Hay Feed Budget Excel - Free Template

1. Open the Feed Budget sheet and review the example rows for pasture hay, lucerne hay, grain, silage and supplementary feeds.
2. Replace the sample supplier, purchase date, quantity purchased, unit cost, stock on hand, monthly consumption and reorder level with your own figures.
3. Enter quantities in tonnes and costs as dollars per tonne so the total cost and supply calculations remain consistent.
4. Check the total cost column after each purchase. For example, 40 t of hay at $210/t gives a purchase cost of $8,400.
5. Update quantity on hand and monthly consumption whenever you receive feed, use a batch or change the ration.
6. Review Months Supply Remaining and Status before ordering. A 6 t stock level with monthly use of 2 t represents 3 months of supply.
7. Open Livestock Feed Needs and Dashboard to review the wider feed position, then use Instructions if you need to confirm the workbook layout.

Feed budgeting becomes important when the paddocks stop carrying the stock, not just at the end of the financial year. A mixed farm manager may update the sheet after every fodder delivery, while an office manager records supplier invoices and the livestock manager updates consumption after a ration change.

For a cattle property in northern Victoria, the February purchase might include 40 t of pasture hay from a Wagga Wagga supplier at $210/t. That one line represents $8,400 before freight, and it is much easier to compare with a 25 t lucerne purchase at $320/t when both are stored in the same register.

Keeping purchasing and stock in the same view

The Feed Budget sheet (image 1) places Feed Type, Supplier and Purchase Date beside the quantities and costs. The second half of the table covers Quantity On Hand, Monthly Consumption, Months Supply Remaining, Reorder Level and Status, so you can move from what you bought to what remains without maintaining a separate notebook.

That layout suits a family farm where one person orders feed and another checks the silo, hay shed or bunkers. If 6 t of cottonseed meal remains and monthly consumption is 2 t, the workbook shows 3 months of supply. If the reorder level is 2 t, the stock is close enough to the trigger that the next supplier call should be planned.

Planning for livestock and seasonal pressure

The Livestock Feed Needs sheet (image 2) gives you a separate place to review feed requirements. Use it when a dry summer, a winter joining period or a lambing and calving run changes the expected demand; the purchasing register alone cannot explain why monthly consumption has increased.

A property feeding 120 cows may use 5 t of grain a month in a maintenance period and 8 t during a cold spell. Recording the new rate makes the months-supply figure useful rather than leaving it based on an old estimate. The Dashboard (image 3) then gives you a quicker visual check, while the Instructions sheet (image 4) provides the workbook guidance.

This spreadsheet is a management tool rather than a substitute for your farm accounting records. Keep supplier invoices, delivery dockets and freight charges with the bookkeeping file so the purchase total can be reconciled to the bank account and recorded correctly in the profit and loss or stock accounts.

For an Australian business registered for GST, most taxable feed purchases include GST at 10%. A $210/t hay price may be GST-inclusive or exclusive, so decide which basis you are using before entering the Unit Cost ($/t) column. If $8,400 is GST-inclusive, the GST component is $763.64; if it is $8,400 plus GST, the invoice total is $9,240.

What to retain with each feed purchase

Keep the supplier's tax invoice, ABN, purchase date, description, quantity, price and freight detail. The ATO expects business records to be retained for 5 years, and a spreadsheet row without the underlying invoice is a weak audit trail.

A proper tax invoice should identify the supplier and ABN and use the words Tax Invoice. For purchases over $82.50 including GST, GST should generally be shown separately. Entering Riverina Hay Co as the supplier is useful for planning, but attach the actual invoice to your accounting records or document storage.

Separating feed planning from tax treatment

Do not treat the Status column as a tax classification. Hay, grain, supplements and freight can have different GST treatment depending on the supply, and feed used for private livestock should not be claimed as a business expense. The practical position is to use this workbook for quantities, costs and purchasing decisions, then reconcile its totals to your accounting system.

Most small farm operators prepare a BAS quarterly. Before lodgement, compare the GST on eligible supplier invoices with the amounts recorded in bookkeeping software. For example, 10 purchases totalling $22,000 including GST contain $2,000 of GST, but only the business-use portion belongs in the input tax credit calculation.

If the farm has employees, this feed workbook does not calculate PAYG withholding, STP payroll or the 11.5% superannuation guarantee. Keep those obligations in the payroll system and use this file for feed purchasing and stock planning.

The most expensive errors I see are not usually arithmetic mistakes. They are stale stock figures, mixed units and purchases entered without freight, which make the farm look better supplied or cheaper than it really is.

Old consumption rates create false confidence

Months Supply Remaining is only useful when Quantity On Hand and Monthly Consumption are current. If a farm has 12 t of grain and the sheet still says consumption is 3 t a month, it reports 4 months of cover. At 5 t a month after a cold snap, the real position is 2.4 months.

That 1.6-month difference can mean a rushed delivery, a higher spot price or a ration change at the worst time. Update consumption after a significant change in herd numbers, feed allocation or pasture conditions rather than waiting until the shed is nearly empty.

Comparing prices without comparing the unit

A 20 t barley purchase at $340/t is $6,800, while 18 t of wheat at $355/t is $6,390. The cheaper invoice total does not mean wheat is the cheaper feed, because the quantities and nutritional use are different. More importantly, entering one price per tonne and another price per bale makes the comparison invalid.

Use tonnes throughout this template. If 400 small square bales average 22 kg each, the approximate weight is 8.8 t; convert that before entering the quantity. Keep freight visible in your bookkeeping records, because a $260/t hay purchase plus $35/t freight has an effective delivered cost of $295/t.

Missing deliveries and duplicate rows

Two people can enter the same delivery when the truck arrives and the invoice is later processed. A 30 t silage delivery duplicated at $150/t creates a false $4,500 cost and makes stock appear 30 t higher than it is.

Use the supplier, purchase date and delivery docket as a quick check before adding a row. Reconcile the register at month-end against invoices and physical stock. A 10% stock discrepancy on a 100 t hay inventory is 10 t; at $210/t, that is $2,100 of feed that needs explaining.

At month-end, the same invoice totals can be checked against tax records in a GST reconciliation sheet before the stock variance is explained.

A feed budget works best when it is attached to an existing farm task. Set aside 15 minutes on the day deliveries are checked, then update the purchase row, invoice details in your bookkeeping system and the physical stock figure while the information is still fresh.

Use a short weekly check

• Count or estimate the main hay, grain and silage stocks every Friday.
• Update Monthly Consumption when herd numbers or feeding rates change.
• Sort or filter for low Status items before contacting suppliers.
• Compare the Dashboard with the previous week so unusual movements stand out.

For example, if the farm normally uses 4 t of barley each month but the latest check shows 7 t, investigate the ration and livestock numbers before ordering another truck. A five-minute check can prevent a $6,000 purchase made on an incorrect assumption.

Make entries consistent

Use one spelling for each feed type, such as Lucerne Hay rather than alternating between lucerne, lucerne hay and lucerne bales. Keep all quantities in tonnes and all unit prices in $/t. Copying a prior row is quicker, but check the supplier, date and quantity so last month's details do not become this month's error.

Save a dated copy at the end of each month, such as Feed Budget July 2026, rather than overwriting every historical figure. If several people use the workbook, nominate one person to maintain the master file and keep the working copy in a shared location with version history.

Knowing when Excel is no longer enough

This template is a good fit for a small property with a manageable number of feed lines. Move to farm management or accounting software when you need live stock movements across multiple paddocks, purchase orders, lot tracking, automated supplier invoices or more than one person editing at the same time.

For many farms, Excel remains useful alongside Xero or MYOB: the accounting system handles invoices and GST, while this workbook handles tonnes, consumption and reorder planning. That division is usually more reliable than forcing a general ledger to act like a feed inventory system.

That same split also keeps a separate fuel rebate tracker aligned with the accounting system, so tonnes, consumption and claimable diesel stay in their own records.