Farm Record Keeping Apps for Small Farms: What Actually Works

The real problem

If your farm records live in a biscuit tin and a pocket notebook, you already know the cost: Sunday evenings reconstructing what you spent on feed, the scramble when an assurance inspector asks for treatment records, subsidy paperwork that needs figures you cannot find. In the UK, the pressure now has a deadline: since 6 April 2026, sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000 must keep digital records and send quarterly updates using compatible software, with lower thresholds of £30,000 and £20,000 following in April 2027 and April 2028. Software will not file your tax return, but the right app turns an evening of box-digging into ten minutes on a phone. This guide covers what actually works on small farms — including the genuinely free options — and where each tool falls short.

What to look for

• Offline use. Yards, barns and fields are where records get made — and often where signal dies. Test any app in aeroplane mode before paying; fieldmargin and Herdwatch, for example, explicitly support offline working.
• Mobile-first design. If recording a treatment or field job takes more than a few taps at the crush or gate, it will not happen in the busy weeks — the weeks that matter most. Check that the phone app is the primary product, not an afterthought.
• A cost that matches your size. Flat monthly pricing suits fixed operations; per-animal pricing suits herds that change size. Annual billing is usually cheaper, and VAT is often excluded from listed prices.
• Data export. You should be able to get everything out as a CSV without asking permission — you will want it for your accountant, an insurance claim, or when you change tools. Treat “we export your data on request” as a warning sign.
• Livestock vs crops fit. Most tools are stronger at one than the other: AgriWebb and Herdwatch are livestock systems, fieldmargin leans arable, Land App is maps and schemes. Mixed farms often end up with one primary tool plus a spreadsheet — that is normal. For poultry specifically, see our guide to poultry apps and tools.
• Sharing with your accountant (and MTD). Look for free accountant access or clean exports they can import. And if Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies to you, remember a plain spreadsheet cannot submit quarterly updates alone — HMRC-compatible “bridging software” connects spreadsheets to HMRC, or you move to software that keeps digital records itself.

1. Spreadsheets and paper — the free baseline

What it is: A workbook in Excel or Google Sheets with one tab each for livestock, field operations, costs and sales. Add photos and invoice scans in a cloud folder.

Who it suits: Farms under roughly 50 acres, side enterprises, anyone unsure what to record.

Price: Free (Google Sheets with a free Google account; Microsoft Excel needs a Microsoft 365 subscription or a one-off purchase). Checked September 2026.

Honest limitations: No reminders, no photos, easy to break, and inevitable phone-versus-office version chaos. For UK tax, spreadsheets alone no longer satisfy Making Tax Digital for Income Tax — you would pair them with bridging software. Our guide to keeping farm records without buying software shows how to make this route work properly.

2. farmOS (with Farmier hosting)

What it is: A free, open-source, web-based application for farm management, planning and record keeping, built by a community of farmers and developers (farmos.org). You log areas, crops, livestock and equipment as “assets”, and everything that happens to them as “logs”.

Who it suits: Growers and mixed farms comfortable with a bit of setup, and anyone who wants to own their data. Farmier’s cloud hosting does the technical work.

Price: The software is free and open source (GPL licence). Farmier Cloud hosting is $75/year including 1 GB of storage, then $1 per GB per year, with a free 30-day trial. USD. Checked September 2026.

Honest limitations: It is a web application rather than a polished phone app, so expect a learning curve. Support on the standard plan is community-based, not a phone line. Self-hosting is possible but needs real technical confidence.

3. fieldmargin

What it is: A UK-built (London) farm management app centred on a farm map: field records, job planning, inputs, yield recording, reporting and livestock. It works offline and is built for sharing with team members and contractors.

Who it suits: Mixed small farms and smallholders with some arable and some stock, especially those wanting field-level history and simple team coordination.

Price: Free tier (farm map, 30-day note and job history, up to 5 inputs, up to 1 herd, unlimited team members). Essentials £11.99/month or £119.99/year; Plus £29.99/month or £299.99/year; Pro £53.99/month or £549.99/year — as listed on the UK App Store. US pricing is slightly higher ($13.49–$60.99 per month). Checked September 2026.

Honest limitations: Full livestock management starts at the Plus tier, so stock-only farms pay for crop features they may not use. Pricing is per farm, which adds up across multiple holdings. Extras such as satellite field-health analysis sit in the top tier.

4. AgriWebb

What it is: A livestock-focused platform for grazing operations: mob-based records, movements, treatments, weights, breeding and grazing management on an interactive farm map, plus compliance records designed to be audit-ready.

Who it suits: Beef, sheep and mixed grazing farms, including those with staff who all need to record in one system. It sells in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, the US and South Africa.

Price: UK pricing scales with animal numbers: AgriWebb’s UK pricing calculator showed Essentials from £7/month or £75/year for up to 800 animals, and Performance from £15/month or £150/year; larger herds are priced per animal, so confirm a quote before buying. Prices exclude tax. Checked September 2026.

Honest limitations: Crop and arable record-keeping is not the focus. Per-animal pricing rewards honest head counts, and some add-ons are region-specific — check the UK feature set before buying.

5. Herdwatch

What it is: An Irish-built livestock app for cattle and sheep (plus dairy features), built around crush-side recording: treatments, breeding, weights, medicine records. It works offline and syncs when signal returns; the company has a UK office in Shropshire as well as its Irish base.

Who it suits: Cattle and sheep farmers in the UK and Ireland who want phone-first compliance records with minimal typing — the app is deliberately simple.

Price: Quote-based: you request a personalised price based on farm type and herd size. When checked (September 2026), the Irish site was promoting €99 for nine months with full access to the Complete tier, excluding VAT. The US site is priced separately. Checked September 2026.

Honest limitations: No published standard price — request a quote and compare it with the alternatives above. It covers livestock only; crops, costs and accounts live elsewhere. Integration depth varies by country (ICBF in Ireland; check what applies in the UK).

6. Land App

What it is: A UK mapping and environmental-scheme tool rather than a day-to-day farm ledger. It digitises your land, helps you assess and validate SFI and Countryside Stewardship options, imports RPA data via your SBI number, and estimates biodiversity net gain on the higher tier; a mobile app collects field data and photos (Standard and above).

Who it suits: English farms working on environmental schemes, and anyone who needs clean land maps for advisers, agents or funding applications.

Price: Free “forever” tier (up to 4 maps, mapping tools, RPA import, view-only collaborators). Standard £10 per person per month; Professional £30 per person per month — billed monthly in arrears or annually upfront; prices exclude VAT (thelandapp.com). Checked 30 September 2026.

Honest limitations: It does not replace livestock records, treatment logs or a cashbook. Per-person pricing gets expensive for teams, and scheme features focus on England.

7. Farmbrite

What it is: An all-in-one US platform combining livestock records, crop planning, inventory, tasks, invoices and basic farm accounting, including US “Schedule F” tax reporting. An accounting-only plan adds bank-feed imports.

Who it suits: Small diversified farms and market gardens in the United States that want one system for animals, crops and money.

Price: All prices in USD (farmbrite.com/pricing). Livestock plans $29/month ($290/year, up to 300 animals), $49/month ($490/year, up to 500 animals) and $79/month ($790/year); crop grower plans from $29/month; combined plans from $59/month; accounting-only $119/year. Checked September 2026.

Honest limitations: US-centric: USD billing, US support hours and tax reporting that will not map to UK VAT or Making Tax Digital. Usable for records in the UK, but the accounting side is a poor fit.

8. Figured

What it is: A farm financial management platform that sits on top of cloud accounting (Xero or QuickBooks Online): budgets, forecasts, reporting and production tracking, so farmer and accountant work from the same live numbers. It is sold mainly through accounting practices.

Who it suits: Farms that already use cloud accounting and want livestock or crop performance alongside the financials.

Price: All prices in USD (figured.com). Farm Manager $90/month (includes 25 fields; additional fields $90/month per extra 50); Farm Reporter $40/month; Financial Manager $14.50/month for non-trading entities. The company lists regions for New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom (plus a Global English region); UK plans are set up through a Certified Figured Adviser. Checked September 2026.

Honest limitations: Not a field-day record app — no treatment books or job sheets. Setup assumes an adviser who knows the platform, and per-field pricing escalates on large or fragmented holdings.

A setup you can start this week

• Day one — pick three registers and one container. (1) A field and livestock register — every field and group of animals, with the basics; (2) a costs log — everything you spend, dated; (3) a sales and movement log — everything you sell or move. One spreadsheet or app, one folder for photos and PDFs. Nothing more.
• Daily (one minute): Write the day’s events in a pocket notebook or straight into the app — treatments, moves, jobs, deliveries. The phone wins if signal allows.
• Weekly (ten minutes, same slot): Transfer the notebook into your system; photograph and file invoices; note anything unusual. This one habit prevents the January pile-up.
• Monthly (thirty minutes): Reconcile the costs log against your bank statement; check sales entries tie to invoices; back up or export the whole thing. Anything you keep forgetting to record is a signal to simplify, not add fields.
• Quarterly: Export everything, archive a copy off the device, and flag questions for your accountant. If Making Tax Digital applies to you, this rhythm maps onto quarterly updates; if not, you are building the habit early.

As an illustrative example — not a template — a 200-ewe flock with a small veg enterprise might record daily: egg and veg sales (same day, phone) and any ewe treatments; weekly: grass moves and input receipts; monthly: invoice reconciliation and feed cost per head. Adjust to your own enterprise; the point is the routine, not the fields.

Once your records are digital, low-effort automation becomes possible — receipt scanning, drafted reports. Our guide to practical AI uses in agribusiness covers where that is genuinely useful today.

Limitations and what this guide does not cover

• Desk research, not field trials. We opened each vendor’s own pricing page or store listing and recorded what it says. We did not install, trial or test any tool on a farm, and did not interview users.
• No rankings or scores. Fit depends on your enterprise mix, size, budget and patience, so we have given no star ratings and no “best” labels.
• Prices move. Everything here was checked in September 2026; subscriptions change, promotions end, and USD-priced tools move with exchange rates. VAT is often excluded from listed prices.
• Regional gaps. Rules referenced are for the UK, with scheme features (SFI) specific to England. Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have their own schemes; US-centric tools are flagged above.
• Out of scope: full bookkeeping platforms (Xero, QuickBooks), payroll, precision-agriculture hardware, dairy parlour software and assurance-scheme templates. If you stay on paper or spreadsheets, routines matter more than the tool — see our guide to keeping farm records without software.

Start with your size

The three apps we cover in this guide – Farmbrite, Farmkeep and Flockstar – between them span everything from a backyard pen to a working smallholding. Start with the one matching the size you are at, not the size you hope to be.