We Just Launched a Guides Section

We went looking for content on the questions farmers actually type into Google: what's the deadline for a cattle passport, which system do you report a movement to if you're in Wales, what has to go in a Red Tractor medicine book. Mostly what we found was GOV.UK's own guidance, which is accurate but written for compliance, not for someone reading it on a phone in the yard. Nobody had written the plain-English version.

So we did. The guides section has twelve pages now, split into three groups:

• Livestock traceability: the 27-day cattle passport rule, the 3-day movement reporting rule across all four UK nations, the BCMS to LIS switch, and what actually happens if a passport application is late.
• Red Tractor and farm records: what has to go in a medicine book, the 5-year retention rule, and what an assessor actually checks on an audit day.
• Farm money: Making Tax Digital thresholds and dates, the Agricultural Flat Rate Scheme, and a buyer's checklist for farm bookkeeping software, deliberately not a "best of" list.

Every page is sourced directly from GOV.UK, Red Tractor, HMRC or Livestock Information Ltd, with the sources linked at the bottom so you can check them yourself. Nothing is paraphrased from someone else's blog post.

What has changed since launch?

Update, 10 October 2026. The guides section is now 44 pages, up from twelve a month ago. We kept the same rule: every page answers one question a farmer would actually type, and every page links its sources so you can check them. The groups are:

• Livestock traceability: passports, movements, EID ear tags, TB testing and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish cattle systems.
• Sheep, goats and holding records: sheep movement reporting, flock registers and the holding register.
• Red Tractor and farm records: the medicine book, withdrawal periods, the vet health plan and the veterinary medicines regulations.
• Farm money: what HMRC expects you to keep, profit averaging, VAT registration, invoices and expenses.
• People: minimum wage, holiday pay and tied housing, pensions, and employing family members.
• Deadlines, reference and compare: every UK livestock deadline in one table, a glossary of the acronyms, and honest side-by-side comparisons of farm software.

Where should you start?

It depends on the job in front of you this week. If a calf has just been born, start with the 27-day passport rule and then the movement reporting guide. If you are getting ready for an assessor, the Red Tractor audit checklist and the medicine book template go together. If the books are the worry, read Making Tax Digital for farmers first, because the start dates depend on your turnover. If you are choosing software, use the seven-point software checklist before you look at any demo.

If you would rather see the whole year laid out, the month-by-month paperwork calendar is the one to print and pin up in the office.

What have we corrected since launch?

We would rather say this plainly than leave it quietly fixed. Reading the official sources again, line by line, for the new guides turned up four things in the older pages that needed changing:

• The 2028 Making Tax Digital threshold is £20,000, not £25,000. See GOV.UK's start dates for Income Tax. Profit averaging is also a temporary exemption for the 2026 to 2027 tax year, not a general deferral.
• The 27-day passport deadline is the day the calf is 27 days old, which GOV.UK words as registering the birth by that day. We had counted the birth day as day one and made the deadline a day too early.
• Standstill is 6 days in England and Wales, 13 in Scotland, and there is no whole-farm standstill in Northern Ireland. We had said roughly 6 days everywhere.
• Welsh cattle still report to BCMS today. EIDCymru takes over cattle later, so check the Welsh Government before you switch.

Every guide now carries an updated date. If a date on a page looks old and a rule has moved, tell us.

What can you use for free?

The guides are free to read and so are the working tools that sit beside them: the cattle passport deadline calculator, the movement deadline calculator, the BSE testing checker and the flat rate VAT calculator. There is also a downloadable medicine book template and a one-page software checklist you can print and take to a demo. And the farm directory now has a short buyer's guide under each category, so you know what to ask a vet, a haulier or an insurer before you ring them.

What's next for the guides section?

Topics we are looking at next include the paperwork around a cattle sale, how long to keep every kind of farm record, and what an inspector checks on a livestock identification visit. There is no fixed schedule, and we would rather publish something accurate than something on time.

If you spot something wrong in a guide, or a rule that has changed since we wrote it, tell us at hello@farmhq.ai. We would rather hear it from you than leave it wrong.