The good news is that modern software makes it relatively easy to take account of these different needs and provide integrated, yet highly customised information systems. Specialist packages are perhaps ideal when these properly address needs. A key question here is whether they impose a particular management model on the farm, or can be adapted to fit in with current and planned management practices. The main tools provided by these packages are databases and spreadsheets. Databases are more flexible for data storage, and have the advantage that data entry is separate from data analysis and reporting, allowing different views to be provided to different people.
Spreadsheets are easier to develop and have more powerful analytical features.
However, they are not as good at ensuring data integrity, and usually present the same information views. As all these suites provide methods of integration, it is increasingly possible to combine both tools. The main problems with using general business packages are that they result in large, slow applications which need fast hardware to run satisfactorily. Unless they are specifically locked, they can be less secure, as users can modify inputs, formats and outputs. The third alternative of using more specialised development tools such as Visual Basic or Delphi requires greater expertise, although can result in applications which are more secure and run faster.