Agrimaster Alternatives for Australian Farms (2026)

The main Agrimaster alternatives in Australia are P2PAgri or Figured paired with Xero or MYOB, or Phoenix by AGDATA. Agrimaster is an all-in-one Windows cashbook and budgeting program priced from $1,460 a year in 2026. Which alternative suits you depends on whether you need bookkeeping, forward planning, or both.

Most farmers who go looking for an Agrimaster alternative are not unhappy with the numbers coming out of it. Agrimaster has been doing farm cashbooks in Australia since 1981 and it does that job thoroughly. The search usually starts somewhere else. It starts the night before a bank meeting, when the figures you need are sitting on the Windows PC back in the farm office. Or when the renewal invoice lands. Or when someone asks what happens to the cash flow if the season cuts out in September, and the only honest answer is that you would have to build a whole second budget to find out. This guide compares the real options against Agrimaster, with current Australian pricing, and is honest about who should stay put.

Why Do Farmers Look for an Agrimaster Alternative?

Farmers look for an Agrimaster alternative mainly because of where the software runs, what it costs, and what it cannot model. These are the five reasons that come up most often in conversations with Australian farm businesses.

1. It only runs on a Windows PC. Agrimaster installs as a program on a Windows computer. Agrimaster's own support documentation states it is not compatible with Apple or Macintosh operating systems unless you run Windows inside a virtual machine. A desktop-only cashbook keeps your farm figures in one room. You cannot pull them up in the ute, at the kitchen table or in your adviser's office, and your accountant cannot log in and look at the same file you are looking at.

2. The annual cost. Agrimaster Standard is $1,460 a year and Agrimaster Plus is $1,700 a year on 2026 published pricing. That is reasonable for an all-in-one package, but it is a real number, and farms running a second entity add $805 a year for Agrimaster Essentials on top.

3. Your accountant works in Xero. Agrimaster is the cashbook, so it does not connect to Xero, it replaces it. Farms whose accountant or bookkeeper has standardised on Xero often find themselves maintaining two versions of the truth, or paying for double handling at year end.

4. It records and budgets, but it does not model. Agrimaster is strong at recording what happened and building a budget for what you plan to do. It is not built to clone that plan, change the season, the price or the debt, and put the two versions side by side. So a farm weighing up the neighbour's block ends up doing what most farms do: building the second version by hand in a spreadsheet, over a week of nights, and hoping the formulas hold.

5. Succession and staff changes. When the person who has run the Agrimaster file for 20 years steps back, the incoming generation usually wants something that opens in a browser and that their adviser can log into with them.

What Should You Look for in an Agrimaster Alternative?

The right test for an Agrimaster alternative is whether it covers the jobs Agrimaster currently does for you, plus the job that made you go looking. Work through these six criteria before you compare prices.

1. Does it do the bookkeeping, or sit on top of it? This is the biggest fork in the road. Agrimaster is an all-in-one. P2PAgri and Figured are planning layers that read your accounting data. Phoenix is another all-in-one. Get this wrong and you will find out in July that nothing is lodging your BAS.
2. Where does it run? A browser-based tool opens on any device and lets your adviser or accountant work in the same file with you. A Windows program does not.
3. Can it forecast cash flow month by month? Any replacement needs to show you the low point in your bank balance before you reach it, not after.
4. Can it compare two plans side by side? Building one budget is table stakes. Cloning it, changing the yield, the price or the interest rate, and seeing both versions together is what turns a budget into a decision.
5. Does it produce what your bank asks for? Equity ratio, debt servicing ratio, interest cover and a multi-year projection, laid out the way a lender reads them.
6. What is the total annual cost? Add the accounting subscription to the planning subscription. An $88 a month planning tool on top of a $75 a month Xero plan is not cheaper than Agrimaster.

Agrimaster Alternatives Compared: P2PAgri, Figured and Phoenix

The four tools split into two camps. Agrimaster and Phoenix are all-in-one Australian packages that do the bookkeeping and the budgeting together. P2PAgri and Figured are cloud planning tools that sit on top of your accounting data. Here is how they compare on the things farms actually choose between.

Comparison compiled August 2026 from each vendor's published product and pricing information. Features change, so trial anything you are seriously considering before you commit.

What Does Each Option Cost in 2026?

Agrimaster costs $1,460 a year for Standard and $1,700 a year for Plus on 2026 published pricing. The alternatives look cheaper on the headline number, but most of them are only half a system, so the fair comparison is the combined annual cost of accounting plus planning.

All prices in this article are Australian dollars including GST, as at August 2026, so you can compare them like for like. Figured publishes its prices excluding GST, so its figures here have been converted. Xero and P2PAgri already publish inclusive of GST. Agrimaster and AGDATA do not state a GST basis on their published pricing, so confirm it when you get a quote.

Two things fall out of that table. Agrimaster is not expensive for what it does, because it is doing two jobs. And a planning tool on its own is not a replacement unless you already have accounting software you are happy with. If you do, the total cost can land below Agrimaster while giving you modelling it does not offer. If you do not, budget for both.

The Main Agrimaster Alternatives, in Detail

Not all Agrimaster competitors are trying to be Agrimaster. Two of the options below replace it outright, two sit on top of accounting software instead, and one is the spreadsheet you are probably already using for the hard questions. Here is what each is genuinely good at, and where each one falls short.

P2PAgri: best for forward planning and the bank

P2PAgri is the closest alternative for farms that have outgrown budgeting and want to model decisions. It is not a cashbook. It connects to Xero, or reads the Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet you export to Excel from any other package, and turns those figures into a monthly cash flow forecast, five-year projections, enterprise gross margins, and the bank ratios and reports lenders ask for.

The feature that has no Agrimaster equivalent is scenario analysis. You clone a plan and change one thing: a 30 per cent yield drop, a two per cent rate rise, the neighbour's block. Both versions then sit side by side across cash flow, profit and loss, balance sheet and bank ratios for up to five years. Scenario analysis turns a week of spreadsheet nights into an afternoon. Esperance grain grower Lisa Jeitz used to spend two weeks building scenarios by hand and now models five or six in a day.

P2PAgri was built by Mike Krause, who has spent more than 30 years advising Australian farm families and developed the Farming the Business manual for the GRDC, so the reports are laid out the way farm consultants and lenders actually read them. That teaching background matters more than it sounds. The method behind P2PAgri is taught as Plan to Profit, an accredited 12-week farm business management course run by Tocal College (NSW Department of Primary Industries), and set out in the Farming the Business manual and 16 fact sheets developed for the Grains Research and Development Corporation. You work on your own farm's numbers through the course, and it is fee free for eligible NSW farmers under Farm Business Resilience funding. None of the other tools on this list is taught as an accredited college course. It runs in a browser, so your adviser can work in the file with you rather than emailing versions back and forth. The free Essentials plan lets you load your figures and see your ratios, profit and loss and balance sheet before paying anything, with no credit card and no time limit.

The honest limitation: P2PAgri will not lodge your BAS or run your payroll, so you keep an accounting package alongside it. If Agrimaster is currently doing both jobs for you, that is a genuine trade-off to weigh, and it is why some farms keep Agrimaster as the cashbook and add P2PAgri for the planning instead of switching outright.

Figured: best when your accountant drives the budget

Figured is a cloud budgeting and forecasting tool built around the accountant-farmer relationship. It sits on top of a Xero or MYOB file and syncs your actuals into a planning grid, with production trackers for livestock and crop. Because the accountant and the farmer are working in the same live file, the budget stops being a document that goes stale between visits. Where your accountant or farm consultant is the one building and maintaining the budget, that workflow is its strength.

Australian pricing starts at $88 a month including GST for a single farm (Figured lists it as $80 plus GST), with $27.50 a month for each additional farm, and separate practice plans for advisers. Like P2PAgri, it is a layer rather than a cashbook, so the Xero or MYOB subscription sits underneath it. It suits farms happy for the accountant to hold the pen; it is less suited to a farmer who wants to drive the numbers themselves between visits.

Phoenix by AGDATA: the closest like-for-like swap

Phoenix is the alternative that most resembles Agrimaster in shape. AGDATA has been building Australian farm software since 1994, and Phoenix is sold as modules covering cashflow and budgeting, livestock, paddock and crop management, payroll, farm mapping and weather recording. You pay for the modules you take, so a grazing business is not funding cropping features it will never open. If you like the all-in-one model and simply want a different vendor, this is the swap that changes the least, and the least change is worth something when the alternative is retraining everyone in the office.

Pricing is modular and quoted per farm, so the number depends on which modules you take. Because it is another Windows-based package, it does not solve the "I want to open it anywhere" problem, and its planning depth is closer to Agrimaster's than to a dedicated scenario tool. Choose it for the production and payroll modules, not for modelling.

Xero or MYOB plus a planning layer: the most common landing spot

The most common destination for farms leaving Agrimaster is not a single program at all. It is an accounting package for compliance plus a planning tool on top. Xero or MYOB handles the bank feeds, GST, BAS and payroll, and your accountant already knows it. A tool such as P2PAgri or Figured reads that data and does the forecasting and modelling the accounting package cannot.

This model costs more to set up than staying put and means two logins rather than one. What it buys is separation of duties: the compliance work goes where compliance work belongs, and the planning work happens somewhere built for planning. Our guide to farm accounting versus farm financial planning software explains why those are genuinely two different jobs.

Spreadsheets: the option to be honest about

Plenty of farms leave Agrimaster for Excel, and for a simple operation with one entity and a patient operator that can work. The catch is that a spreadsheet has no audit trail, no link to your actuals, and it breaks quietly. A dragged formula that stops one row short will not warn you; it will just quietly understate your overdraft peak until the day you hit it. And if the budget lives in a workbook only one person understands, you have a succession risk as much as a software one.

Which Alternative Fits Your Farm?

Match the alternative to the reason you started looking, not to the longest feature list.

• You are weighing up land, debt or succession. You need scenario modelling and five-year projections. P2PAgri is built for this and starts free.
• Your accountant has moved you to Xero. Keep Xero and add a planning layer. Figured if the accountant drives it; P2PAgri if you do.
• You want one program that does everything, just not Agrimaster. Phoenix by AGDATA is the nearest like-for-like, with production and payroll modules included.
• You want to work from anywhere and share with your adviser. Rule out the Windows-installed options. That leaves P2PAgri and Figured.
• You have employees and value the payroll integration. Do not underestimate what you are giving up. Agrimaster Plus at $1,700 a year includes Wagemaster; replacing that separately has a cost.
• You want to learn the method, not just buy the software. This is the clearest gap between the options. P2PAgri is taught as an accredited 12-week Tocal College course and set out in the Farming the Business manual written for the GRDC. The others give you vendor training on their own product.
• You are a farm adviser with multiple clients. Look at the practice plans. Agrimaster Budget Only is $1,100 a year, Figured has adviser pricing from $13.20 a month, and P2PAgri's adviser accreditation covers unlimited farmer clients.

When Should You Stay on Agrimaster?

You should stay on Agrimaster when it is doing the jobs you actually need and nobody is fighting it. Switching farm software costs real time in a year you probably have other plans for, so the honest answer is that a lot of farms should not move.

Stay put if most of these are true:

• Your bookkeeping, GST, BAS and payroll all run through it and nobody is complaining.
• The person who runs the file knows it well and is not going anywhere.
• Your enterprise cost coding is set up the way you want it, and the reports answer your questions.
• You are not making a major land, debt or succession decision in the next couple of years.

If that is you, the better move is usually to add rather than replace. Keep Agrimaster as your cashbook, and put a planning tool alongside it for the decisions. P2PAgri can work from your tax return or trial balance figures, so you can model next year's land purchase without moving your cashbook or touching the file that lodges your BAS. The free Essentials plan costs nothing and takes no commitment, so you can test that idea on your own numbers this week and decide afterwards whether you ever want to move the cashbook at all.

How Do You Switch Away from Agrimaster?

Switch at the start of a financial year and give yourself a parallel run. These are the five steps that keep a farm software migration from turning into a mess.

1. Decide whether you are replacing one tool or two. If the new tool does not do bookkeeping, choose your accounting package first and your planning tool second.
2. Export your history before you cancel. Get your trial balances, enterprise reports and last three years of budgets out while you still have access. Agrimaster sells a read-only subscription at $380 a year if you want the old file kept live.
3. Start at 1 July. A financial year boundary means one clean opening balance sheet instead of a part-year reconciliation.
4. Rebuild the chart of accounts and enterprise codes deliberately. This is the step people rush. It is also your one chance to fix a coding structure that has grown untidy over 15 years.
5. Run both for one quarter. Reconcile the new system against the old at the end of the quarter. When they agree, turn the old one off.

P2PAgri connects straight to Xero, and takes Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet reports exported to Excel from Agrimaster, MYOB, Phoenix or anything else, so your history becomes the base for your first plan rather than three weeks of typing. One-on-one Zoom setup sessions are included on every plan, including the free one, and you can work through it with an accredited adviser if you would rather not do it alone.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best alternative to Agrimaster in Australia?

There is no single best Agrimaster alternative, because Agrimaster does two jobs at once: it is your cashbook and your budgeting tool. If you want forward planning, scenario analysis and bank-ready reports, P2PAgri is the closest fit and starts free. If your accountant drives the budget through Xero, Figured suits that workflow. If you want an all-in-one Australian package with production and payroll modules, Phoenix by AGDATA is the nearest like-for-like swap. Most farms leaving Agrimaster end up with two tools: an accounting package such as Xero or MYOB, plus a planning layer on top.

What is the best farm budgeting software in Australia?

The best farm budgeting software in Australia depends on whether you want the budget built inside your cashbook or layered on top of it. Agrimaster and Phoenix by AGDATA build the budget inside the accounting system, which suits farms that want one program to do everything. Figured and P2PAgri build it on top of a Xero or MYOB file, which suits farms whose accountant already works in the cloud. For building a single annual budget, all four are capable. The difference shows up when you want to compare two budgets side by side, which is where P2PAgri's scenario analysis separates from the rest.

How much does Agrimaster cost in 2026?

Agrimaster's published 2026 pricing is $1,460 a year for Agrimaster Standard and $1,700 a year for Agrimaster Plus, which adds Wagemaster payroll. Add-on subscriptions include Agrimaster Lite at $405 a year, Agrimaster Essentials at $805 a year for extra entities, and Agrimaster Budget Only at $1,100 a year for accountants and consultants preparing client budgets. Agrimaster offers a 30-day free trial.

Is Agrimaster cloud-based or desktop software?

Agrimaster is a Windows program you install on a PC, not a browser-based application. Agrimaster's own support documentation states it is not compatible with Apple or Macintosh operating systems unless you run Windows inside a virtual machine. Your files can be backed up and shared online, but the software itself runs locally on a Windows computer. Cloud alternatives such as P2PAgri and Figured run in a browser on any device.

Does Agrimaster integrate with Xero?

No. Agrimaster is the cashbook itself, so it does not connect to Xero; it replaces it. That is the core structural difference between Agrimaster and most of its alternatives. Figured and P2PAgri both sit on top of a Xero or MYOB file rather than replacing it, which is why farms that want to keep their accountant on Xero usually move to that two-tool model rather than a like-for-like Agrimaster swap.

Can I move my Agrimaster data to another program?

Yes, though what transfers depends on where you are going. P2PAgri connects directly to Xero, and for any other package, Agrimaster included, you export your Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet to Excel with your accounting codes and upload those. So your history becomes the starting point for your first plan rather than something you re-key. Budgets, chart-of-accounts structure and enterprise codes generally need to be rebuilt or remapped in the new tool. Most farms switch at the start of a financial year and keep read-only access to their old file for reference, which Agrimaster sells at $380 a year.

Do I still need accounting software if I leave Agrimaster?

Almost certainly yes. Agrimaster is an all-in-one package that handles the cashbook, GST, BAS and payroll as well as budgeting, so leaving it usually means replacing two things, not one. P2PAgri and Figured are planning and reporting tools, not cashbooks: neither lodges your BAS or runs payroll. The standard replacement is an accounting package such as Xero or MYOB for the compliance side, plus a planning tool on top for the decisions.

Where to Go From Here

If Agrimaster is doing your books well and nothing is broken, the useful question is not which program replaces it. It is what your current setup cannot tell you. A cashbook and a budget will tell you what last season cost and what next season is meant to cost. They will not tell you whether the farm can carry the neighbour's block, survive a dry finish, or support two families.

That is the gap worth filling, and you do not have to switch anything to fill it. You can see the full farm software comparison, check what each P2PAgri plan includes, or load your own figures into the free Essentials plan and see your equity, debt servicing and interest cover ratios on the screen in an afternoon. No credit card, no time limit, and Agrimaster stays exactly where it is while you look.