When we spoke with Tom Platts in 2019, he had swapped a career in IT consulting for the family farm, and he knew what good software should do. Late in 2018 he became one of the early users of Cash Manager Focus, the cloud software now called Farm Focus, with one goal: spend less time in the office and more time on the farm.
“To be honest I wanted an application that did the hard yards for me – had to be user friendly and easy to operate all of which meant I spent less time in the office, and more time out doing stuff on the farm.”
Good clean hill country
Tom and his wife Claire farm Colenso, 800 ha of medium to steep sheep and beef country about 50 minutes east of Taihape.
“We are fairly high up here – farm from 600m up to around 900m and there’s often snow on the tops in the winter. It’s good clean country and stock do well.”
From civil engineer to farmer
Tom didn’t take a straight line into farming. He graduated as a civil engineer from the University of Canterbury, worked in the UK, travelled through Europe, then spent five years in Vancouver, where he moved into IT contracting. That gave him solid management experience before he came home to the family farm.
“Having been an IT consultant I was used to sorting out customers problems and when I got home, and took over the financials, I could see we needed to simplify things, move to the next level with the way we did things. My parents had managed well by preparing the paperwork and then taking it down to our accountant to finalise.”
What does a former IT consultant look for in farm software?
Tom knew software, and he shopped around before he chose. Speaking in 2019, he said:
“I knew there were systems out there that would do the job more efficiently and had a good look around before purchasing CMF late last year. I wanted a farm management package that would simplify processes allowing me to spend more time on other stuff.”
For Tom, the test was simple: it had to be easy to use, save time and have help behind it. Setting it up passed that test, with the support team (then known as CRS) on hand.
“It’s pretty intuitive and straight forward compared to some accounting software, plus if you run into problems the CRS Support Team are there to help.”
Codes everyone understands
Being able to use their own codes helps, because everyone on the farm knows their own code names. In 2019, Tom also had his eye on the next time-saver:
“I haven’t got into the automated invoice scanning option yet but intend to. Coding takes time and if you can do it far quicker then that’s for me.”
Growing with Farm Focus
He followed through. Today the Platts use the Invoice Scanner, and they’ve added more of their farm businesses to Farm Focus, working alongside their accountant. The software has grown too, from Cash Manager Focus to Farm Focus, and Tom’s aim is the same as on day one: keep it simple and get back out on the farm.
Every Farm Focus customer gets free onboarding and phone support from a team that knows farming, in New Zealand and Australia.
