Customer Corner- August 2024

Conducting a PIC reconciliation

Dear Callum We’ve recently taken over the running of our family farm from my parents and are just getting to grips with everything. The property is a mixed farming enterprise that produces cattle, sheep and, quite recently, goats. With mandatory sheep and goat eID coming into effect next year, we’ve now got a mix of tags. I’d like to check and see what tags are registered to the property to make sure the existing records I have are correct and up to date. Is there a way for me to easily find that information online? Thanks A. Farmer

Thanks for your question. a

It’s a good idea to get a clear understanding of all the devices (tags) that are registered to your Property Identification Code (PIC).

You can do this easily by completing a PIC reconciliation on your National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) account.

The PIC reconciliation provides a stocktake of all active devices registered to your PIC in the NLIS database, including devices that are physically tagged on an animal as well as devices you’ve purchased, but not yet used.

Why PIC reconciliations are important

A PIC reconciliation is the best way to ensure your on-farm records match those held on the NLIS database and helps ensure you are keeping your NLIS records accurate and up to date.

By regularly reconciling devices on your PIC, you’ll pick up on any missing transfers for livestock you’ve already sold and reduce the likelihood of receiving NLIS warning messages about them.

Up-to-date PIC reconciliations can also help police to accurately identify livestock when they come across suspicious transfers or stolen livestock.

Completing a PIC reconciliation

1. You will first need to obtain the list of active devices on your PIC and this is best done one species at a time. You should do this by:

• scanning the electronic tags already on your animals, and
• using the Devices purchased report to obtain a list of electronic tags you have purchased, but not yet used.

2. Once you have your complete list of active devices, you can upload this information to the NLIS by using the PIC reconciliation function on your NLIS account. Click Go to be taken to the next screen, then click Continue to choose your reconciliation method.

3. You can then choose to either upload a CSV file of the tag numbers, or use the manual option to copy and paste the tag numbers into the database.

4. Once you have uploaded the tag numbers to the NLIS database, you will automatically be sent an email with attachments on the required next steps which may include:

• Devices are active and registered to the PIC – No further action required as they are correctly showing as being active on your PIC.
• Devices are active, but not registered to the PIC – You will need to transfer these tags onto your PIC as they are currently not listed as being on your PIC in the database.
• Devices to be made active – You will need to update the status of these devices to active as they were previously assigned the Inactive (IA) status in the database.
• Devices to be made inactive – You will need to update the status of these devices to Inactive as they are incorrectly showing as being on your PIC in the database.

 

More information: a Learn more about completing a PIC reconciliation.