When we spoke with Virginia and Kyle Marshall in 2023, they were running a 50/50 sharemilking business at Rongotea, 20 minutes west of Palmerston North, milking 370 crossbred cows on 139 ha. They aren't afraid of change. When the old way of doing things stopped working for them, they moved early: first their payroll to PaySauce, then their farm accounts to Farm Focus after around 20 years on Cash Manager.
On the move to PaySauce, Virginia doesn't hold back:
“It was an absolute no brainer to sign up and I have never looked back - my only regret is that we didn’t do it sooner because all the hard work is done for you.”
Both grew up in dairying, Kyle in the Waikato and Virginia in Rongotea. Kyle worked his way up from farm assistant to herd manager, farm manager and lower order sharemilker, and Virginia holds a Bachelor of Applied Science.
They run a traditional spring-calving System 4 farm with a target of 150,000 kgMS a year, and had a record season of around 162,000 kgMS with only 8% empty. For Virginia, planning ahead is crucial, so the systems behind the farm matter.
After around two decades on Cash Manager, the Marshalls didn’t wait to be pushed. They made the move to Farm Focus, the farm accounting software developed in New Zealand that grew out of Cash Manager.
When we spoke with Virginia, she was still new to Farm Focus but already finding her way around. She was looking forward to setting up invoice automation, which she expected would save a lot of time.
Virginia’s appetite for change started with payroll. The couple have two full-time employees who have been with them for years.
“We currently have two full time employees - one has been with us for ten years, the other fourteen years. Back in 2019 I realised I was getting out of my depth with managing the complex legal compliance side of paying them which wasn’t fair to them, or us.”
“With constantly changing rules and complex calculations I decided it was time to look into getting a payroll system and settled on PaySauce. I love the way they communicate their information online and it helps that they understand farming - as in these people speak my language!”
Virginia counts the integration with PaySauce as one of the advantages of Farm Focus, and she’s already a fan.
PaySauce connects directly to Farm Focus. Once it’s set up, each pay run sends its wage costs to Farm Focus, matched to your farm’s codes, so there’s no double entry.
“It’s a really comprehensive package that gives me great confidence we’re compliant … doing everything right!”
Virginia says the PaySauce support team have been fabulous by phone or email.
“We recently made some changes to our staffing situation and having all the details in one place to look back on has been helpful.”
“I have total confidence in Pay Sauce which is well above my level of understanding. You don’t know what you don’t know, so having PaySauce gives me peace of mind that we are meeting compliance regs plus, the application frees up my time to do other things.”
For the Marshalls, taking on new tools early has meant less time on compliance and more confidence in the numbers behind the farm.
