The Spectrum Group has farming interests in Canterbury and the Waikato which collectively milk 7600 cows with a targeted production of over 3.1 million kg milk solids per annum.

With six farms in Canterbury, four in the Waikato which includes two sharemilkers across a total of 2,575h, there is much to be overseen by Business Manager Shona Quinlan, In-house Accountant Meredith Kerr and Office Administrator Di Gunson; Meredith says, “it’s about understanding the business, and having good back up in the way of the best tools in place.”

Farm Focus fits in well as part of Spectrum Groups’ particular way of doing things.

“We run our own reporting for example and, because Farm Focus is compatible with Excel, it’s super simple to pull info straight out of the General Ledger (GL) and into our system. We love it!

“We have another couple of business entities which we are pulling over to Farm Focus because the application makes our job so easy.”

Meredith says the Spectrum Group business is large by any calculation and all the information gathered is used to run cash flows and monthly accounts.

“Everything is closely budgeted. The actuals are compared to forecasting which gives an excellent snapshot of exactly where each entity is at. Focus delivers useful features such as the Stock Activity Report which we use to maintain an overview of each farm and we can see how this may benefit us further in the near future.”

Di says she enjoys the simple process Farm Focus delivers when creating large numbers of invoices across quite a complex business, but both she and Meredith agree… the Farm Focus Support Team is the icing on the cake!

“The Support Team is based here in New Zealand so they speak our language, as in they know farming with many of them farming in their own right. The team understand what we’re talking about and how to address concerns.”