Grant & Scheme Engine
Scheme Engine: For Farmers
What Scheme Engine changes for the person actually doing the work.
For the person running the business, the test of any farm software is whether it removes work or adds it. The flagship module and the reason the platform exists. One engine that discovers every scheme a business is eligible for across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, models the income under competing options, pre-fills the application from records the platform already holds, and warns before a window closes rather than after.
In their words
What the job actually looks like
These are not marketing personas. Each one is a distinct job with a distinct constraint, and the module is designed so that solving one does not create work for the others.
English arable farmer
Optimising actions under the annual cap
Wants the highest-value compliant combination, calculated not guessed.
- Establish the business and holding identity
- Import land, cropping and livestock records
- Run eligibility across all four nations
- Model income under competing options
Welsh hill farmer
Choosing between legacy payment and the new scheme
Needs a like-for-like comparison of the whole-farm position.
- Import land, cropping and livestock records
- Run eligibility across all four nations
- Model income under competing options
- Optimise within caps and stacking rules
Scottish crofter
Tier one and two with a whole farm plan
Needs conditionality tracked so payment is not lost on a technicality.
- Run eligibility across all four nations
- Model income under competing options
- Optimise within caps and stacking rules
- Pre-fill and submit the application
End to end
How Scheme Engine runs, start to finish
The module is modelled as a state machine, so at any point the business knows exactly which stage every record is at and what has to happen next.
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1
Establish the business and holding identity
This is where the record starts, and getting it right here removes work at every later stage.
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2
Import land, cropping and livestock records
The platform prompts only for what this stage genuinely needs, and carries everything forward.
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3
Run eligibility across all four nations
Conflicts with scheme rules, regulatory windows and existing commitments are flagged here rather than discovered later.
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4
Model income under competing options
Capture works offline, so this stage is completed in the field rather than remembered afterwards.
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5
Optimise within caps and stacking rules
Everything recorded at this point becomes evidence automatically, in every format that will later ask for it.
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6
Pre-fill and submit the application
This is the stage most businesses currently do twice, once for the operation and once for the paperwork.
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7
Track window status and budget fill
Results feed the whole-farm view, so the effect of this stage is visible against the rest of the business.
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8
Manage the agreement, evidence, claim and payment
The cycle closes here, and what is learned is carried into next season's plan rather than lost.
Capabilities
What Scheme Engine does
Every capability below is built on the same underlying record, so entering something once is enough for it to appear wherever it is needed.
Record and plan
- Complete four-nation scheme catalogue with objectives, eligibility, rates and windows
- Eligibility engine keyed on business, holding, land parcel and enterprise data
- Rules-as-data architecture so a scheme change is a data update, not an engineering release
Operate and monitor
- Whole-farm income optimiser across scheme actions subject to caps and area limits
- Cross-scheme double-funding and permitted-stacking rule checking
- Application pre-fill from the platform land, cropping and livestock records
Comply and evidence
- Window opening and closing alerts with budget-fill gauge tracking
- Deadline calendar covering every application, claim and evidence date
- Agreement register with actions, areas, payment schedule and end dates
Analyse and improve
- Evidence requirement tracking per action with automatic assembly
- Payment reconciliation against the agreement and claim
- Appeals and dispute workflow with evidence pack assembly
Obligation calendar
What scheme engine asks of you, and when
Windows, deadlines and recurring obligations for England. Set a different nation and the calendar reconfigures; farm across a border and it shows both, reconciled.
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January 1 entry
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11 January: Scottish Base and Enhanced Level Direct Payments
Annual application, single application form.
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March 3 entries
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3 March: Run eligibility across all four nations
A recurring step in scheme engine.
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15 March: Import land, cropping and livestock records
A recurring step in scheme engine.
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16 March: Farm Sustainability Payment
Application from early March with a deadline in mid-May.
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May 1 entry
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26 May: Sustainable Farming Scheme
Scheme year runs to 31 December, with the single application form deadline in mid-May.
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June 3 entries
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5 June: Farming Transformation Fund
Round-based by theme.
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6 June: Model income under competing options
A recurring step in scheme engine.
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15 June: Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026
Two windows in 2026: window one from 30 June, window two from September.
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July 1 entry
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14 July: Slurry Infrastructure Grant
Round-based.
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August 1 entry
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2 August: Establish the business and holding identity
A recurring step in scheme engine.
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October 1 entry
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5 October: Farming Equipment and Technology Fund
Round-based, usually open for a defined application period.
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November 2 entries
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12 November: Improving Farm Productivity Grant
Round-based.
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27 November: Environmental Land Management Capital Grants
Round-based, with rapid allocation once open.
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December 1 entry
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26 December: Countryside Stewardship
Rolling and round-based depending on the tier and option group.
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Worked example
How a business like yours would use Scheme Engine
The problem: Wants the highest-value compliant combination, calculated not guessed.
What they do
- Establish the business and holding identity
- Import land, cropping and livestock records
- Run eligibility across all four nations
- Model income under competing options
What changes
- Value of scheme income secured per business
- Applications submitted before window close
- Deadline miss rate
This is an illustrative worked example built from the module design, not a customer reference. Named case studies are published only with the business's written consent.
What we are hearing
The problems people describe to us
These are composite statements drawn from user research conversations, not attributed customer quotes. We publish named references only with written consent.
I am not short of software. I am short of one place where the same field means the same thing in all of it.
The scheme closed on a Tuesday evening. I had the application half built. Nobody told me the budget was nearly gone.
We farm on both sides of the border. Everything takes twice as long and I still cannot see the whole position on one screen.
Audit week costs me three days. Every single record they ask for is already written down somewhere on this farm.
Measurement
How you will know it is working
The module reports against these measures from the day it is switched on, so the value is demonstrable rather than assumed.
- 01Value of scheme income secured per business
- 02Applications submitted before window close
- 03Deadline miss rate
- 04Optimiser uplift against self-selected actions
- 05Evidence requirements met without manual assembly
- 06Payment reconciliation variance
Free assessment
Find out where you stand in about ten minutes
A structured assessment producing a scored report with a prioritised list of what to fix first, and what it is worth fixing.