CSA farmers know that the biggest task early in the season has nothing to do with farming. Instead, it’s the data entry that’s required to keep track of CSA members as they sign up and make payments.
Now, there are three CSA management systems that basically remove the farmer from the signup process. Customers go online and sign up themselves. They choose the size share and the pickup location, they enter their personal information, and, in some cases, they pay with a credit card right then and there. And that is only a fraction of what these systems can accomplish. Each one offers an array of features that will revolutionize the management of a CSA.
“I don’t even want to think about what it was like before we had this product,” said Joan Norman of One Straw Farm in White Hall, Maryland. “It was a nightmare trying to keep track of 1,900 shares.”

Here are some of the possible applications, depending on the system you choose:

• Show potential members their nearest pickup site, based on their zip code.
• Pro-rate shares for late signups.
• Create automatic credit card payment systems so members can spread out the cost of a share.
• Allow customers to cancel a pickup during vacation.
• Sell excess produce and add-on products to deliver with the share.
• Send automatic emails (e.g. “thanks for signing up”) and customized emails (e.g. “Dear Sam, your final payment of $99.66 is now due.”)
• Print box labels with customers’ names to ensure they get the right order.
• Create lists that show how much you need to harvest for each delivery date.

The three systems are Member Assembler, Farmigo, and CSAware. After touring the administrative sides of Member Assembler and Farmigo I was amazed not just at their capabilities but also at the fact that such sophisticated technology is available to farmers at an accessible price. These CSA management systems are as cool as anything you can find on the web, thanks to the developers who paired their technical talents with a passion for local food. The only potential obstacle I foresee is for farmers with slow or spotty dial-up or satellite internet, because these are all web-based software programs, not something you install on your own computer.  The developers of Member Assembler and Farmigo both said the programs are designed to be “light” on load times, so even people with dial-up internet can and do use them. Still, it’s advisable to check for problems when trying out the software.

Pricing and features vary among the three systems, so investigate them all to find the best fit for your particular needs. Here are some details about each:

Member Assembler

This system was developed by Simon Huntley, who worked on a CSA farm in Colorado before establishing Small Farm Central, a business that provides websites for small farms. Member Assembler is free for small CSAs with up to 25 members. Beyond that number, it’s $3 per member per year. Or you can pre-pay for specific numbers of members, with prices ranging from $1.75 each for 1,500-plus members to $2.75 each for 200-300 members.

Features include a signup process with automated emails to acknowledge members; credit card processing with the ability to spread out payments any way the farm wants; automatic email reminders before pickups; emails that can be customized to groups of people (e.g. letting members at one pickup site know the delivery will be late because the truck broke down); printable emberassembler

Farmigo
Benzi Ronen spent 14 years in the high tech industry before deciding he wanted to be involved with the CSA movement. He spent a year interviewing more than 100 farmers about what features they needed to make CSA management easier. Farmigo offers two options: Sign-up Assistant handles the member management functions including enrollment, payment processing, and automatic emails. It costs 0.5% of member subscriptions ($2.50 per year for a $500 share). A second option is Farmigo Pro, which includes all the features of Sign-up Assistant plus logistics management, communications tools, a web store for selling extras, and a member portal so customers can keep track of their own accounts. That option costs 2% of sales (or $10 per year for a $500 share). A feature called the Box Builder lets the farmer design a box with the produce available and assign a price to each item. Once the items are chosen, the system automatically shows how many of each item has to be harvested to fulfill the next delivery or the next week’s deliveries. At the end of the season, the system can produce a report showing totals of everything harvested.
Another feature lets members access their own accounts so they can keep track of payments, extras, and so on. The farm can choose whether to allow them to start and stop at any time, or take a break for vacation. And on the administrator’s end, the system keeps a complete record of interactions with each customer – payments, extra purchases, emails, pickups, and more. www.farmigo.com

CSAware
This new system was developed by the folks at Local Harvest, whose online farm directory has already contributed enormously to the progress of local food. I was not able to review the system before this issue went to press. According to the website, it will cost 2% of sales, billed monthly once deliveries begin. www.csaware.com

What farmers say
One Straw Farm in Maryland is planning for 2,000 members next year. Three years ago, they had 1,000. Co-owner Joan Norman said that, before using the software, the sign-up process “was horrible. It took hours and hours to log in all the data, and then there would be mistakes entering it, or we wouldn’t be able to read someone’s email or phone number.” Since signing up with Member Assembler, the CSA enrollment process has gone smoothly with almost no  work on the farm’s part. “It puts the responsibility on the people signing up,” she says.

She chose to go with Member Assembler because she felt it was the most economical system for her situation and needs. Her CSA offers full shares, with eight items per week, and half shares, with four. There are 45 pickup sites, including four farmers markets. Full shares can be picked up anywhere if they are packed at the farm, all items chosen by the farm. Free-choice full shares and all half shares have to be picked up at one of the markets. The system easily sorts out all the options and produces the reports so the farmers know how many boxes to drop at each site.

Joan and her husband, Drew, also donate one share for every 10 shares at a pickup site and they often donate shares for other fundraisers. “A farmer has food; they don’t have money,” she explains. Member Assembler lets her create coupons that can be used by those who receive the donated shares so that aspect of the CSA can also be automated.
Joan especially likes the reports that can be generated for virtually every aspect of the CSA membership. And she said Simon had done a great job of customer service and support.

“If I had more than 50 CSA members, I’d say don’t be a fool — get this system. And even with less than 50 members, you have better things to do with your time.”

Annie Salafsky is the co-owner of Helsing Junction Farm in Rochester, Washington. She has a 900-member CSA, offering three share sizes, and she uses Farmigo Pro to manage it.
“We had been looking for years for the magic bullet to get more CSA members,” she said.  “When we started taking credit cards online, we realized that was it. We grew by 100 members in one year. Farmigo has saved us both time and effort, as it has rid us of data entry and the mistakes that inevitably go with it. It eliminated a ton of phone calls. Even though it was expensive initially, it made us $35,000 to $45,000 more just from using it one year.”
The online store was especially helpful for Annie’s farm because it allowed them to offer a fruit share option for the entire season and other local products such as honey and sauerkraut for one-time purchase. “It would have been virtually impossible with our previous organizational system,” she said.

To her surprise, some non-fruit share people took fruit when it was dropped off for the fruit-share members. That problem was quickly resolved by customizing the boxes, and labeling them with each member’s name — a simple process with Farmigo.

She loves the fact that even with members paying over time, she knows exactly how much money will be coming in each month. And if members fail to pay, or have expired credit cards, she can have the system send them customized emails that capture the member’s name and balance due.

Not only has the system been a huge time-saver, Annie says, “we got rid of the most repetitive, boring things we were doing. I have never been a very tech-oriented person, but you couldn’t pry it out of our hands at this point.”