Keeping tabs on your farm equipment usage helps you know what tools and machines get used most often for your business and when they are due to be maintained. This can help you determine the equipment that is absolutely critical to your success and ensure it stays available and ready to help you thrive. If you've set up machines like tractors and trucks in Farmbrite's Equipment section, you might want to know when they were used, who used them, and the current mileage or hours on their odometer. After tracking that usage, you might also want to configure email notifications so you are alerted when a piece of equipment is due for service. The key to all of that is creating equipment usage records; let's take a look at how you can add them.
You can add these usage records for whatever type of tools and machines you track. Just navigate to Resources>Equipment, and select the equipment record. You'll see an option for Usage in the menu.
In order to get the most value out of this feature, you'll want to set up some of the basic equipment details first.
- Be sure that you make a selection for how the usage should be tracked; this can be miles, kilometers, or hours.
- Next, check that the field for Current Miles/Kilometers/Hours is accurate to the equipment's most up to date reading. Your next usage record will use this as the amount of starting miles, and both usage and service records will update this field as you add them.
- Optionally, add an Estimated Usage Cost to calculate a cost associated with the usage. This should be the amount it costs you to run the equipment for each hour/mile/kilometer it is used.
In our examples in this article we are working with a pickup truck that we track in miles. where each mile usage is $1.02.
After setting those up, you can choose Usage Logs, and then create a new one. You'll be presented with optional fields to record information about using the equipment. Each one is outlined below; the only required field is the Ending measurement.
- Purpose - Why did you use the equipment? Something like "run to the supply store", "till field B", "cut up trees that fell in the storm" or "take animals to stock show".
- Starting Miles/Kilometers/Hours -The starting reading for total usage on the equipment at the start of this new log.
- Ending Miles/Kilometers/Hours - The ending reading for total usage on the equipment at the end of this new log.
- Date Used - When did the usage take place?
- Used By - Select who used the equipment from a list of your Farmbrite users.
- Keywords - Add any keywords to this usage record to more easily search for it later.
- Description - Describe how the equipment was used and provide any additional import details you want to capture regarding it.
After you have added what you need, be sure to save in the bottom right.
You can continue to add usage logs to the equipment over time, and always reference back to the equipment record to see the history. Note our example in the image above where the cost is also calculated here; remember that this calculated based on the cost per mile associated with the equipment details.
You can also configure notifications to alert you when a piece of equipment has reached a certain milage interval. Check out this article to learn more.
Reporting on Usage Records
If you'd like to see all of your usage records combined in one place, you'll be able to access them in the Equipment Usage Report. Navigate to Reports>Standard Reports, pick the Resources tab, and then run the Equipment Usage Logs report. This report is grouped by equipment, so you'll see all of the logs for each in a single area, with a combined total too. By default, the report will display all usage records for all equipment, but you can click Customize in the upper right to add or remove field, filter the report, or group it differently.
In three example below we run the standard report, but then customize it to filter for only this month, and group it by who used the equipment. That way we can easily separate the equipment usage associated with Chris and Farmhand Willy.
Let us know if you have any questions on recording equipment usage!