Requirements checklist
What to ask for when choosing software for flower farms and nurseries.
A checklist built from how flower farms and nurseries work, to print or save as a PDF and bring to any supplier meeting.
What the software should cover
Tick each one that matters to your business.
- Greenhouse bay and variety register
- Harvest and grading
- Cold room and stock
- Fertigation, scouting and spray log
- Propagation and nursery lots
- Orders, standing buyers and dispatch
- Invoices, claims and receipts
Roles that need their own access
Who logs in, and what each person may see or change.
- For farm owners
- Head growers
- Grading and packing leads
- Nursery managers
- Sales and dispatch desk
Reports to ask for
Ask to see each one with your own sample data.
- Stems cut per bay, variety and crew against plan
- Grade mix by variety and by week
- Cold room stock by pallet with age since cutting
- Sprays and feeds by bay with harvest intervals
- Nursery lots with counts lost at each step
- Orders filled, short and open by buyer
- Buyer claims with bay of origin, and credit notes issued
Systems it may need to connect to
Note which ones you already run.
- SMS
- Messaging apps
- Label printers
- Cold room temperature loggers
- Accounting export
Questions for any vendor
Put these to every supplier you are comparing.
- Does it cover both stems and potted plants?
- Can crews enter harvest counts in the greenhouse?
- Can a box be traced to its bay?
- Does it keep spray records?
- Can buyers have their own box labels?
- Can temperature loggers feed the cold room record?
- Can standing orders be forecast against cut stems?
- How is the work priced?
- Who owns the farm’s records?
Where the work usually breaks today
Circle the ones you recognise. They set the order of the project.
- Harvest counts are not tied to the bay
- Cold room stock is a pallet count
- Spray and fertigation records live on bay notices
- Nursery lots lose their parent plant
- Orders are promised against stock that is not cut yet
Prefer to talk it through? See the flower farms and nurseries page.