A CSA is the most sequenced thing a small farm runs. You sell a season before you grow it, collect money against a promise, and then deliver on a schedule you can't move. The software should follow the same order — and on TallyTill it does, which means doing the steps out of order is how you end up with a share that exists but nobody can join.
Here is the whole thing, in order. Each step depends on the one above it.
1. Turn the module on
Settings → Business (/portal/tenant-settings) → CSA Members → CSA Members and Boxes.
It ships switched off, and until you turn it on there is no CSA menu and the server refuses every CSA request. It is included on every plan — there is nothing to buy and nothing to upgrade to.
Turning it back off later hides the module and stops its writes. It deletes no member, no order and no balance. If you switch it off in November and back on in March, everything is where you left it.
2. Add the places members collect from
A pickup site is a stock location, so you add it under Products → Stock (/portal/stock).
You always have your own default site, so this step is only for the other places — a drop site at a church car park, a friend's porch, a delivery zone. If everyone collects at the farm, skip it.
3. Add the product that is the box
One product in your catalog (/portal/catalog) stands for the whole share. Call it "Full veg share" or "Half share" — whatever your members call it.
This is the thing members are billed for. The actual vegetables get put in later by the box builder, and they don't change what the member owes. That separation is deliberate: the member bought one share at one price, and a heavy tomato week doesn't cost them more.
4. Create the share
CSA → Shares & sites (/portal/share-plans) → New share.
You need a name members will recognise, the box product from step 3, what a box costs, how often boxes go out, which weekday they're collected, and the season's start and end dates.
Saving draws nothing and charges nobody. You can create a share in January and nothing happens until the season starts.
5. Set each site up
Still on Shares & sites, give every site its details: a kind (farm, drop or delivery), how many shares it holds, its pickup window, its address, notes for your packers, and whether members see it listed on your sign-up page.
A site can add a surcharge or set its own price — a cross-town drop that costs you an hour of driving can carry that. The table shows what a box costs at each site and what the season comes to.
6. Get members onto it
There are two ways on, and you can use both.
You add them. Add the person under Customers (/portal/customers) if they're new, then open the share on Shares & sites, search for them under Members, pick where they collect, and add them. This works immediately and needs nothing else set up.
They add themselves. Your farm gets its own member page where people can see your open shares, pick a pickup site, sign up, sign in by email link, see what they owe and pay it. That page needs a short web address for your farm — you claim it on Shares & sites, and until you do, the page and everything hanging off it returns Not found.
7. Then leave it alone
This is the part farms find hardest to believe.
A nightly job draws each member's box as a draft order a few weeks ahead of its collection day, and puts each instalment on their balance on the day it's due. You don't create weekly orders. You don't run anything. The share's page shows the exact collection days it worked out, and when it last ran.
If the dates on that page look wrong, the cadence or the season dates are wrong — fix those, not the orders.
8. Every pickup day: three screens, in order
- CSA → Build the boxes (
/portal/box-builder) — tell it what you picked, turn the dials, share the harvest out. - CSA → Orders (
/portal/orders) — lock the run. This freezes what's in every box and gives each one its code. - CSA → Pack day (
/portal/pack-day) — one sheet per site, who to expect, which box is theirs, who hasn't been yet.
Nothing comes off your shelf until a box is actually rung up. Locking a run doesn't move stock.
Two traps worth knowing before you start
A hand-taken order must have exactly one product on it. If you take an order over the phone and put two products on it, it is not treated as a box at all — the box builder counts it under "aren't boxes" and it is never filled and never packed. Nothing errors and nobody is warned. Until that's fixed, record extras a different way: a second order, or a sale at the till when they collect.
A hold doesn't stop the money. Putting a member on hold stops boxes being drawn for them, but they still owe the season — their instalments stay exactly where they were. For one week away, hold that box on the order instead. There's a full guide to hold, cancel and credit because the distinction catches everyone once.
A few settings you have to ask for
Some CSA controls are advanced settings and aren't on your settings page yet. If you want any of these, contact us and we'll set them:
- Members Can Swap An Item — lets a signed-in member change one item in their own box
- Taking New Members — a farm-wide switch that closes sign-ups across every share
- CSA Pickup Station — turns one named tablet into a scan-a-box check-in screen
- Boxes Nobody Collected — what happens to an uncollected box (hold, donate, or write off)
What this costs
CSA Members and Boxes is included on every plan, including the free Stand plan — no monthly fee and no credit card required to create an account. Card sales carry a small per-sale platform fee; cash and check carry no platform fee. See pricing for the current numbers.
Create a free account and work down the list above. Steps 1 to 5 take an afternoon; step 7 runs itself.
Next: claiming your farm's member page address and what a share plan actually is.