Hay is sold by weight against a test, and the figure that settles the sale comes off the scale after the truck is loaded. QuixChex quotes the tonnage, brings the ticket the crew filled in back onto the order, and keeps the bins, the standing orders and the custom work that made the hay on one set of books.
How an order runs
A dairy in the panhandle takes 24 ton of second-cutting alfalfa off Bin 4. A deposit holds the tonnage, and the order carries what the yard needs on the day: which bin it comes off, who signs for it, and the number to ring when the truck is thirty minutes out. Tuesday it loads, the operator fills in the ticket at the scale and photographs the load with the tag in frame — a buyer six hundred miles away is buying what is in that picture. The balance settles against the ticket, freight goes on by the loaded mile, and the driver is down for his day. That same week the boarding barn’s standing order charges itself, a neighbour’s eighty acres gets swathed at a per-acre rate, and the 41 ton that caught rain in June goes to a feedlot as feeder hay with its test sheet attached.
A deposit holds it off the market, and the order says which bin it comes off, who signs for it and the number to ring when the truck is close.
The operator is on the order at his day rate, the ticket goes in at the yard, and the load is photographed with the tag in frame before it pulls away.
Net weight against the price, freight by the loaded mile, any deduction the ticket calls for — one bill, settled at the scale rather than argued a week later.
Load out. Ticket closed. Paid.
A load is priced by weight and the weight isn’t known until it is loaded. A deposit holds the tonnage, the balance settles against the ticket, and the crew screen at the yard collects that ticket — lot number, ticket number, bale count, net weight, moisture, RFV. It is a checklist, not a scale interface. Nothing here weighs anything.
Bins, shed bays and open stack yards go on the books with capacity in tons, how they are floored and aired, and a map pin — leased ground eight miles north has no address worth ringing. The lot number rides in the bin’s name and the test sits in its notes, one lot to a bin, so what is committed and what is standing empty are two different counts.
Three rounds every other Tuesday to a boarding barn, a ton-month on a bin somebody else is renting, a feed store’s regular load. Between November and April that is most of what arrives, and it charges without anyone raising an invoice. The one whose card died in the night is on a list by morning, not discovered when the driver rings the gate.
Swathing by the acre and baling by the bale for the neighbours who sold their machines, on the same board as the loads going out. The operator is down for his day rate against that order, so the custom side shows what it made after the fuel, the net wrap and the man — and the seasonal baler operator with no W-9 surfaces before January rather than in it.
Second cutting caught by a storm is not premium alfalfa any more. It is feeder hay at a third of the money and the test sheet goes with it. The price list on the account is a starting point you reprice, and the numbers that bill are the ones on the quote, so hay sold this week isn’t billed at March’s figure. A baling order the weather cancelled stays on the record as cancelled, which is how a season becomes countable.
Day one
Say you run a hay and seed farms business and QuixChex sets this up for you before you've typed anything. Every price is editable — they're a starting point, not a rule.
| Service | What it covers | Starting price |
|---|---|---|
| Premium Alfalfa — 3x4 Large Square (per ton) | Off the stack, dairy-test hay. RFV on the tag. | $295 |
| Grass / Mixed Hay — 5x6 Round (per bale) | Roughly 1,200 lb. Net-wrapped, shed-stored. | $115 |
| Horse Timothy-Orchard — Small Square (per bale) | Barn hay, 55-65 lb, sold off the shed floor. | $13 |
| Feeder Hay — Rain-Damaged (per ton) | Sold as what it is. Test sheet goes with it. | $110 |
| Wheat Straw — Small Square (per bale) | Bedding straw, bright and dry. | $6 |
| Certified Wheat Seed — Cleaned & Treated (per bushel) | Blue tag, cleaned, treated and bagged. | $19 |
| Coated Alfalfa Seed (per 50 lb bag) | Coated and inoculated. Variety named on the tag. | $340 |
| Cover Crop Mix — Rye, Radish & Vetch (per acre) | Mixed to order at the plant, priced per seeded acre. | $32 |
| Custom Seed Cleaning & Treating (per bushel) | Your seed in, cleaned, treated and back on your truck. | $5.61 |
| Custom Swathing (per acre) | Machine, fuel and operator. | $17.75 |
| Custom Baling — Large Round (per bale) | Full operation. Net wrap included. | $27.25 |
| Delivered Freight — Semi Load (per loaded mile) | 24-30 ton. Quoted from the yard gate to theirs. | $5.25 |
| Bin & Shed Storage (per ton, per month) | Third-party storage, billed monthly on a standing order. | $10 |
| Moisture / Shrink Deduction | Set off the delivered ticket. Disclosed at booking, never a surprise. | $0 |
FAQ
No. Nothing on the platform weighs anything, and the scale house ticket is still the document that governs the sale. What the crew screen does is collect that ticket at the yard — lot number, ticket number, bale count, net weight, moisture and RFV — so the figures come back onto the order with the load instead of on a paper slip three days later.
It is a line on your price list sitting at zero until the delivered ticket says otherwise, and the buyer has been told at booking that it is there. It is deliberately not a percentage worked out for you — that number is argued over a test result rather than calculated, and a default that guessed would be wrong on somebody’s load every week.
Not as a running total. Each bin carries its lot in the name and the test in its notes, one lot to a bin, so you can see what is committed and what is standing empty. But no tonnage draws down as bales leave, and a lot spread over three stacks has nowhere honest to sit. If uncommitted tonnage is the number you run the place on, that is worth knowing before you sign up rather than after.
No. The list is what the account starts with and every line is yours to change. What bills is the quote, written per order and carrying its own numbers, so a market that moved on Friday is on the order you write Monday. Nothing reprices the whole list in one go, which is why it is a starting point rather than a price book.
Yes, on the same books — cleaning and treating by the bushel for whoever hauls in, coated seed by the bag, cover crop mixed by the acre, and prepay bookings taken from September. It does not issue tags. The certification tag, the fumigation record, the scale’s certificate and the drivers’ medicals are documents with expiry dates, shown worst first — and it only knows the papers you have put on it, so it will never tell you that you are compliant.
Yes. A bin or a shed bay let to a third party carries a monthly rate and bills on a standing order, and it sits on the same yard list as the ones holding your own crop. Leave the rate blank on those and they stay part of the count without billing anyone.
By the day, at his rate, against the order he ran, so it costs that order rather than disappearing into the season. What you paid each one carries through to the year-end 1099 worksheet, which also says whose W-9 you never got and who has no mailing address to send one to. Those are two different reasons the same money cannot go out, and they are flagged as two different things.
Yes. A counter sale at the farm gate rings up at the register, and against the buyer if they are a regular, without writing an order for four bales. You don’t need a card machine for it, though you can use one — card and ACH run through the gateways QuixChex integrates with, and cash at the gate is recorded properly so the books still balance.
A short call, on your own services and your own customers. We'll show you what the first week looks like, and talk through what it would take to get you there.