Here’s the reality we see every day: while agriculture feeds the world, many agribusinesses are still running on technology that belongs in the 1990s. A study by GAO found that “only 27 percent of U.S. farms or ranches used precision agriculture practices to manage crops or livestock.”
But the companies that are making the leap to modern solutions aren’t just surviving — they’re absolutely crushing their competition.
For instance, say your grain elevator processes hundreds of transactions daily. What if instead of drowning in paperwork and manual data entry, everything flowed seamlessly from scale ticket to settlement in minutes, not hours? Sound too good to be true? Boyer & Associates is helping agribusinesses like yours achieve these results — and more — when they finally break free from their legacy systems.
When systems stuck in the past are costing you big
We get it. You’re running your agribusiness on systems that were probably cutting-edge before smartphones existed. But here’s what’s happening behind the scenes that you might not even realize:
Every day, your team is spending hours doing work that could be automated.
Your data lives in different silos that don’t talk to each other. And honestly? Your security is probably keeping you up at night (or it should be). One cyberattack could put decades of hard work at risk.
Here’s what Boyer does differently: We’ve partnered with Levridge, which is built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management (FSCM). We’re all tired of the phrase “game-changer” but if ever there was a place to use it, this would be it. This modern, cloud-based foundation gives your operation a complete technological makeover that pays for itself through efficiency gains alone.
The hidden cost of “that’s how we’ve always done it”
We’ve walked into plenty of operations where talented people are burning through their days on tasks that a computer should be handling. They’re manually entering data, chasing down information across different systems and waiting days for reports that should take minutes. Does any of that sound familiar?
Every minute your team spends on busywork is a minute they’re not spending on what grows your business. And with today’s margins, you literally can’t afford that luxury.
What changes when you work with Boyer: We set up automation that handles the routine stuff so your people can focus on strategy, relationships, and growth. Our clients regularly tell us it’s like getting their weekends back because they’re not constantly putting out operational fires.
Three tactics that separate winners from everyone else
Getting traceability right (because your reputation depends on it)
Remember when traceability was just a nice-to-have? Those days are over. Whether it’s a food safety issue, sustainability requirements, or just proving your premium practices to buyers willing to pay more, you need to know exactly where everything came from and where it went.
According to Food Safety Magazine, food recalls cost the industry an average of $10 million per incident, with 76% of costs stemming from the inability to quickly trace contaminated products. We’ve seen too many businesses scramble when they needed to trace a problem batch or prove their sustainability practices to a major buyer.
How we solve this: We implement systems that track everything from the farm field through your finished product automatically. This eliminates digging through paper records or spreadsheets when you need answers fast. Plus, we can even help you track carbon credits —because that market is heating up and early adopters are seeing real revenue.
Making technology really work for you
Here’s something we hear all the time: “We tried upgrading our systems before, and it was a nightmare.” We get it. Too many agribusinesses have been burned by technology implementations that promised the world and delivered chaos.
The difference is in how you approach it. When you try to force generic business software to work for agribusiness, you’re going to have a bad time. But when you start with solutions built specifically for how agricultural operations actually work, that’s when the magic happens.
What Boyer brings to the table: We use Microsoft’s enterprise technology backbone but layer on agricultural-specific capabilities through our Levridge partnership. This means you get enterprise-level reliability with features that make sense for your business. This includes things like automated vendor creation when you set up customer accounts, real-time settlement updates when prices change, and scale tickets that flow directly into everything else without someone having to type them in again.
Get the real-time data you need to make smart decisions
Want to know what keeps agribusiness owners up at night? It’s not knowing. Not knowing your exact inventory position. Not knowing if you’re covered on your forward contracts. Not knowing if that big delivery next week is going to happen on time. Flying blind isn’t just stressful — it’s dangerous. We’ve seen businesses lose serious money because they couldn’t get accurate, real-time information when they needed it most.
Here’s what changes: Imagine pulling up a dashboard that shows you exactly where you stand right now — inventory levels, contract positions, delivery schedules, everything. It shows not just static numbers, but data that updates in real-time as trucks cross the scale and markets move. That’s the kind of visibility that lets you sleep at night and make confident decisions during the day.
Why Boyer gets agribusiness (and why that matters)
Read how we helped CHS to get the most from their Microsoft ERP solution.
Anyone can sell you software. But here’s the thing about agribusiness—it’s not like other industries. Your seasonality, your relationships, your regulatory environment, even how you think about risk is different. When you work with consultants who don’t understand that, you could end up with solutions that technically work but don’t fit how you do business.
Boyer & Associates has been serving the agricultural sector with deep expertise in Microsoft business applications. We understand why you need systems that can handle the crazy volume spikes during busy seasons and why a grain elevator’s technology needs are fundamentally different from a manufacturing plant’s needs.
As one of our agricultural clients noted in a recent implementation: “Boyer did a very good job of coming out and understanding what our business was like, what our needs are, what we were looking for and tailoring the software to what we were needing.” This understanding comes from years of working specifically with agricultural operations.
What this means for you: When we design your solution, we’re not starting from scratch and trying to figure out how agribusiness works. We already know. We know about basis contracts and storage agreements and why your accounting periods might not match the calendar year. We build solutions that work the way you do business, not the way the implementation manual says you should.
Here’s what we’ve learned after years of doing this: the agribusinesses that are thriving today aren’t necessarily the biggest or the oldest. They’re the ones that embraced modern technology early and used it to create real competitive advantages.
Your competitors are probably still struggling with the same issues you are. The difference is that those who keep up with technology gain market share while everyone else fights over scraps.
Ready to join the winners? This doesn’t have to be complicated or scary. We’ve done this enough times to know exactly how to make the transition smooth and get you seeing results fast. Don’t let outdated systems hold your agribusiness back from achieving its full potential.
Contact Boyer & Associates today and let’s talk about what’s possible for your operation. You might be surprised at how quickly things can change when you have the right technological foundation in place.
