Cost to Use DairyBase
What are the costs involved?
There are two types of costs involved to produce a DairyBase report:
- The ‘infrastructure’ required to maintain DairyBase. This includes:
- Development and maintenance of DairyBase software, website and tools
- Management of data, and benchmark generation
- Accreditation and continued training to accountants and consultants to use DairyBase
- The time taken to enter and analyse individual farm data to prepare an individual DairyBase report. This varies, depending mainly on the complexity of the farm business being analysed, and the quality of the source data (both physical and financial), but is typically between one to three hours for a skilled user.
Who pays for the costs?
The cost of the DairyBase infrastructure is paid for by farmers through the DairyNZ levy. The levy also pays for industry good uses of DairyBase such as the provision of data for the annual DairyNZ Economic Survey.
The costs to prepare individual reports each year are incurred by the organisation that prepares the DairyBase report – an accounting practice, consultant or DairyBase themselves. It is at their discretion how this cost is recouped. Farmers are encouraged to discuss costs involved with their accountant/consultant.