Office Portal Guide

Updated 2026-07-03 — describes the KraalBook office web portal (the desktop companion to the KraalBook phone app).

The office portal is the web version of KraalBook that you use from a computer at your desk. It shows the same records as the phone app on a bigger screen, and lets you do the same jobs — plus a few that are much easier with a keyboard, like loading your whole herd from a spreadsheet or preparing auction paperwork.

The phone app is where you capture in the field; the portal mirrors it. You sign in to the portal with the same phone number and password you use on the app — there is no separate portal account. Anything you record in the app shows up in the portal, and anything you record in the portal shows up in the app.

Signing in

1. Open the KraalBook office portal web address in your browser (your KraalBook contact will give you the link).
2. Type your Phone — the same phone number you use on the app, e.g. +27 81 234 5678.
3. Type your Password — the same one you use on the app.
4. Press Sign in. The button shows Signing in… while it works, then opens your Dashboard.

If sign-in fails, double-check your phone and password. There is no "forgot password" link on the portal — reset your password from the phone app (on its sign-in screen, use Forgot password), then sign in to the portal with the new password.

Finding your way around

Down the left is the sidebar, split into three groups:

• Main — Dashboard, Alerts, FMD compliance, Reports, Animals.
• Capture — record events from your desk (vaccinations, treatments, movements, deaths, births, and so on).
• Office — bigger jobs: Load your herd, Add location, Stockmen, Auctions, Farm settings, Animal categories.

Along the top of every page is a bar showing who is signed in, plus Help, Account and Sign out.

Some jobs are owner-only. If you are signed in as a stockman you can see the information but the edit buttons are hidden, with a note explaining that only the farm owner can change it.

Dashboard

Your farm at a glance on one page.

• The big number at the top is your active animals (head), with your total active records underneath.
• Tap any species tile (Cattle, Sheep, Goats, Pigs) to jump to your Animals list.
• The Compliance card shows FMD vaccination status per species — tap a species bar to see the animals needing attention.
• The Alerts card previews what needs action; tap See all alerts for the full list.
• The Stockmen card shows who is on the app; the Stock counts card leads with today ("Today · N camps counted" and the total short, or "No count yet today · last counted …"), then lists your latest musters and headcounts.
• If animals are at auction, a settle outcomes banner takes you to Auctions.

Each card shows only a short preview with a link to the full page. If a banner about a free trial or account status appears at the top, it states facts only — you never pay from here (billing is on the website). Species you don't own aren't shown.

Alerts

One list of everything needing your attention, most urgent first, in three colour-coded sections:

• Critical (red) — act now.
• Needs attention (amber) — plan for this week.
• Heads up (grey) — good to know.

Tap an alert to jump straight to the page where you can deal with it. When there's nothing wrong you'll see All clear — nothing needs your attention right now.

FMD compliance

See the individual animals that are overdue or coming due for their FMD vaccination, so you know exactly which to bring in.

1. Tap FMD compliance (or a species on the Dashboard's Compliance card).
2. Use the species buttons (All, Cattle, Sheep, Goats, Pigs) and, if shown, the age dropdown to narrow the list.
3. Tap Overdue, Due soon or All to filter.
4. Read each animal's Tag, Class, Camp, Last FMD and Status (a red overdue or amber due badge). Tap a row to open its Fact sheet.

FMD applies to all cloven-hoofed species (cattle, sheep, goats, pigs). An animal never done shows Never vaccinated; if all is up to date you'll see All caught up.

FMD compliance by camp — use the link at the bottom for a camp-by-camp view. It shows overall Up to date %, total Overdue and Due soon head, then one row per camp (worst first) with a coloured bar. Tap a camp to expand the animals needing FMD. Young animals not yet due show as calves N/A; animals with no camp are grouped as No camp assigned.

Animals

Browse, search and filter your whole herd, and open any animal.

1. Tap Animals. The hero shows total active head and total records.
2. Tap a species tile to show only that species (tap again for all species).
3. Use the status buttons — Active, At auction, Sold, Deaths — to choose which animals to list.
4. Type in Scan tag or type to search… (or scan a tag) to find one animal.
5. Read the table: Tag, Class, Status, Location, Head. Tap a row to open the Fact sheet, or + Add animal to register stock.
6. For a big herd, use Previous / Next at the bottom to page through. Changing a filter or search starts you on page one.

An animal's Fact sheet

The complete history for one animal — everything a buyer, auditor or vet would want, ready to print.

• The Animal section (brand, tag, species, category, breed, colour, sex, date of birth, camp, status) and the Farm section (farm name, address, phone, GLN, GPS, signature).
• Event history — every recorded event, newest first, each with date, type, detail, and who did it and where.
• For a cow, a Calvings table lists her calves (tap one to open its Fact sheet).
• Print (top right) to print or save a PDF; Edit to change details.

An amber banner warns if the animal is under a medicine withdrawal period; a red banner shows if it's currently reported sick. To have your farm address, GPS and signature appear here, set them in Farm settings first.

Adding animals (+ Add animal)

Register stock you already own by building a list and saving it together.

1. On the Animals page, tap + Add animal.
2. Choose the Species and whether it's an Individual or a Batch (for a batch, enter the Head count).
3. Choose the Sex; for an individual male you can mark Castrated.
4. Enter an EID tag and/or an Ear tag — you must give at least one (an EID tag is a valid 15-digit number).
5. Pick a Camp if you want, and tap More details for breed, colour and date of birth.
6. Tap + Add animal to list — it checks the tag isn't already in use and adds the animal to the To save list.
7. Repeat for each animal (species, sex, breed and camp stay filled to speed up similar animals).
8. When the list is complete, tap Save.

Nothing is saved until you press Save; you can Remove any animal from the list first. This registers animals you already have — for bought-in stock use Record a purchase (under Capture). If some animals can't be saved, the successful ones are kept and only the failures remain to try again.

Editing an animal

From an animal's Fact sheet, tap Edit. The fixed details (identifier, EID tag, species, sex, type) are greyed out and can't be changed. You can change Ear tag, Breed, Colour / markings, Category (cattle only), a Custom category, Date of birth and Camp, then tap Save changes. Leave Custom category blank to use the standard Category.

Recording events from your desk (Capture)

The Capture pages let you record an event from a vet's sheet, an auction docket or a phone call, instead of one animal at a time on the phone. They nearly all work the same way:

1. Set the details that apply to the whole group at the top (the vaccine, the medicine, the destination camp, the date…). The Date box always starts on today — you can backdate it.
2. Search and tick the animals it happened to.
3. Press the big Save button at the bottom (it counts your selection, e.g. Vaccinate 12 animals).

If some animals save but a few can't (for example one is already recorded sold), KraalBook saves the good ones, keeps the failures on screen to fix and resave, and shows a short list of what went wrong with a Copy full list button so you can grab every failed row.

Here's what each Capture screen is for:

• Record a vaccination — pick the Vaccine (or Other…), a Batch number, optional Dose & route, Date and Location. If the vaccine is FMD, three extra fields are required: Fridge temperature (°C) (checked to be between −5 and 15), Vaccine expiry date and Authorised vet. If any ticked animals were vaccinated recently, a note offers to remove the ones not yet due. Press Vaccinate.
• Record a treatment — choose the Treatment type, then the Medicine (the list shows only medicines for that type), optional Dose, the Withdrawal period (days) (0–365), Date and Location; Advanced adds a Batch number or Vet reference. Press Treat. New medicine types are added in the phone app.
• Move animals — choose the camp to Move to, the Date and an optional Note, then tick the animals. Each animal's current camp is recorded as where it came from. Press Move.
• Record a death — set the Date of death and Location where they died, optional Cause and Notes, tick the animals, press Record. Dead records leave your active total but stay on file (and on each Fact sheet) for the 5-year retention period.
• Report sick animals — set the Date, type the Symptoms for the group, optionally a Severity (Mild / Moderate / Severe) and Note, tick the animals, press Report. Each animal is recorded at its current camp.
• Mark recovered — set Recovered on, tick recovered animals in the Sick animals list (or Select all), press Mark recovered. This screen shows your current open sick list rather than a search box.
• Weigh animals — set the Date, tick the animals, type each Weight (kg) (1–2000) in the table, press Save. Leave a weight blank to skip that animal.
• Record pregnancy — set the Date, tick the breeding females (use the Female sex filter), set each to Pregnant / Empty / Unsure, optionally Months pregnant (a whole number 0–12), press Save.
• Record a purchase — creates brand-new animal records plus a purchase event. Fill Bought from, Date of purchase, Destination on your farm and optional Origin; then, for each animal, choose species/record type/sex, type at least one tag (EID must be 15 digits starting 982), optional breed/price/date of birth, and + Add to purchase. Press Save when the list is done.
• Register a calf — search for and select the mother (a female individual), choose the Location where they were born and Date of birth, type at least one calf tag, choose Sex, and Save calf. One calf per save (register twins as two).
• RFID tag — add or replace one animal's electronic ear tag. Find the animal, check its Current RFID, scan or type the New RFID (15 digits starting 982), press Add RFID tag / Replace RFID tag. If the tag is already on another animal it tells you which and blocks the save.
• Daily count — a quick headcount for every camp in one pass. Set the Date, type the head you counted in each camp's Counted box (the Expected figure sits next to it), press Save all counts. A camp reads N short if you counted fewer than expected. Previous count not loaded means that camp's last count is older than the 200 most recent — not that it was never counted.
• Stock count — for a single camp, choose Which camp?, the Date, and a method: Quick headcount (just the number) or Full muster (tick each animal you can see — every un-ticked animal is reported missing). Press Save count. A muster won't save until the whole herd list has loaded, and warns you if you've ticked nobody.
• Record a private sale — capture a private sale (see Auctions & sales below for what happens next).
• Send animals to auction — start an auction trip from your desk. Choose the Auction yard (or Other and type it), the Auction date (defaults to tomorrow), optional Transport (company, driver, vehicle registration, make & model), tick the animals going, and press Send … to auction. Each animal is marked at auction and the trip opens so you can send the auction document and confirm outcomes after the sale (see Auctions & sales below).

Reports

Open Reports for a tile per report; click a tile to open it. Almost every report is view-only — you read numbers, charts and lists; capturing happens in the phone app. Most reports have a period filter along the top (e.g. 12 months, This year, 90 days, All), and some also filter by species or camp. Long lists are capped and the report tells you when it's showing only the most recent few — narrow the period or filter to see older records.

The two flagship reports sit at the top:

• Farm health scorecard — one overall 0–100 score for your whole farm, split into five areas (Disease, Reproduction, Growth, Health, Records), each with its own score and a chip (On track / Watch / Needs action / Not enough data). Click an area to open the report behind it. A brand-new farm shows a calm grey Building state, not a red 0.
• Audit & compliance pack — everything an inspector or vet asks for in one place, with a one-tap Generate & share PDF (owner-only). Green/amber/red flag good, needs-attention and breach figures.

The rest:

• Herd growth — where your animals went over a period: Opening + Births + Bought − Sold − Deaths → Closing, plus a herd-size trend. All figures in head.
• Theft & shrinkage — stock gone missing (detected through musters), worst-hit camps, and an Investigate now list of animals to look for. If you've never done a stock count it prompts you to do one rather than showing a false zero.
• Reproductive scorecard — pregnancy (conception) rate, calving rate, empties to review, and when calves are born. Wording changes per species.
• Breeding cow performance — which cows aren't earning their keep: in-calf status now, proven cows going empty, possible pregnancy losses, seasons skipped. Cattle only.
• Growth (ADG) — average daily gain (kg/day), grouped by Breed, Camp or Sex, with a top-growers leaderboard. Counts animals weighed at least twice in the period.
• Top breeders — your best breeding females, ranked by No. of calves or by Interval; pick a Top-N and optionally a camp. Click a female to see her offspring.
• Treatment register — an audit-ready list of every medicine given, with an orange chip while an animal is still under withdrawal. Shows the most recent 500.
• Vaccination register & cold chain — every vaccination plus proof the cold chain held: FMD coverage %, cold-chain %, fridge-temperature breaches, and any expired vaccine used.
• Antibiotic use & withdrawal calendar — how much antibiotic you're using and, crucially, which animals you cannot sell or slaughter yet, plus any food-safety breaches.
• Mortality & health — death rate, sick rate, causes of death, age at death, worst-hit camps. Zero deaths/sickness shows as good news, not an empty screen.
• Grazing & stocking rate — how hard each camp is grazed, in Large Stock Units (LSU). This is the one report where you can enter data — type a camp's size in hectares (accepts 12,5 or 12.5) to get its stocking rate.
• Herd structure — a snapshot of your herd now: a population pyramid by age and sex, a category breakdown, and key breeding ratios.
• Animal passport — one animal's whole life on a page: identity, parentage (mother and offspring) and a full event timeline. Search for any animal (active, at auction, sold or dead). Corrected or removed events are greyed out and marked Corrected or Removed.
• Stock counts — your count history grouped by day (newest first, with Today / Yesterday headers), each day headed with its total short — the latest count per camp, so if you recount a camp after finding the animals the day's total drops. Click any count to see the animals that came up missing. Shows the 200 most recent.

Office jobs

Load your herd (CSV import)

Add your whole herd in one go by uploading a spreadsheet, instead of one animal at a time.

1. Under Office, click Load your herd.
2. Prepare a CSV file whose first row is a header with all of these column names (any order): visual_tag, eid_tag, species, sex, kind, head_count, breed, date_of_birth, colour, cattle_category, location_name, mother_tag. Leave a cell blank if it doesn't apply.
3. One row per animal. Each animal needs at least a visual_tag or a 15-digit eid_tag; species (cattle/sheep/goat/pig) and sex (M/F/X) are required; location_name must match a camp you've already added.
4. Click Choose your CSV file (or paste the CSV into the box).
5. Click Preview — KraalBook checks the file and shows exactly what will happen. Nothing is saved yet.
6. Read the preview: total rows, how many will import, how many were rejected and why, and any unrecognised camps.
7. Fix any rejected rows in your spreadsheet and Preview again.
8. When you're happy, click Import [number] animals.

Up to 5,000 animals per file — split bigger herds into batches. Editing the file clears the preview, so you must Preview again before you can Import. If the connection drops during an import, KraalBook honestly tells you We don't know if the import finished and blocks the Import button — it asks you to Preview first, because any animals that already saved show as already exists in your herd, so it's safe to preview and import again.

Add location

Add the places on your farm — the farm itself and the camps, crushes and sheds inside it — as a hierarchy, and see how many animals and how much grazing each holds.

1. Under Office, click Add location.
2. Fill in the form:
   • Name — call it whatever you call it on the farm (North Camp, Home, Vlei, Crush).
   • Sits under — pick the farm or bigger area this sits inside, or Top level (a separate farm) for a standalone farm. This is what builds the tree.
   • Size (hectares) — optional. Add it and KraalBook shows your stocking rate (animals per hectare) and adds camp sizes up to each farm's total. You can type a decimal with a comma or a dot (e.g. 12,5).
   Click Save location.
3. Locations show as an indented tree — each farm with its camps nested underneath, sorted by name. Every row shows its rolled-up head · size (ha) · stocking rate (per ha), so a farm row totals all its camps.

To change one, click Edit on its row: rename it, move it under a different location (Sits under), or set / adjust its size, then Save changes. A location can't be moved under one of its own camps.

A name is required (up to 120 characters); a size, if given, must be more than 0 and up to 1,000,000 ha. You pick from this list whenever you add an animal or capture an event, so add all your locations first.

Stockmen

Invite the workers who capture events on your farm, watch their activity, and manage their access.

1. Under Office, click Stockmen, then + Invite stockman.
2. Fill in the Name, Phone number (SA mobile, e.g. +27821234567) and Language (English, Afrikaans or isiZulu), then Send invite.
3. A 6-digit code appears — click Share on WhatsApp to send a ready-written message, or read the code out. They enter it in the KraalBook app to activate their account.
4. For an active stockman you see events captured Today and This week; Deactivate removes their access (they're signed out and can't capture until re-invited).
5. For a pending invite, Resend code issues a fresh code and Revoke cancels it.

These are owner/manager actions.

Auctions & sales

The Auctions page is your Sales hub — every sale in progress in one place.

• Under At auction, click + Send animals to auction to start a new trip, or open an existing card. Each card is one auction trip, showing its stage (Sent → At auction → Confirm). A trip whose sale date has arrived turns amber and says awaiting outcome — you still need to confirm which animals sold.
• Under Private sales, click a row to open a sale, or + Record a private sale to start one.

You can start an auction trip right here with + Send animals to auction, or in the phone app (Field Mode → Sale → To auction) — trips from either place appear together. Only the 200 most recent trips/sales are shown.

Opening an auction trip (View details): add Transport (company, driver, vehicle registration, make & model), answer the three Health declaration questions (Yes / No — these print on the §8 health attestation), then ⭳ Download auction document for the PDF. Confirm sold / not sold settles the outcomes. You can ✕ Remove one animal (it returns to your active herd) or, only while nothing has sold, Delete auction. Editing is owner-only.

Settling outcomes: for each animal click ✓ Sold or ↩ Not sold. Not-sold animals return to your active herd; sold animals are recorded as sold. Each is saved the moment you click, so you can settle some now and the rest later. Record a death through the Death flow, never here.

Recording a private sale: fill the Buyer details (all required — Full name, Farm name, Street address, District / town, Province, Postal code, Cell number, ID number, optional GLN number) and Date of sale, optionally Transport, then tick the animals and press Sell (confirm the pop-up). Selling is final — the animals flip to sold. Afterwards you can open the sale to capture the Health declaration, ⭳ Send sale document, and ✓ Confirm sale to drop it off your list. ID number is 13 digits, postal code 4 digits, GLN (if given) 13 digits.

Farm settings

Set up your farm's details that print on your sale and removal documents. Under Office, click Farm settings:

• Owner — Your name and optional SA ID number (13 digits).
• Farm — Farm name (required), District, Province, Postal code (4 digits), Address and optional GLN number (a 13-digit GS1 code).
• Brand mark — your registered mark (1–3 characters). It prints on every Fact sheet and §6/§8 removal document.
• Farm GPS — optional Latitude and Longitude.

Click Save changes (only fields you actually change are saved). Owner-only. The drawn signature is set in the phone app, not here.

Animal categories

Change the ages at which a beast moves from one category to the next (calf → weaner → cow, etc.) so KraalBook classes your animals the way you run your farm.

1. Under Office, click Animal categories.
2. Under Cattle, each row is a transition (e.g. Calf → Weaner) with the current age in months and the KraalBook default alongside.
3. Type the age in months you want for each transition, then Save — or Reset to defaults for the South African red-meat industry norm.

Owner-only. The category names are fixed; only the ages change (whole months 1–600, each stepping up in order). Saving re-classifies your whole herd everywhere a category is shown. Cattle only for now.

Help

Click Help (top-right) for help with the office portal specifically. It has a short About with support and legal links, an FAQ of common office questions (loading your herd, recording events for many animals at once, setting up locations, sending animals to auction, owner-only jobs, view-only accounts and cost), and a glossary of the terms KraalBook uses (EID, GLN, FMD, muster, consignment, and so on). It's written for the office — the phone app has its own Help inside the app.

Your account

Click Account (top-right). Under Your account you can view your Name, Phone, Farm and Role (read-only here — to edit farm details use Farm settings).

To close your account, scroll to Delete my account, read the warning, type DELETE (capitals) in the confirm box, then Delete my account. This can't be undone:

• If you're the owner, it closes your whole farm — you're signed out everywhere, you can't sign in again, and every stockman on the farm loses access too.
• If you're a stockman, it removes only your own sign-in; the farm and its records stay with the owner.
• What is deleted: your name, phone number and ID number; the owner's saved signature; and your password and sign-in.
• What is kept, and why: your animal and event records (births, vaccinations, treatments, sales, deaths) are livestock-traceability records that South African law requires to be kept for 5 years. They stay on file for that period but no longer carry your personal details — your name on them becomes "Deleted user".

Nothing happens until you type DELETE and confirm — just leave the page to cancel. (This wording is the same as the phone app's, so both say exactly the same thing.)

Glossary

• EID tag — an electronic RFID ear tag, a 15-digit number (starting 982 for South Africa) read by a scanner.
• Ear tag / visual tag — the printed tag you read by eye.
• Brand mark — your registered owner's mark (1–3 characters) that prints on official documents.
• GLN — Global Location Number, a 13-digit GS1 code used on some traceability paperwork (optional).
• FMD — Foot-and-Mouth Disease. KraalBook tracks FMD vaccination status for all cloven-hoofed species.
• Withdrawal period — the days after a medicine before an animal's meat or milk is safe. Animals still under withdrawal are flagged so you don't sell or slaughter them too soon.
• Individual vs Batch — an individual is one tagged animal; a batch is a group counted as head (common for sheep and goats).
• Muster vs headcount — a full muster ticks off each animal you can see and lists exactly which are missing; a quick headcount just records the number you counted.
• LSU — Large Stock Unit, a standard measure of grazing pressure used on the Grazing report.
• Consignment / auction trip — a group of animals sent to auction together; you confirm which ones sold when the auction is done.

This guide describes the office web portal. For the phone app, see the KraalBook User Guide. If a screen behaves differently from what's written here, trust the screen and let us know so we can fix the guide.