Update chemical and fertiliser prices across every crop plan

Input prices move all season. A budget built on February's prices is wrong by April, and a gross margin built on it is wrong too. The trouble is that fixing it usually means opening every product, or every job on every paddock, one at a time.

Several growers told us that was exactly what they were doing. So Phase now has one grid for every price, and one button to put the new prices on the plans.

One grid for every price

Go to Inventory → Actions → Edit prices. You get a grid of every product in the section you are in: Chemicals, Fertiliser, Seed, or Parts and other. One row each, with the price Phase costs it at.

It works like a spreadsheet:

• Click a price and type. Enter moves down to the next row.
• Paste a whole column of prices copied from Excel.
• Drag the corner of a cell to fill down.
• Undo if you slip.

Per is the unit the price is for, such as per litre or per tonne. A row you have changed says Changed, and a bar at the bottom counts them.

Two ways to save

Save changes the price in Inventory only.

Save and update plans changes the price and puts it on your crop plans in one go: every job not yet marked done, in the current season and later ones. Before anything is saved, Phase tells you how many plan lines will change.

Work already done keeps the cost on its record. A finished spray cost what it cost.

Prices you set by hand are safe

If you typed a special price on a particular plan line, Phase does not overwrite it quietly. It counts those lines separately and asks, with a tick box, whether to replace them as well. Leave it unticked and they keep the price you typed.

Nothing you paid is changed

A new price is a new price from that day. The deliveries you have already received keep the price they were bought at, including anything read from a supplier invoice. The grid shows where each price comes from, such as stock received, the last delivery, or a price you set on a given date.

Changed your mind?

Every price change is kept on the product under Price history, with the date and the old and new price. The newest change has Revert this change, which puts the product back and puts the plan lines it moved back to what they said before.

Why it matters

With current prices on the plan, the cost per hectare on every paddock and the gross margin for every crop are right today, not right as of the day you built the plan. It is a five minute job when the new price list arrives, and worth doing each time it does.

One product list behind everything

This works because Phase keeps one list of products for the whole farm. The price you set here is the price behind the cost per hectare on every paddock's plan, the season's budget and each crop's gross margin, and it is the same product that comes off stock when a job is marked done. Supplier invoices can be uploaded to add stock and prices without typing them in.

For more on recording what actually went on, see Spray records on your phone.