We regularly make small changes to Red Sky so that it provides a more relevant and usable result.  Most of these changes do not require a new release of the software but you receive the upgrade the next time you synchronise.  Listed below are some of the most recent changes that may be of interest.

CHANGES DELIVERED WITH VERSION 4.1.62

This version allows all users to edit the split of effective milking area versus effective youngstock area without using up an Editable Area Year.  Simply go to ‘View Area Details’ on the General tab of any year and make the required change to ‘Effective Milking Area’.  You will find that the ‘Effective Area-Dairy Young’ cannot be greater than 20% of the Total Effective Dairy Area although this should never be a restriction.  Even if a dairy farm retained 30% of replacements by numbers and grazed all of these on the home dairy area, this should still only equate to 15%-17% of the total effective dairy area.

For users of Annual Report licenses, one area that may have created some frustration in the past is where you came to rollover or copy a previous year’s data and found that your client had confirmed some different farm areas to those that were provided last year.  With an Annual Report license there was no flexibility to make these changes.  Now when faced with this situation you can simply tick the ‘Make Editable Area Year’ on the General tab and edit any of the areas you wish.  Then when you synchronise the latest farm data for the first time, these new areas will be locked up.

We have recently developed a number of new reports that are positioned under our ‘Key Data’ tab.  We have also moved several of our mixed enterprise reports to this tab (i.e. sheep & beef reports, or combined sheep, beef & deer reports).  This is also where our ‘Farm Gate Nutrient Balance’ report now resides.

One further report that has been repositioned under the ‘Key Data’ tab is our ‘Budget’ report that details all the cash movements within a business.  This can be a key report for determining the impact on the cash position of either an historical year or a newly created budget.  This ‘Budget’ report is also the initial report to develop prior to completing a cash flow.  Previously the report was listed at the bottom of the ‘Operating Profit’ reports.

For operators of the ‘Udder’ software there is now an automatic calculation of the Per Cow and Per Hectare costs that should be used with this program when calculating the economic impact of changes to farm policy.  These numbers are situated at the bottom of the ‘Land Detail/Fertiliser’ screen.  You will need to select ‘Run All Calcs’ on the General tab of your client’s Red Sky data to produce the correct figures for any existing year.

CHANGES DELIVERED WITH VERSION 4.1.52

Included in this version is new code that will result in “Hectare” replacing “Area” in most screens and reports.  For sheep and beef data there is also a locale function that will ensure Australians see “DSE” and New Zealanders see “SU” in all screens and reports.  For those users who do not use dollars as their currency then Pound, Euro or Rand will now be visible.

The Red Sky Summary report has been further summarised so that there is a genuinely short report that just concentrates on the key performance indicators of a farm business.  This means that the un-summarised Summary report is identical to the previously summarised Summary report, and the new summarised Summary report has less than half the numbers it had previously.

CHANGES DELIVERED WITH VERSION 4.1.29

This latest version has a "Run All Calcs" button at bottom left of the General tab that when selected runs all calculations for that Year.  This will ensure all calculations as well as all reports are correctly populated. There is also a NEW Red Sky print driver for printing Adobe Acrobat PDF reports.  This now allows you to maintain an electronic file record of any reports and then email these to clients or advisors.  The PDF installation file is also available from our free download web page, which after downloading you should double click on the file and follow the prompts.  Then when you go to print a report from within Red Sky you select 'Red Sky PDF' from the printer selections.

CHANGES DELIVERED WITH VERSION 4.1.2

The main new functionality with this latest version is that the database runs faster on your computer (and uses less RAM), as well as there being no restriction on size of databases.  You will be able to have as many farms and years in a single database as you wish with little or no change in performance as more data is added. We are also launching the new Fertiliser/Farm Gate Nutrient Balance module, along with some specialty reports for sheep and beef farms.  These new reports can be viewed under the ‘Special’ tab in Reports. There is also now an option to hide the second stock breed/type and hiding this will be the default setting when you install the new version.  To make visible the second stock breed you will need to un-tick the checkbox in the Options screen.

CHANGES DELIVERED WITH VERSION 4.0.31

The main new functionality with this version is full stock reconciliations for each livestock class, including fuller reporting of both livestock sales and purchases, and product sales.  There has been an expansion from 4 to 6 farming enterprises, with cropping now having its own specific class and individual crop types recorded separately.  In addition there will shortly be the facility to record fertiliser and nutrient applications in more detail so that a Farm Gate Nutrient Balance can be completed.  There have been a number of other enhancements that continue to improve the accuracy and applicability of Red Sky.

SHEEP AND BEEF FARMS - There have been some major changes to simplify the entering of data for sheep and beef farms.  With the ticking of a checkbox you can now have Red Sky split all data entered between sheep and beef.  Whether you are importing data or entering data line by line, you simply enter the total number and Red Sky will do the rest.  For those wanting to analyse the business in more depth there are stock reconciliations so you can confirm the reliability of opening and closing numbers, as well as stock movements.  This then automatically populates many other Red Sky screens so that tracking of sales and purchases, reproductive performance, and death/loss rates is straightforward.

CROP FARMS - There is a new CROP enterprise which has been designed to accommodate the specific needs of cropping farmers.  This includes options for grains, small seeds, forages, and a wide range of other crops such as cotton, sugar cane, kiwifruit, apples, grapes, and vegetables.  In addition to analysing overall farm financial performance, you can record performance per hectare on both a yield and revenue basis.

DEER, GOAT AND OTHER FARMS - There are now TWO “Other” enterprises so you can analyse deer and/or goats and/or forestry and/or off-farm investments separately.  The key physical reports record meat, fibre (or velvet) and milk (goats or sheep) separately.  You can complete a comprehensive analysis of all of these enterprises, or just as with the other enterprises you can rapidly import data and provide a range of reports in minutes.

FERTILISER USE & FARM GATE NUTRIENT BALANCE - The Fertiliser/Farm Gate Nutrient Balance is not quite complete so although you are now able to see the layout of the report under the Physical tab, this is not yet fully available.  There will not need to be a new version launch when this is available, it will simply become active after synchronise.  We will confirm by email when this is complete.