A Software Company in North Carolina That Starts at the Rain Gauge

Updated November 2026 · Written and maintained by the Progression Agency strategy team

At seven in the morning a farm manager in eastern North Carolina reads a rain gauge, writes down three tenths of an inch, and that number now sits in a notebook that a state inspector may ask to see. The swine waste general permit asks for daily rain records, waste and soil tests on a schedule, every land application with its loading rates, weekly stocking and mortality, and more. A software company in North Carolina building for these farms has to model each of those records before it draws a single screen. Progression is based in New York, builds for North Carolina operations remotely, and offers on-site sessions on request.

A rain gauge at seven in the morning

A manager walks out to the gauge, reads three tenths of an inch and writes it on the page that hangs by the door. It takes ten seconds. The card below is a hypothetical page, and it is where this whole data model begins.

The state’s swine permit asks for a rain gauge at a site that represents the weather at the land application sites, and for a daily record of the type and amount of precipitation, kept on site. A day with no precipitation needs no entry. That one rule already says what a record is: a date, a type, an amount, a place and a person.

• Every other record in the permit has the same bones as this one.
• A good system makes the entry quick enough to do at the gauge.
• It keeps the entry exactly as typed, with the time of entry.
• It never asks the farm to guess what the Division will want later.

What a software company in North Carolina must know about the swine permit

North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issues general permits for animal waste management systems, and the 2019 permits cover swine, cattle and poultry operations. DEQ says Session Law 2025-97, Section 4.1, extended the state general permit certificates of coverage for six animal feeding operation types to September 30, 2028. Read the DEQ page on animal feeding operations general permits and the session law for the dates, and ask your Regional Office what applies to your certificate.

The swine permit’s full text is at DEQ’s Swine Waste Management System General Permit. Its Section III, on monitoring and reporting, is the record keeping heart of the document. Most of the records are kept on forms that the Division supplies or approves, which matters for software, since a screen is not a form until the Division says it is.

Who is the permit written for?

The permit says it may apply to swine animal feeding operations with 250 or more swine that use non discharge methods of disposal. Whether your operation is covered, and under what conditions, is set in your certificate of coverage. The Regional Office and counsel can confirm it.

What does the software have to be careful about?

The permit is specific about what to record and how often, and silent about how the farm’s software looks. The honest job for software is to hold the records, remind people when they are due and print them in the form the Division expects.

The permit as tables

Each row below is one record the permit names, with how often it comes up, the fields a farm’s software needs for it, and who usually enters it. The rows follow Section III of the 2019 permit. The fields are plain advice on what a farm will want when a reader asks for the record.

What gets entered every rain day and every week?

The daily and weekly records are the ones a farm makes the most of, and the ones a system has to make fastest. The permit asks for a rain entry on each day with precipitation, a waste level for each lagoon with a gauge every week, and a stocking and mortality record every week. Make these three screens the quickest in the app.

• One tap to the rain entry, with today’s date already filled in.
• One weekly list that shows each lagoon and each stocking sheet that is still empty.
• Reminders on the day, not a week later.

Per event: each application and each transfer

An application event is the heaviest record: a field, a date, a source, a hydraulic loading rate, a nutrient loading rate and the cropping information. A transfer is lighter: the structure the waste left, the structure that received it, the date, the time and the volume. Build both so that one event is one entry, and so that every later report can find it again.

• Pick the field from a list, not by typing a name.
• Link each application to the waste analysis that belongs to it.
• Keep the volume and the units exactly as entered.

On a schedule: soil every three years, waste within 60 days

Two records run on clocks. Soil fertility on each field comes up at least every three years, and a waste analysis has to fall within 60 days before or after the date of application. A system can count both clocks automatically and show which fields are coming due, while the lab results are still entered by a person.

• Show the soil date next to every field and flag the ones approaching three years.
• Show the 60 day window for every planned application.
• Never let the software decide the amount to apply.

What a build like this costs

A farm records system is a small custom software project. Cost follows the number of records, the devices, the integrations with lab files or other farm systems, and how much of the Division’s forms the system has to reproduce. Progression quotes after a written scope, with a free proposal first. The bands below are published market figures, from the typical low to the published high.

Hosting, licenses and security testing are on top of these bands. For how projects of this kind are scoped, see software development company.

Forms the Division supplies or approves

The permit says several records must be kept on forms supplied by or approved by the Division: lagoon levels, land application events and stocking and mortality among them. So the first design question is not about colors. It is about the form.

The software should print or export each record in the layout the Division expects. If the farm wants a different layout, ask the Regional Office first, because a form is only approved when the Division says it is. A farm that already uses a Division form can send it to the team as the starting point for the screen.

Can records be digital?

Ask the Regional Office about a digital form before you build around one. Software can keep the data and print it in the layout the Division approved, and that is a safe starting plan.

Why does the form come first?

A screen that collects the right fields in the wrong order creates work. A screen that mirrors the form saves a transcription step and a source of mistakes.

When the gauge stops working

The permit says that if an automated rain gauge or an automated waste level monitor that DEQ’s Director required stops working, the farm reports the problem by phone to the Division Regional Office as soon as possible, within 24 hours of first knowing about it. It then repairs the device quickly and takes readings by hand until the equipment is back in operation.

A system cannot make the call, and it should not pretend to. What it can do is log the outage, start a 24 hour clock and prompt the manager to call, then record who called and when. It can also switch the entry screen to hand readings and mark each one as taken by hand.

• Start the 24 hour clock when the outage is logged.
• Prompt the manager to call, and record the call.
• Mark readings taken by hand until the repair is logged.

Nutrient loading from the lab report to the field

Two lab reports feed the land application record. A waste analysis gives nitrogen, phosphorus, zinc and copper for the waste to be applied, and a soil analysis gives pH, phosphorus, copper and zinc for the field. The permit asks that the waste analysis fall within 60 days before or after the application.

The software joins each application to the analysis that covers it and checks the 60 day window on its own. It records the rates the farm enters and the cropping information, and it never recommends an amount. Agronomic questions belong to the farm’s advisers and to the Regional Office.

How should lab results enter the system?

Type them in from the lab report, or attach the report and enter the four results beside it. Keep the sample date, the lab and the field or source with each result, so the report can be read a year later without the lab’s email.

• Attach the lab report to the record it supports.
• Show the sample date beside each result.
• Warn when an application has no analysis inside the window.
• Leave recommendations to the people who give them.

Offline on the farm, synced later

A phone in a barn or a field often has no signal. A records app that needs a connection to save an entry will be set aside the first time it fails. Entry that works without signal, with the time kept as entered, fits the way farms actually work.

The permit says records are kept on site and made available to the Division, so keep a local copy that can be printed at the farm. Sync the records to the farm’s system when a connection returns, and never overwrite the time of the original entry.

What should happen when two people enter the same record?

Keep both entries, flag the match and let the manager decide. Do not merge them silently, because the person who read the gauge may have seen something the other did not.

Five years, on site, ready for an inspector

The permit asks the farm to keep a copy of the permit, the certificate of coverage and the records it requires for five years, in chronological and legible form, readily available at the facility. It also says the farm is subject to inspection at any time, and must allow access to and copying of records. An annual report is due by April 1 for the previous calendar year, on the Division’s form.

• Keep records in date order and legible, on site.
• Hold each year’s annual report with the records behind it.
• Test the printout before the first inspection, not during it.

The inspector’s binder, printed on demand

A binder is the pile of paper someone assembles when an inspector arrives. A system can assemble it in one step: rain, levels, applications, lab results, stocking and mortality for any date range, in order, ready to print. Our agriculture software development page covers the wider farm work.

The binder is built from the same records the farm entered all year. Nothing is retyped, and nothing is edited for the export. If a record is missing, the binder shows the gap, and the manager fixes it at the source.

What does a good export do?

It lays out each record the way the permit and the Division’s forms expect, with dates in order and the person who entered each record. It can be limited to a date range, and it can be printed or saved as a file.

• Choose a date range and print it in one step.
• Show gaps, such as a week with no stocking sheet.
• Keep the original entry times in every row.

Who owns each record after launch?

A system holds the records, and people own them. Name who reads the gauge, who enters lab results, who makes the outage call and who signs off before the annual report. A system with no owners becomes a second notebook.

• List each record and the person who enters it.
• Add a backup for each person.
• Review the list each year, when staff change.

Work for a different North Carolina business has its own page; the software company in Raleigh page covers that city.

Related services and guides

Pages that sit beside this data model:

• Software development company
• Agriculture software development
• App development agency

Frequently asked questions