Why we built Phase: farm records that talk to each other

Phase did not start as a software company looking for an industry. It started on a working broadacre farm in Western Australia, growing wheat, canola and lupins, with a complaint most growers will recognise.

Nothing talked to each other.

The problem with five good tools

On most farms the crop plan is in one place and the spray records are in another. What is left in the chemical shed is a spreadsheet, or a guess. Machinery services are on a sticker in the cab. Rainfall is in a book by the back door.

Each of those works well enough on its own. The trouble is the gaps between them. Every job has to be written down three times: once to say it was done, once to take the chemical off the stocktake, and once more to work out what it cost. Miss one, and the three records quietly stop agreeing.

Phase began as small separate apps for single jobs like those, one for machinery servicing and one for rainfall. It turned into one app the day it became obvious that the real job was joining them up.

One record, around one map

So the goal is simple to say. A farm should have one record, and you should only have to tell it something once.

That is why everything in Phase hangs off the paddock map. You mark a spray done on the paddock. The spray record is written, the crop plan is ticked off, the chemical comes off the shed and the cost lands on that paddock's margin. One action, four records, all in agreement.

It is also why Phase covers more ground than most farm software: crop plans, records, inventory, grain storage, weather, soil, yield, livestock, machinery and the people who work there. Not because more features is the point. Because each one left outside is another book that has to be kept in step by hand.

Built by people who use it

Our own farm runs on Phase. That keeps us honest in a way nothing else does. If something is clunky at six in the morning with a boom to fill, we are the first to find out, and the first to be annoyed about it.

It also sets the standard for what gets built. A feature has to be worth using from the ute, on a phone, with one hand and bad signal. If it only works at a desk on a good day, it is not finished.

Where it is going

Farming is not getting simpler. There is more to record every year, for more people: buyers, auditors, insurers, banks. The answer cannot be more paperwork at night.

The aim is for the records to mostly keep themselves. Connected machines report the work they did. Invoices become stock on hand. A weather station puts the conditions on the spray record. A question asked in plain words gets an answer from your own records. The grower checks and confirms, and gets on with farming.

That is the next phase of farm management, and it is what we are building.

If you want the practical version, What is Phase lists what it does today.