Dynama+ Prices

Step 2 – Complete the Prices worksheet

The Prices worksheet logically follows on from the entry of sale weight information in the AECalc worksheet. Selling prices and costs can be recorded and varied for up to ten years into the future for each class of cattle on the property. Purchase prices for any classes of cattle purchased are entered in Table 4 of the Dynama worksheet.

It is important to record all of the assumptions underlying the inputs in the prices sheet through the use of notes in the spaces provided.

There is a separate section in the Prices worksheet to enter the sale prices and sale weights for females spayed or set aside from the breeding herd. As a default value, these set aside females use the weights allocated to the female herd in the AECalc worksheet but they can be overridden if the sale price and weight are expected to be different to the remainder of the breeding herd.

Whilst the weights transferred from AECalc are live weights, which would require entries in the Prices worksheet to be inserted as price per kilogram live, it is possible to overwrite the weights shown in the Prices worksheet to show expected dressed weights and enter prices on a per kilogram dressed basis. Overwriting the weights in Prices will of course break the link with AECalc, preventing any subsequent AECalc weight edits from flowing through to Prices.

The Prices worksheet calculates net sale prices by multiplying sale weights by price per kilogram, then deducting all selling costs including freight. As long as sale weights and sale prices are entered consistently as either live weight or dressed weight, there should be no error in the final value per head used in the Dynama worksheet. If values per head shown in the summary tables of the Prices worksheet appear to be either overstated or understated, please check that the sale weights and sale values have been entered on the same basis.

Selling costs are divided into three tables in the Prices worksheet. The first table collects those selling costs that are levied as a percentage of total value. This table is labelled as “sales commission - of value” and can include value-based insurance as well. The next table collects those selling costs that are levied on a per head basis. Freight costs associated with selling livestock are also entered on a per head basis but are dealt with in a third table. Each table can have values entered for up to ten years. Over riding the formulas allows changes to be made to the expected selling costs over time.

A calculator is provided at the bottom of the Prices worksheet to assist with the calculation of the expected costs of freight to different destinations. To assist estimating the number of head per deck for each group, a table based on weights is provided beside the freight cost calculator.