The Farming Module

The farming module is where Zato handles what a general ledger cannot describe on its own for a farming client: how many stock left the farm, how many were born, which valuation method the client uses, and whether the herd is still above the minimum the herd scheme requires.

Available in New Zealand only. Australian portals do not have farming families, herd scheme values, or national standard cost tables. Australia has a separate Livestock workpaper that works differently and is not covered by this article.

How Farming Is Different From Other Workpapers

If you're used to how a standard workpaper behaves in Zato, a few things about farming work differently and are worth knowing upfront.

  • It's enabled per client, not per job. Most workpapers just appear once mapping supports them. Farming has to be switched on for the client first, with specific modules selected.

  • It changes the client's balance date. Turning farming on moves the client to a 30 June balance date instead of 31 March. This is easy to miss if you're not expecting it.

  • One workpaper is really a group of five or six. Each farming module is a "family", a General Ledger sheet plus several supporting sheets that share account codes and documents. Other workpapers stand alone.

  • It has its own extraction rules. Farming reads prior year and opening figures out of uploaded statements, with specific safeguards around valuation methods, described below. Most workpapers don't extract from documents at all.

  • The numbers are governed by published external rates. Herd scheme and national standard cost values come from IRD's own published tables, not from anything the firm or client sets.

The Five Modules

When farming is switched on for a client, one or more of the following modules can be selected:

  • Sheep

  • Beef Cattle

  • Dairy Cattle

  • Deer

  • Wool

If a client farms everything, that comes to nineteen workpapers in total. Most clients use two or three modules.

Families

Each module is a family. A family always contains one General Ledger sheet plus its supporting sheets, and the General Ledger sheet is the head of the family. Two things are shared across the whole family:

  • The account codes shown in the header

  • The supporting documents attached to any sheet in the family

Attaching a document to the Sheep Working Sheet, for example, also attaches it to the Sheep Trading Statement.

Setting Up Farming for a Client and Job

Step 1: Switch farming on for the client

Farming is enabled on the client, not the job. The switch, labelled Enable farming module, appears in three places: the create client panel, the drawer that opens from the clients list, and the client detail page. All three behave the same way.

  1. Open the client and turn on Enable farming module.

  2. Choose the modules this client farms. At least one must be selected.

  3. Select Save. None of the three screens save automatically, so the change is not stored until Save is pressed on the screen being used.

Step 2: Choose the modules for the job

A new job inherits whatever modules the client had selected at the moment the job was created. After that, the client and the job are independent, so changing the client's modules later does not rewrite jobs that already exist.

On the job itself, the selection can be narrowed but never widened beyond what the client has enabled.

Step 3: Check the chart of accounts

Farming figures only reach a workpaper if the accounts carrying them are mapped to farming parents in the chart of accounts. A prompt appears if this hasn't happened.

  • The banner only appears when at least three accounts are affected, so a single stray account does not raise it.

  • Dismissing it hides it for that client going forward, remembered separately for the whole chart, the job's trial balance, and the job level workpaper gap. Enabling the module again clears every dismissal.

  • Acting on the banner requires permission to edit clients.

Navigating a Farming Workpaper

The family tab bar

Opening any farming workpaper shows a row of tabs across the top for the rest of its family: General Ledger, Livestock Working Calculations, Trading Statement, Livestock Numbers, and for dairy, also Milk Trading Statement. This bar appears on every sheet in the family.

Key Metrics

Every farming workpaper opens with a metrics panel. Nothing in it is manually entered, it is all read from the sheets below.

The header chips

Two chips sit in the header, and both describe the section currently selected, not the whole sheet.

  • Account Codes lists the ledger account codes behind the family, owned by the General Ledger sheet and copied to every other sheet.

  • Status shows whether the section is reconciled.

Showing and hiding rows

Livestock tables list every stock class the species has, whether or not the client farms it, so most sheets have empty rows.

  • Hide unused rows, at the top of the workpaper, hides empty rows across the whole sheet. The same toggle exists per table.

  • This setting lasts for the session and affects exports too, both Copy to Xero and the PDF respect whichever way it's currently set.

Expanding sections

Working Sheets are built from four collapsible sections, with the national standard cost section holding a further set of collapsible tables inside it. Collapsing a section only hides it from view, nothing is excluded from the calculation.

Where Farming Figures Come From

This is the section to check before treating a workpaper figure as wrong.

Is there extraction in the farming module?

Yes, on nine of the nineteen farming workpapers. Extraction reads an uploaded document and fills cells from it, used in farming for exactly one purpose: bringing in the comparative year without anybody retyping it.

The rule that explains most surprises: extraction only ever fills prior year or opening stock cells, never a current year figure. If a current year column looks wrong, the uploaded document is not the place to look, check the ledger, the account mapping, or a manually entered figure instead.

How the platform picks the right year out of a document

A trading statement usually prints two or three years side by side. The platform transcribes every year column it can see, tags each row with the year printed above it, and keeps only the rows belonging to the year before the job's balance year. Matching is on the year alone, not the exact day and month.

Market Value: why it sometimes disappears

Many clients value stock under herd scheme and national standard cost only, and their statements print no market value section at all. Two checks stop a valuation being invented that the client never used:

  1. The absent section check. If the document never prints a heading or column called Market Value, every market value figure from it is discarded.

  2. The echo check. If every market value figure on the sheet exactly repeats the herd scheme or national standard cost figure on its own row, the column is treated as an echo and cleared.

One case survives both checks by design: a statement that lays its valuation methods out as columns prints the words Market Value in its header row even for a client who values nothing that way. It's worth reviewing the Market Value column specifically on column style statements.

Milk company names are read, never guessed

When a milk statement is read, the company name and supply number are taken directly from the page. A blank company name means the document simply did not state one, Zato will not guess a common dairy company name to fill the gap.

Uploading Supporting Documents

Each farming workpaper that extracts has its own document categories in the supporting documents panel.

  • Financial Statements is the slot for a whole farm set of accounts, where each species has its own trading statement as a page or section inside one PDF.

  • Documents are shared across the family, attach once and every sheet in that family has it.

  • File types: PDF, image, and Word files are read. Spreadsheets are not read by the farming extraction, if a client sends an Excel trading statement, print it to PDF first or key the comparatives in by hand.

  • Every filled cell keeps a link back to the line on the page it came from, viewable through traceability.

The Farming Workpapers, Sheet by Sheet

Sheep, Beef Cattle, Dairy Cattle, and Deer all use the same four sheets in the same order. Wool and the Milk Trading Statement are shaped differently, covered at the end.

Recommended working order: General Ledger first, then the Working Sheet, then the Trading Statement. Livestock Numbers needs nothing entered.

The General Ledger sheet

Lists the client's actual ledger transactions for the farming accounts, one section per account, each opening with an Opening Balance row. A mapped account with no movement shows a zero rather than a blank.

Quantities are read from transaction narration where the platform can find one with confidence, left blank rather than guessed. Rows can be added and deleted here, unusual for a farming table.

How a ledger account finds the right sheet and stock class:

  1. The account must be mapped to a farming parent in the chart of accounts, the parent decides both the species sheet and the stock class.

  2. If mapped, the parent wins, the account's own name is ignored.

  3. If not mapped, the platform falls back to reading the account name, a weaker signal.

The Working Sheet (Livestock Working Calculations)

Where the year's livestock movement is reconciled and closing stock is valued, across four sections:

  1. Livestock Quantity Reconciliation. Runs from last year's closing stock through to this year's closing count. The Auto Age Opening Stock button moves each class's opening quantity into the next class's Aging In, marked Auto aged in traceability, editable by hand.

  2. Closing Stock Calculation. Splits the closing head count across the three IRD valuation methods. The Check column reads Yes, No, Error: Below minimum Herd numbers, or At or above minimum. Note: on the Sheep sheet, the two youngest lamb classes are exempt from herd scheme rules.

  3. Herd Scheme Opening Stock Value Adjustment. Works out the non-taxable movement in published herd scheme values on the opening herd. Read only. On Deer, a Deer breed selector here chooses between two published tables.

  4. NSC Value Calculations. National standard cost, a cost based valuation. Sheep and Deer have three tables, Beef and Dairy have six, including the bobby calf chain inside the R1 table.

The Trading Statement

Labelled Trading Statement for Sheep, Beef, and Wool, and Trading Schedule for Dairy and Deer. Presents the year's trading result with the comparative alongside. Empty comparative cells print as a dash rather than 0.00.

Livestock Numbers

A single read only table, restating the Working Sheet's movement as pure head counts, with reductions shown as negatives.

The Milk Trading Statement (dairy only)

Has a section per milk company or supply account, added with + Add Section. Covers Monthly Production, deferred and retrospective payments (June to November), levies and deductions (read from the trial balance, not the GL), and price per kilogram of milk solids. One export detail: the prior to prior year production row is left out of the Xero paste, though it stays on the sheet.

The Wool Trading Statement

The Wool family has only two sheets, General Ledger and this one. No working sheet and no livestock numbers, since wool is a clip rather than a herd.

Valuation Methods and IRD Rates

Every head of livestock on hand at balance date is valued under one of three methods: Herd Scheme, National Standard Cost, or Market Value. The client chooses, subject to the rules, and the workpaper follows the choice rather than making it. There is no cost price method in the New Zealand farming module.

The published national average market values and national standard cost values ship inside the platform, updated when IRD publishes a new year (currently 2016 to 2026), and are read only. The one published table choice a user controls is the Deer breed selector, since IRD publishes two deer tables. The rates also cover goats and pigs, unused today since there is no goat or pig workpaper.

Everyday Tasks

Reconciling a species

  1. Open the General Ledger sheet and fill in any blank Qty cells.

  2. Check the Working Sheet's opening stock against last year's closing.

  3. Select Auto Age Opening Stock, then review and adjust.

  4. Enter births, deaths, killed, and any reconciliation adjustment.

  5. Enter the client's closing count, check the Variance and Reconciled flag.

  6. Split the closing count across the three valuation methods, check for minimum herd warnings.

  7. Confirm the Trading Statement's gross surplus reads sensibly against the prior year.

Moving an account to a different stock class

  1. Change the account's parent in the chart of accounts or trial balance mappings.

  2. Run the job again, the workpaper re-derives the stock class from the current mapping.

Tracing a figure
Open traceability on any cell. Ledger sourced figures name the account and column, extracted figures point at the source line on the page, calculated figures show the formula.

Checking in Z-Watch
Z-Watch counts only the workpapers the job's own farming modules cover, matching the Workpapers tab. It judges reconciliation using the firm's configured tolerance. The job setup checklist shows Enable Farming Module and Farming modules rows with Edit links back to setup.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my client's balance date showing as 30 June instead of 31 March?
This happens automatically once farming is enabled for the client. It's a client wide setting, not something chosen per module.

I uploaded last year's statement but the current year figures didn't change. Is the extraction broken?
No, this is expected. Extraction only ever fills prior year and opening stock cells, never the current year. Check the ledger or mapping for a current year discrepancy instead.

The Market Value column is empty even though the client's statement shows a market value. Why?
Check whether the statement actually prints a heading or column called Market Value. If it doesn't, the figures are discarded by design, to avoid inventing a valuation the client doesn't use. On column style statements (Class, Herd Scheme, Market Value, NSC), review this column manually since it can survive the safeguard even for clients who don't use it.

Can I add or remove stock classes on the livestock tables?
No, these lists are fixed per species and always appear in a set order.

Does hiding unused rows delete any data?
No, Hide unused rows is a display setting only. It lasts for the session and is respected on export, but nothing underneath is affected.

Why does my milk statement show a blank company name?
The company name is read directly from the page. If the document doesn't clearly print one, the field stays blank rather than being guessed.