Hutchinsons has upgraded its Omnia platform with its Farm Entity upgrade. Designed for farming businesses managing multiple enterprises within a single Omnia account or holding, giving users the ability to treat those enterprises as separate trading entities for the first time.
Chris Hoskins, digital services manager at Hutchinsons, explained the thinking behind the development: “The new Farm Entity has been developed for users who have multiple businesses within Omnia — such as contracting businesses or those with multiple farming agreements and want to be able to pull these out as separate entities within the one Omnia holding or account.
“It’s all about increasing the flexibility to manage these businesses individually within Omnia, but still under one larger umbrella account or holding.”
Previously, fields and field groups within Omnia were held under a single business or holding. Whilst it was possible to filter out maps and reports, no management actions could be linked to individual businesses held within that account.
“For example, anything compliance-related logged in Omnia was attributed across all businesses in the account — a significant limitation for those operating multiple farming agreements.
“Farm Entity changes that. Individual fields can now be assigned to specific field groups, allowing each to be managed as a distinct trading entity,” he added.
Chris outlined a typical situation where the new functionality will prove particularly valuable, such as those with significant areas of rented ground moving in and out of rotation. “For example, where potatoes are in the mix — a dedicated Farm such as ‘Rented’ can be created within Omnia and fields can be added or removed from the grouping as circumstances change. Management actions can be applied to those fields as and when relevant.”
Despite the breadth of its application, the feature is straightforward to activate. “It doesn’t need extra support — it’s just a switch,” said Chris.
Farm Entity is also fully recognised within the Scout app, meaning it can be accessed and managed on the move.
