Vineyard Management Software: A Complete Guide

Operating a vineyard is never simple. To assist vineyard managers with tasks like health and safety, inventory management and data analysis, choosing the right technology is essential.

 

Vineyard management software is a key tool for viticulture operations. Viticulturists can rely on it to automate and digitise  many of the most complex elements of their work.

 

With countless software offerings on the table, viticulturists require unique applications tailored to their industry and challenges. Read on for a complete breakdown of how vineyard management software can help your business, and which tools you should turn to.

What is vineyard management software?

Vineyard management software is a blanket term for applications used for a range of purposes, including vineyard planning, harvest tracking, task management, compliance and much more. These apps offer various functions to streamline vineyard operations.

 

Some tools like Onside focus primarily on health and safety. Others assist with the accounting side of your vineyard operations, and more specialised software can provide soil analysis and deep insight into phenology.

 

Often, vineyard management software offers features designed for wineries. This means for businesses that operate both vineyards and wineries, only one app is needed for everything from grape growing to sales.

What does vineyard management software do?

Vineyard management software can take many different forms. Below are some of the major functions they can serve for your business.

Health and safety

Like all forms of agriculture, operating a viticulture business carries elements of risk for employees.

 

Fortunately, vineyard management software solutions include necessary health and safety tools for a safe and compliant workplace.

• Check-in: Check-in questions ensure all workers and visitors understand risks and obligations each time they enter your vineyard. They also allow you to track when visitors may be incapacitated on-site if they do not check out when expected.

• Mapping: Vineyards may have many risk areas, such as pesticide zones, machinery operation zones, and steep slopes. Vineyard management apps allow you to map these hazards and more, ensuring workers and visitors are aware of key dangers on-site.

• Incident reporting: Incident reporting is an important step for compliance, and also helps vineyards reduce the risk of incidents. Incident reporting features can also include corrective actions which can be assigned as tasks.

• Emergency plan: An emergency plan is critical for ensuring health and safety in your vineyard. Emergency plan features enable users to access their location on the vineyard map, and see other key health and safety locations such as medical kits. Key contacts like first aid responders can also have their details stored in the app.

Contractor management

Whether it's pruning, wire-lifting, bud-rubbing or harvest, vineyards often have contractors working onsite.

 

For this reason, vineyard management software should include contractor management functionality to assist with the needs of vineyard owners when it comes to dealing with contractors.

• Qualification: Before any contractor can begin working on your vineyard, you must first verify that they have the necessary qualifications. Vineyard management apps make this easy as you can house all key documents in one location. They can even include automated reminders for contractors to update their documents.

• Inductions: Induction is critical anytime contractors begin working on your vineyard. Vineyard management software helps out with check-in questions covering biosecurity and property risks. Digital records can also be used to prove inductions properly occurred.

• Check-in: With check-in functionality, vineyard managers can receive alerts when contractors arrive on-site, and if they do not check out when expected.

Manage production workflows

Wine production is a complex process. Vineyard management apps often offer a range of features to help simplify certain vineyard tasks.

• Task management: Some vineyard management software tools enable you to assign tasks to app users, including using pre-made templates. You can even pinpoint tasks to particular spots on the digital map to make things even easier for your team.

• Spray diaries: Spraying is a critical process for vineyards. Vineyard management apps include spray diaries to track which chemicals have been administered. This avoids complications that can come with over-spraying and under-spraying.

• Wine production: For vineyards that also function as wineries, vineyard management software can also assist with wine production. This process involves complex factors like fermentation, pumpovers and more. Some vineyard management apps can track and monitor the data vineyards and wineries need to produce the best wines.

Biosecurity

Biosecurity is one of the most important considerations for any vineyard. It's critical to ensure the long-term survival as a vineyard, as well as to comply with legislation and regulations.

 

Vineyard management software can helps vineyards manage their biosecurity in a range of ways:

• Check-in questions: Check-in questions ensure workers and visitors are educated on their biosecurity obligations. They also can prompt the completion of certain tasks like washing or cleaning items before they are brought onto your vineyard.

• Mapping: This feature enables growers to create a detailed vineyard map, making it easy to swiftly respond to threats as they emerge. Some vineyard management apps even allow for the creation of specific zones, each with its own biosecurity rules.

• Compliance: At the heart of any vineyard's biosecurity measures is compliance. A great vineyard management software should include a broad range of tools that collectively offer a comprehensive compliance toolkit.

Inventory management

For vineyards that double as wineries, inventory management is important for tracking valuable stock.

 

Some specific functions you can expect from particular vineyard management software are:

• Stock tracking: Having constant, real-time access to your stock is the perfect way to prevent overproduction and understocking. You can take the guesswork out of your operations with stock monitoring for bottles and barrels.

• Age and maturation tracking: Inventory management for vineyards and wineries is unique in many ways. Vineyard and winery management apps enable you to closely monitor the maturation process and add tasting notes to better understand progress.

• Sales: Inventory management can be a major boon to the sales operations of vineyards and wineries. With high-quality inventory tracking, you'll always know what's in stock so you don't allow customers to place orders you can't fulfil. You can also use some software for more advanced sales tasks like calculated commissions and tracking purchase behaviours.

Data and financial analytics

Vineyard management software collects a lot of information about your business. These apps make it easy to leverage this data with high-level stats to help your business.

• Vineyard statistics: Many vineyard management apps have functions that enable users to analyse the technical elements of viticulture. From phenology to irrigation, these apps can track data and create detailed reports.

• Cost of goods sold (COGS): Accurately calculating COGS can be extremely time-consuming and confusing. The right vineyard management app can make it easy by tracking production costs every step of the way.

• Forecasts: Viticulturists can level up their business planning with large-scale forecasts. Managers can input relevant business data into their software, or create forecasts with data that has already been captured in the app. They can then create forecasts with a series of variables to understand how their vineyard may perform in the future under certain conditions.

Reporting

Generating reports is important to vineyards for many reasons. Whatever reports you need to create, the right vineyard management app can help.

 

Some uses for reporting functions in vineyard management apps are:

• Compliance: Complying with regulatory frameworks in Australia and New Zealand isn't always easy. Fortunately, vineyard management software can make things simpler with on-demand reports for audits and everyday operations alike.

• Certifications: There are several certifications across Australia and New Zealand relating to viticulture. The most significant are Sustainable Winegrowing Australia and Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand. You can find out more about how the reporting function of Onside helps comply with these schemes in our complete guide to agricultural compliance schemes.

• Operational reports: Viticulturalists can also use management apps to create extensive reports on their vineyard's operations. These reports can enable businesses to understand topics like yields, operation costs and future growth projections.

What to look for in vineyard management software

Here are a few useful perks to look for in the perfect vineyard management app for your business:

• Mobile functionality: Vineyard management software is typically most productive when it can be used on mobile devices while working in the field. Before investing in software, ensure it can be used on these devices.

• Ease of use: It's important that your team can easily use vineyard management software for its required purposes. When researching vineyard management software, look for apps that have been praised for being highly intuitive and easy to uptake. This is the software that will be most easily implemented in your vineyard's workflows.

• Low connectivity mode: Software that requires 4 bars to work isn't much help on a large vineyard. Vineyard management software should work when the connection is more spotty. Usually, this means that some features of the software can be fully used in low connectivity mode, and any data collected immediately syncs when the connection improves.

• Integrations: Vineyard management software is often a smaller piece of a larger tech stack. It's best if vineyard management software integrates seamlessly with other apps for maximum efficiency. This can be a major time-saver. For example, it can prevent you from having to input data multiple times on different apps.

Top vineyard management softwares

For vineyard managers in Australia and New Zealand, there are plenty of options when it comes to vineyard management apps.

 

We've rounded up 5 of the very best options you have to choose from.

Onside

Onside is a fast and efficient solution to some of the most challenging elements of vineyard operations. It offers a range of helpful management features that can be used to great effect by agribusinesses of any size.

Just a few Onside features you can put to use on your vineyard are:

• Health and safety: As Onside's primary area of focus, it has a wide range of health and safety features. It uses check-in questions to ensure visitors and workers understand and acknowledge rules as they enter your property. Incidents can be easily reported and your whole team can access your emergency plan.

• Property mapping: Onside's mapping features can also be extremely useful for health and safety. It's an ideal way to pinpoint hazards and risks in your vineyard. Vineyard mapping is also handy for assigning tasks and defining property boundaries.

• Biosecurity: Tackle biosecurity on your vineyard with check-in questions to understand risks posed by visitors, such as pest and disease transmission. The Onside app makes it easy to share biosecurity information and maintain complete records of who has been on your property.

• Compliance: By collecting key data over time, Onside makes compliance far simpler. You can find the information you need at audit time or when maintaining general compliance with standards and regulations. This enables you to easily comply with vital industry standards like Sustainable Winegrowing Australia.

Book an Onside demo today and discover the many ways it can transform your vineyard operations.

InnoVint

InnoVint is a cloud-based software with functions supporting wineries and vineyards. It is a US-based business that has also been selected for use by wineries around the world.

Its top features for vineyard management are:

• Forecasting: InnoVint also has capabilities to forecast harvests and the future performance of vineyards. You can analyse vintage-over-vintage trends, average phenology milestones and much more.

• Inventory management: With InnoVint, you can track not only what's in your cellar, but your dry goods and packaging as well. It's an all-in-one way to analyse everything that goes into your wines.

EzyWine

EzyWine is a product of the larger EzySystems platform. It tackles a broad range of vineyard management tasks for a relatively holistic solution. It can also be integrated with sister tools like EzyCellar, offering additional features like an interactive vessel map.

 

Some focus areas of EzyWine are:

• Payroll and ledgers: Take care of the core monetary tasks of your business with EzyWine's financial management features. You can also integrate EzyWine with EzyAccounts for more advanced functionality.

• Spray diary: A spray diary is an important method for tracking how your grapes are treated. They are also essential for various compliance programs in Australia and New Zealand. EzyWine's spray diary feature helps you track safe chemical usage and manage spray targets.

Vinsight

Vinsight is another popular option for vineyard management in Australia and New Zealand. If your business is also involved in other forms of alcohol production, it's a solid option as it also offers features designed for distilleries and breweries.

• Spray diaries: Manage your spray schedules in Vinsight, which offers this feature as part of its grape-growing functionality.

• Key performance indicators: With Vinsight's KPIs, you can benchmark your business' performance and set tangible targets for your team to work towards.

360Winery

360Winery is an end-to-end software solution focussing on data cloud services and sales. While 360Winery offers many tools for wineries, it can also be a powerful tool for vineyards, too.

 

360Winery features focussing on vineyards including:

• Business administration: Get some help with the hard yards of running your business. 360Winery helps businesses handle tasks like taxation so you can get on with the important stuff.

• Production: 360Winery's also has features designed for grape production. With its grape monitoring tools, you can achieve outcomes like reduced waste and increased productivity.

 

Book an Onside demo today and understand the value it will bring to your vineyard.