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BCMS Reconciliation

How to easily run a report to highlight any discrepancies between FarmWizard and the BCMS CTS government database

Will Rands avatar
Written by Will Rands
Updated over a week ago

The FarmWizard BCMS Interface menu includes a report which compares the list of live animals in your FarmWizard herd with the herd register on the BCMS Cattle Tracing System (CTS)

It is vital to keep your FarmWizard Herd Register/Herd Book fully reconciled with the CTS.  Here are the main reasons why an accurate herd list is important:

  • TB Testing: the TB Tester's list is generated from the CTS

  • Official on-farm DEFRA Inspections e.g. Cross Compliance

  • Trading Standards: Movement Book inspection - where animals moved from/to

How to run the "Differences" report

If your FarmWizard account contains multiple herds, which are registered to different holdings, use the Change Herd menu first to select the herd that you want to work with.

To run the Difference report:

1. Go to the Herd Manager main menu, then click "Differences" under BCMS Interface

2. Click the "Check for Differences" button.

The report will take a few seconds to compile and is split into three sections:

  • Animals on BCMS but not on FarmWizard

  • Animals on FarmWizard but not on BCMS

  • Animals whose details differ on BCMS and FarmWizard

3. Remember that you will need to contact the BCMS Helpline directly or use the CTS Online website if it is necessary to make any corrections on the CTS

Examples of how discrepancies can occur

Animals on BCMS but not on FarmWizard:

  • "On" movements have been reported to direct to BCMS by a Third Party e.g. livestock markets in Scotland, but the animals have not been recorded on FarmWizard

  • Births have been registered as moving "on" by another method e.g. CTS Online or telephone but not yet entered into the FarmWizard herd register

 Animals on FarmWizard but not on BCMS:

  • Births have been recorded on FarmWizard, but not successfully registered on BCMS.  This could highlight a genuine issue where the government system has not received the registration request

  • The animals have been sold through a livestock market or to an abattoir (Scotland), where the “off” movements have been reported to BCMS on your behalf, but the animals have not yet been marked as "Sold" in FarmWizard

  • The animals have have been marked as "Sold" in FarmWizard, but the "off" movements have not been reported to BCMS via the FarmWizard BCMS interface

Best practice advice to avoid problems

  • When new births have been added via the main FarmWizard website or the mobile App, you should then immediately go to the Registrations page and double-check that all the birth registrations are showing on the pending list

  • Run the Differences report frequently, especially during the calving season, to help ensure that every calf has been registered well before the 27 day deadline i.e. no calves should show on the list for being "on FarmWizard but not on APHIS"

  • Register calves through FarmWizard as soon as they are tagged

  • When recording animal Purchases and Sales in England, Scotland and Wales, double-check that all the pending BCMS movements are showing on the Registrations page as soon as you have completed the data entry session

  • In Scotland, where markets and abattoirs have reported the "off" movements on behalf of Keepers, record the "Sale" events (without reporting the movement) in FarmWizard before running the Differences report

  • When animals are temporarily moved to another holding for grazing, rearing or showing (but are still in your ownership), you will need to mark the animals as "Sold" in FarmWizard, in order to generate and send the "off" movements to BCMS

  • When FarmWizard has submitted reportable events to the CTS, click on the "Home" website link to check for any warning messages, or go directly to the Registrations page.  If any births or movements have been rejected, they will show here with the returned error message from the CTS

Finally, remember that:

  • When you submit birth registrations and movements via FarmWizard, it takes 24 hours for the changes to be fully updated on BCMS, so this should be taken into account when running the Differences report

  • The BCMS reporting systems are unavailable between 7 pm and 8 pm each day. During this hour, you will be unable to produce the Differences report.

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