Argyll Farm and Croft Key Performance Indicators (KPI) Tool Guide - How to Use

Sep 13, 2026

Uploaded by Aurora

Argyll Farm and Croft Key Performance Indicators (KPI) tool guides users in evaluating strengths and weaknesses of on-farm/croft businesses through practical, data-driven targets. The guide explains how to use the Excel workbook with six tabs and five KPI business areas, where only white input cells need entry, results missing targets are highlighted in red, and hover comments provide support. It also details how to source financial data from tax accounts, use trends, allocate costs, and complete physical, grassland, and environmental KPIs.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time3 min

AccessFree to download

Aim of the KPI Tool

How to Use the KPI Tool

KPI workbook structure and data entry

Hints and Tips

Financial KPIs and cost allocation

Physical KPIs for suckler cows and hill ewes

Grassland and environmental KPIs

Completed Examples and Results

Argyll Farm and Croft Key Performance Indicators (KPI) Tool Guide Aim of the KPI Tool Key performance indicators are a useful way to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your business. This tool is designed to make use of existing on-farm/croft information that should be easy to find. It’s a good starting point for analysing your business and will allow you to focus on the aspects of your business that need improvement. The KPI targets are linked to Argyll hill farming and crofting models and targets will be different for upland or lowground farming systems. The tool can be found here: [https://www.fas.scot/downloads/kpi-tool-template/](https://www.fas.scot/downloads/kpi-tool-template/) How to Use the KPI Tool This tool is presented in a excel spreadsheet format. There are 6 tabs. The first tab is a set of instructions. Thereafter the KPI’s are divided into 5 key business areas: • Business • Suckler Cows • Hill ewes • Grassland • Environment Each business area has a number of KPI; ’s so you can judge yourself against these by entering in some of you own business data. You do not need to complete all tabs. Just enter data into the enterprise or subject that interests you most. You only need to enter data into the white boxes (cells) . If you hover over the corner of a cell where there is a red arrow, more detailed information and guidance appears. Where your business does not hit a target level, the difference will be highlighted in red. The pages overleaf show some hints and tips and some examples of completed KPI’s. [www.fas.scot](www.fas.scot) Website Hints and Tips Financial KPI’s Ideally use your tax accounts to find the data for gross output analysis. If you do not have full tax accounts, your cashbook or other financial records should still allow you to estimate all of these costs. The 3 year trend is useful as it irons out any single year discrepancies. Use the pop out comments to help you allocate costs from your tax accounts to the summary headings used within this tool. Sheep and Cow Gross Margins: Some variable costs in your accounts/cashbook may not be split between your cattle and sheep enterprises. You just have to make your own judgement of how much each enterprise uses. For example if all the silage is fed to the cattle enterprise, then you allocate fertiliser and wrap costs associated with silage making to the cow enterprise only. You can also allocate some costs based on livestock units. Assume that 1 cow = 7 ewes. If your records do not split up enterprise costs in enough detail, that is a heads up that record keeping may need improved. You should aspire to be able to make business decisions using data from enterprise level, rather than whole farm / croft level. Suckler Cow and Hill Ewe Physical KPIs Use fank notebook, mart receipts and herd and flock records to find this information. If you have a set of weigh bars on your crush or a sheep weight crate, then even weighing a small number of animals will give you an idea of the average weights of a group. Grassland KPI’s This information will only be available to you if you have analysed your soils and silages. Environmental KPIs This information will only be available to you if you have completed a carbon audit. [www.fas.scot](www.fas.scot) ~~ Website ~~~~ ~~ Here are some completed examples from each section Financial KPI’s Example and Results [www.fas.scot](www.fas.scot) ~~ Website ~~~~ ~~ Suckler Cow Gross Margin Example Suckler Cow Margin KPI’s Result [www.fas.scot](www.fas.scot) ~~ Website ~~~~ ~~ Hill Ewe Example Hill Ewe KPI’s Result [www.fas.scot](www.fas.scot) ~~ Website ~~~~ ~~ Suckler Cow Example Suckler Cow KPI Results [www.fas.scot](www.fas.scot) ~~ Website ~~~~ ~~ Hill Ewe Example Hill Ewe KPI Results [www.fas.scot](www.fas.scot) ~~ Website ~~~~ ~~ Soil Example and Result Silage Quality Example and Result [www.fas.scot](

FAQs

What is the aim of the Argyll Farm and Croft KPI Tool?

The tool helps identify strengths and weaknesses by using existing on-farm/croft information and comparing performance against linked KPI targets. It is intended as a starting point to highlight areas needing improvement.

How do you enter data in the KPI Tool workbook?

The tool is an Excel spreadsheet with six tabs. Users should enter data only in the white boxes (cells), and can use hover guidance for more detailed instructions.

Where can the financial KPI data be found?

Ideally, financial KPI data comes from tax accounts to support gross output analysis. If full tax accounts are not available, cashbooks and other financial records can be used to estimate the required costs, with pop-out comments helping allocate costs to the tool’s summary headings.

Sep 13, 2026

Uploaded by Aurora