Months of spending, one week of earning
You buy seed in February, plough in March, weed twice in April and May, and see money in July. By the time a trader is standing in your compound with an offer, the cost of getting there is spread over five months, a dozen small payments and a great deal of memory.
So the offer gets judged against last season's price, or against what a neighbour says he was given. It is almost never judged against what the crop actually cost to grow, because that number was never added up anywhere.
PesaScope keeps the running total — seed, fertiliser, ploughing, every day of casual labour — so when the trader names a figure you can divide by the kilos and know what you are being offered.
How a season is recorded
- Record inputs on the day you buy themSeed, fertiliser, herbicide, ploughing, hired tractor or oxen — each one an expense with a date, a category and the branch it belongs to.
- Record casual labour the same dayWeeding gangs are paid in cash and forgotten by evening. Ten payments of 40,000 across a season is 400,000 that otherwise never reaches the books.
- Bring the harvest in as stockBagged maize or beans go into the catalogue as a product with a quantity, so what is still sitting in the store is a count rather than an estimate.
- Sell in parts and keep the totalSome at the gate, some to the miller two months later, some on credit. Each is recorded as it happens and the season's total stays correct.
The lines a crop farm sells
Pick "Crop farm" at sign-up and this list is already there, and after that recording a sale is two taps.
Seed and fertiliser sit in the list so deliveries can be recorded as purchases. Ploughing is set up as a service because there is nothing to count in stock.
Two acres of maize, one season
Two point two million left the business in small pieces over five months and came back as a few payments. Divided by the 3,200 kg, the crop cost about 690 a kilo to grow — which is the only number that separates a trader offering a profit from one offering a polite loss.
What it doesn't do, and the cost nobody counts
There is no field map, no acreage record and no yield-per-acre tracking. PesaScope does not know that the lower plot is one and a half acres or that the beans went in three weeks late. It records money and stock, not agronomy, and there are no planting or spraying reminders.
If you farm several blocks or several crops and want them kept apart, the practical route is branches: set each block up as its own branch, record its costs and its sales against it, and the reports will split them. That works, but it is a workaround rather than a field register.
The cost that most seasons never count is storage. Grain sitting in a store loses weight to drying and weevils, and some of it walks out for meals and gifts. A stock adjustment with a reason attached is the only way that loss ever appears as money rather than as a shrug at the end of the season.
Where a season leaks money
- Daily labour that never gets written downIt is the largest cash cost on most farms and the least recorded, because it leaves in forty- and fifty-thousand pieces.
- Selling in harvest weekEverybody sells at once and the price is at its floor. Holding carries storage and risk — the only way to judge the trade is to know your cost per kilo first.
- Inputs taken on creditThe agrovet's credit price is above his cash price. Recorded as a creditor, the gap is visible; carried in your head, it never is.
- Bags that leave without a saleHome use, gifts and spoilage all reduce the store. Adjusting stock with a reason keeps the count honest and shows the real loss.
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Questions farmers ask
Can I see the profit for one season?
Yes. Record the season's costs and sales as they happen, then run the report from land preparation to the last sale. That window is the season's result.
Does it track yield per acre?
No. There is no acreage or field record, so it cannot tell you kilos per acre. It tells you what the season cost and what the harvest earned, and you divide by your own acreage.
I pay weeders in cash every day. Is that a lot of typing?
One expense per gang per day takes about fifteen seconds on the phone. It is the single entry that changes the season's numbers most, because it is the cost most farms lose entirely.
I sell part of the harvest now and part in three months. Does the report still work?
Yes, as long as you run it over dates that cover both sales. What is still in the store shows separately as stock on hand.
Can I record fertiliser taken on credit?
Yes. Add the agrovet as a creditor with the amount and due date, and record payments against it as you clear the balance.
Does it tell me when to plant or spray?
No. It is a bookkeeping app, not an agronomy tool. Its alerts are about low stock, unpaid balances and the weekly summary of takings and costs.
There is no network at the garden. Does that matter?
No, a phone is enough. It does need a signal to record, so somewhere with no network means entering the day when you next reach one.
Set it up in about three minutes
Pick your trade at sign-up and PesaScope loads your starting list for you. Change any price, add what's missing, and record your first sale the same day.
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