Interactive example · Agriculture
A harvest workforce app that onboards the crew, counts the bins and gets the pay right
Harvest brings dozens of new people for a few weeks, and each one needs onboarding, an induction, a place on the roster and pay that's correct under the award. Most of that lives on paper forms and a supervisor's notebook. Below, a fictional Goulburn Valley orchard runs it from the office and the supervisors' phones.
In short
A harvest workforce app onboards seasonal workers with a safety induction and signed agreement, rosters crews to blocks, and lets supervisors log bins for each picker from their phones. Piece-rate earnings are checked against hours worked, and the app flags a top-up wherever a worker's earnings fall below the minimum hourly rate.
Interactive demo: Harvest workforce app
Live demo · Kialla Ridge Orchards, Shepparton is a fictional business with sample data. Nothing you do here is saved or sent.
- Onboard a pickerGo through the worker's sign-up and safety induction, then sign.
- Roster the crewIn the manager view, assign the new picker to a crew and block.
- Log bins from the phoneOn the supervisor's phone, add bins for a picker and sync.
- Check the payOpen the pay check and find the top-up where piece rates fell short of the floor.
Example app · Kialla Ridge Orchards is a fictional business. Sample data only; no real pay, visas or bank details.
Kialla Ridge Orchards
Harvest crew · Kialla VIC
Kialla Ridge Orchards is fictional. Piece rates and the hourly floor in the demo are samples; set real rates from the current award and your agreements, and get payroll advice where you need it. Work-rights checks are simulated and no real documents are collected.
What you just used
Every screen is a decision about how the work runs
Onboarding before the first day
Details, work rights checked by the office, and bank and super collected before anyone arrives. The first morning is spent picking, not filling in forms.
Inductions that have to be passed
Ladder safety, heat and hydration, chemical re-entry signs and incident reporting, each with a quick check question, and induction content that can be offered in several languages.
Rosters by block and crew
Crews are assigned to blocks on a map coloured by pick readiness, with heat warnings that bring start times forward. Everyone knows where to be at six.
Bin tallies from the supervisor's phone
A big button per picker, bin quality flags and a scanned bin tag, logged as the bins come off the row and synced when there's signal. No more notebook totals at the end of the day.
Pay that meets the floor
Piece earnings are compared with hours worked at the minimum hourly rate, and any shortfall is flagged as a top-up. It's the check the Horticulture Award requires, done every day rather than at audit time.
Payroll ready at the end of the week
Hours, bins, piece earnings and top-ups export for payroll, with totals by worker and crew.
Built for you
Your rules, not a template's
Built for your farm, it would carry your blocks, crews and agreements:
- Your blocks, varieties and pick schedules
- Your piece rates and agreements, set from the current award
- Induction content for your farm, in the languages your crews speak
- Bin tags and scanners you already use
- Payroll export to your provider, such as Xero or KeyPay
- Labour hire and contractor crews alongside your own staff
Connects to what you already use
Where a tool offers an API or a calendar feed, the build talks to it directly. Your data stays in accounts you own.
- Xero Payroll
- KeyPay
- MYOB
- Barcode and QR scanners
- SMS
- Weather services
Custom app, a workforce platform, or paper and spreadsheets?
Workforce and rostering platforms suit many businesses, and some are built for horticulture. Custom work fits when your blocks, crews and pay rules need to work together in one place.
| Criteria | Paper and spreadsheets | General workforce platform | Custom harvest app |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onboarding and induction | Paper forms | Onboarding, generic inductions | Your inductions, in your crews' languages |
| Bin tallies | Notebook | Rarely | From supervisors' phones |
| Piece-rate floor check | At the end of the week, if at all | Varies | Every day, per worker |
| Rosters by block | Whiteboard | By shift | By block and crew on a map |
| Ongoing cost | Office time | Per-worker subscription | Hosting and support |
| Best when | A small crew of regulars | Hourly staff and standard rosters | Large seasonal crews on piece rates across many blocks |
How we'd build yours
Fixed price, agreed before we start
Spend a morning in the rows
We follow a crew from the car park to the bin trailer, and the office through a pay run, to see where time and accuracy are lost.
Fix the scope and the price
Onboarding, induction, rosters, tallies, pay checks and payroll export in the first version, with one fixed price you approve before we start.
Test with one crew before harvest
One crew uses it through a week of pre-harvest work, and supervisors tell us what's slow on the phone.
Run the harvest and reconcile
Through harvest, pay checks run daily, and we reconcile the export with payroll each week until it's routine.
What moves the price
Custom work is quoted individually, at a fixed price, once the scope is written down. These are the things that make the biggest difference.
- Languages
- Each language for induction content adds translation and review.
- Offline tallies
- Phones that log bins without signal need offline storage and sync.
- Payroll integration
- Direct export to your payroll provider needs an integration.
- Labour hire
- Contractor crews with their own pay rules add complexity.
When you shouldn't build this
If your crew is a small group of regulars paid by the hour, a rostering app and a timesheet will do. If a horticulture workforce platform already handles your blocks, bins and pay, use it. A custom app earns its place with large seasonal crews on piece rates, several blocks and languages, and a pay check that has to be right every day.
Want this, with your name on it?
Tell us how the work runs today. We'll reply within one business day with what we'd build first, what we'd leave out, and whether an off-the-shelf tool would serve you better.
Common questions
Piece-rate workers are paid by the amount they pick, but under the Horticulture Award they must earn at least the minimum hourly rate for the hours they work. Where piece earnings fall short, the employer tops them up.
Yes. A supervisor selects the picker, taps to add a bin, flags quality and scans the bin tag. Tallies sync when the phone has signal, so they're correct even in rows without coverage.
Typically ladder and equipment safety, heat and hydration, chemical re-entry periods and signage, and how to report incidents and injuries, plus anything specific to your farm. Workers should confirm they understand before starting.
Yes. Seasonal crews often include workers from the Pacific, Asia and elsewhere, and offering inductions in their own languages improves understanding and safety. Each language needs translating and checking.
No. It collects hours, bins, piece earnings and top-ups, and exports them to your payroll provider, which still handles tax, super and payslips.
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Last reviewed . The business in the demo is fictional; names, prices and bookings are sample data.