-made product listings are a big timesaver, streamlining communication and pre-empting questions from your buyers. You can choose your product, then set your price, quantity, and other features. This saves you time and allows your buyers to confidently contextualize pricing, packaging, and products when shopping.
4. The software has to be accessible in the field.
Here’s one thing most of us struggle with: Staying in one spot. We need to be able to make updates to inventory or orders and communicate with customers, whether we are in the field, in the truck, at the farmers' market, or in the office. That means we need software that can sync across devices, be mobile-friendly, and be printable.
Pro tip: You’ll want dynamic, mobile-friendly, and printable harvest, pack, and receiving lists; mobile inventory updating capabilities; for hubs, the ability to sync data across multiple farms; in-app customer messaging; and integrations with key programs so you don’t have to enter data more than once.
5. The cost must be justified.
Let’s be real: Most of us small and midsize farmers aren’t swimming in cash. With seemingly nonstop expenses, from farm improvements and machinery to compliance and insurance, we have to be confident that any investment into digital systems is actually going to drive value, specifically in the form of saved time and stress. Check for testimonials from real farmers (tip: look for an actual farm name and location for verification) on how the product is saving them time and making their farm business more efficient.
Pro tip: With many software programs, one-on-one support lasts for almost exactly as long as it takes to sign the contract (weird!). Review what support is available with a platform, including whether there is a team of real people ready to support you, whether you need to pay extra for that package, and whether the team doing the support truly understands your day-to-day.
The Rooted Difference
We built Rooted around these five must-haves — and more! — because we’ve lived the alternative and are farmers and hub managers ourselves. We have all of the recommendations above built into our platform, which is why we call it your Farm and Hub Supertool. (Check out how our features compare with other platforms and tools in the chart toward the end of this page.)
Here’s how the platform delivers:
- Data that syncs from planting to sales: Order edits, refunds, and quantity changes flow automatically into your records, so there’s no double entry during your busiest weeks. Learn more about order management. Explore our features.
- All buyer types in one place: Wholesale, retail, restaurant, and hub orders live in a single system with built-in invoicing and messaging, so the details aren’t stuck in your head or your texts.
- Inventory built for perishables: Ready-made product listings and flexible unit pricing let you sell by the pound, the box, or the zucchini. Learn more.
- A product that pays for itself: Our farmers report saving at least a full day each week, and 90% of Rooted sellers have grown their sales by more than 50% since joining. Plus, we have a team of real farmers ready to help who understand the need for an intuitive user experience, the right time of year for onboarding, and the absolute necessity of getting a quick answer when it counts. Don’t take our word for it: Read farmer testimonials.
- Access from anywhere: Mobile-friendly and printable harvest, pack, and receiving lists keep you up to date whether you’re in the field, the truck, or the market. Rooted has valuable integrations, including Avalara, Mailchimp, Routific and Stripe.
See for yourself. The best way to know whether Rooted fits your operation is to see it with your own products and buyers in mind. Book a demo to talk with a team member and walk through how Rooted can give you back time when it matters most.