In Northern Ireland, paper records remain acceptable through 31 December 2026; mandatory machine-readable records apply to uses from 1 January 2027. Existing record-keeping duties continue during 2026.
For Northern Ireland, DAERA places the prescribed application record with the contractor as the professional user who does the spraying. From 1 January 2027, the contractor must retain the machine-readable original. The duty to give the customer access or copies without undue delay or restrictions already applies in 2026. A customer may retain a PDF reference copy while the contractor keeps the compliant original.
For Great Britain, keep the treatment handover connected with the farm's records. In Scotland, obtain contractor copies and keep records accessible at the farm or local office. In Wales, the 2026 inspection guide asks for detailed contractor records. A copy held by the customer supports the farm's own records.
Agree responsibilities before the first job
Use the treatment location to identify the relevant jurisdiction, then assign named contacts for the application record and customer copy. A contractor working in several countries needs to know which set of jobs a request concerns. Keep the customer's business and job reference attached to that location throughout the handover.
The table is a suggested working agreement. In Northern Ireland the contractor keeps the original and gives the customer access; the other contacts are yours to name.
| Task | Contact to identify in your own agreement |
|---|---|
| Supply actual application information | Applicator or the contractor's record keeper |
| Maintain the NI machine-readable original for uses from 1 January 2027 | Contractor as professional user |
| Receive and review the customer copy | Customer's nominated farm or site contact |
| Resolve product, time or quantity questions | Person able to consult the original job note |
| Assemble records for an authority request | Responsible person for the relevant business |
| Communicate an agreed correction | Contact able to update the original and notify recipients |
Keep the agreement short enough to use. Record where documents will be delivered, the reference identifying the job and who follows up an incomplete report. If another administrator takes over, they should be able to retrieve the right record using the agreement and index.
Brief the contractor on the site
A contractor who does not know the holding needs a full site briefing from the owner or occupier. Without it the contractor could accidentally damage conservation headlands, buffer zones and other sensitive features. Agree also who tells neighbours who grow organic or sensitive crops before the spray; a contractor can check this point with the customer.
Mixing and loading arrangements
A dedicated mixing area has an impermeable surface, ideally under cover. Place it where flooding and vehicle cross-contamination cannot affect it, and collect its drainage and run-off for disposal through a lined biobed or a licensed waste-disposal contractor. Disposal onto soil, grass or an unlined biobed is for agricultural pesticides only and needs an Environment Agency authorisation under the Groundwater Regulations. Where mixing takes place at the treatment site, check that the site is suitable and allow for the risks of uneven ground.
Equipment moved between treatment sites must not be overfilled and must not leak or drip. Never take it through a ford.
Contract spraying prices: what the AHDB costing workbook gives
AHDB's machinery-costing tool is an Excel workbook with separate calculators for machines and operations. It includes self-propelled sprayers among the machines you can cost.
Choose the worksheet that fits your question:
- Calculator 1 estimates tractor cost per hour.
- Calculator 2 estimates combine and self-propelled-machine cost per hectare.
- Calculator 3 estimates implement cost per hectare.
- Calculator 4 estimates operation cost per hectare.
- Calculator 5 compares machine data, including work rates.
The workbook also has two maintenance tables, one for tractors and one for other machines and implements. Maintenance is expressed as a percentage of purchase price according to annual hours. Data-entry rows begin with "Enter" in column A, and the other cells are locked to protect the formulas. AHDB also links the NAAC Contracting Prices Survey as a separate contracting-price reference.
When you compare pesticide spraying companies, ask each for a written price per hectare. The workbook lets you test a quoted price against your own machinery and operation costs.
Understand the Northern Ireland original
The professional user is the person who carries out the spraying. For uses from 1 January 2027, a contractor working for a business is responsible for retaining the record in the required machine-readable format. The contracting business may retain another format for reference, provided the original is maintained correctly.
This distinction gives each file a clear purpose. The customer's reading copy helps the customer identify and review an operation, while the structured original preserves the application data in the prescribed form. Save the customer's copy with the contractor and job reference so a later request can be directed to the correct record holder.
CSV, XLSX, XML and JSON are machine-readable examples; PDFs and scanned images are excluded. A report emailed to a customer is therefore not sufficient evidence of the format in which the contractor maintains its underlying records. Ask for the actual export when assessing the handover procedure.
Customer access is part of the NI workflow
The NI guidance requires contractors to give the person or business they work for access to, or copies of, relevant records without undue delay or restrictions. For uses covered by the electronic regime from 1 January 2027, the required machine-readable format must be supplied without undue delay when the customer requests it, including where records are needed by the Department.
Agree a practical request route and test it with a completed job. Ask the customer's contact to obtain the record using only the job reference and application period. Confirm that the resulting file covers the requested site and includes the information needed to understand the operation. Retain the request and supplied version in the archive.
If access is through a customer portal, document how the business obtains a saved copy for its own records. If a report is sent as an attachment, keep it with the original communication.
Keep your spray records in one place. Free to start.
Inspect one treatment rather than the invoice total
The existing application information described by DAERA includes product name, application time and dose, treated area and crop. Northern Ireland additionally requires product authorisation number, EPPO crop or land-use code and relevant BBCH stage where the product use is growth-stage restricted. BBCH is also relevant when the growth stage matters in the context of the particular use, as explained in DAERA’s template guide.
Check the supplied report against the actual treatment. Identify the product, place, person and date before reviewing quantities. If the job covers several locations, make the relationship between the entries and the locations understandable. If several products were used, preserve their individual identities. Annex F's treatment-record note expressly says all products should be shown for mixtures.
An invoice can help identify the service and customer, but use the job record to resolve application details. If the invoice combines multiple visits, retain a correspondence between its reference and the treatment reports. Ask for the particular missing value instead of requesting an entirely new report without explaining the problem.
Keep units and boundaries intelligible
The official Scottish treatment-sheet example separates dose per hectare, volume per hectare, total product quantity and total area. Those headings describe different quantities. A contractor report needs to retain enough context for the recipient to interpret which figure belongs to which part of the operation.
Before transcribing a value, establish its unit and meaning. Keep the product quantity distinct from spray water or total application volume. Use the treated extent rather than assuming the property's entire area was covered. Where the customer and contractor use different field names, maintain a mapping in the shared job information.
Preserve the original application note while resolving discrepancies. If a clarified quantity changes the meaning of several exported rows, identify all affected records and keep the reason for the revision. Make the corrected customer copy recognisable so a later reader does not unknowingly use an earlier version.
Give the customer the restrictions it needs to manage
Records help manage harvest intervals, repeat applications and periods excluding workers or livestock. Annex F includes relevant restrictions, ventilation, flowering, notifications to neighbours or beekeepers, warning signs and problems during application among its suggested notes.
Agree which person will receive the job information needed for subsequent activity at the site. Link restrictions to the specific treated location and product information. Keep an application report accessible to the person scheduling harvest, grazing, maintenance or access. Use the harvest and access guide to organise that part of the record.
When the job involves an aquatic-buffer decision, retain the assessment or recorded distance alongside the application reference. The LERAP guide explains the separate record and the distinction between eligible reductions and maintaining a labelled buffer.
Prepare for a departmental request
Article 4 requires information requested by the competent authority without undue delay. If the authority expressly requests the prescribed electronic format before the applicable Article 3 conversion period expires, provide it before that period expires or within 10 working days, whichever comes first. DAERA’s shorter summary does not remove the earlier limit in the regulation. Keep the request and identify the applicable period before arranging the response.
Use the application period, business and site to select the relevant records. Open the supplied structured file and compare a completed job with the customer reference copy. Confirm that product, crop, location and quantities still correspond. Retain a list of files provided and the version used for the response.
For Welsh inspections, the published guide describes cross-checking sampled treated fields with farm records and checking product use against label crop specifications. A customer needs a usable treatment record to follow that trail, alongside the contractor's underlying archive.
Business registration belongs to both sides' administration
Defra's GB professional-user registration guidance includes businesses having PPPs applied by a third party and contractors hired to store or apply products for others. It also says local authorities using or storing products register, while their hired contractors register independently. Treat those as separate business tasks when setting up a service relationship.
Keep the registration reference in each organisation's administration. Use the registration guide for addresses, typical product-use estimates and accepted return formats. The job record remains the place to describe individual treatments; registration is not a seasonal upload of all application entries.
Review the handover when the service changes
Professional users keep records for three years, while supply-chain records are kept for five. Northern Ireland also requires at least three years for professional-user application records. Keep the treatment archive accessible when a contract ends, a member of staff changes or a different recording system is adopted.
Before the change, identify the applications and periods covered by each record holder. Obtain the copies required for the customer's files and test retrieval of older jobs. Record how corrections and authority requests will reach the contractor after the normal service contact changes. Preserve the relevant correspondence with the archive index.
Use a final sample job to rehearse the complete path: original note, structured record, customer copy, supporting restriction and later retrieval. Ask someone unfamiliar with the job to locate each part using the references provided. Improve the references where the process still relies on personal memory.
Build a daily record workflow around the handover
For the general query spray record keeping, use the daily workflow alongside this contractor-responsibility guide. Agree a stable job reference and separate completed work from remaining instructions. In Northern Ireland, connect the operator record with training evidence and the actual machine’s testing record.