• Agribusinesses Can Now Accept Debit and Credit Cards Online, In Facility, and via Payment Terminals
• Ag Retail Businesses Can Now Digitally Send, Manage, and Track Customer Quotes
• Contract Management Coming Later This Year to Streamline Contract Creation and Reduce Manual Processes

FARGO, N.D. — June 16, 2025 — Bushel announced the launch of Buddy, an AI-powered assistant built into Bushel CRM, at last week’s Buddy Seat Conference. Buddy helps agribusinesses quickly surface actionable insights from customer and business data—without the need to run complex reports or analyze multiple systems.

The assistant supports faster, smarter customer outreach and opportunity identification by combining CRM data with accounting data, including contracts and invoices. Users can instantly see key elements of customer relationships, such as recent sentiment, contact gaps, and activity levels—helping prioritize outreach and uncover new opportunities.

Agribusiness teams can ask Buddy natural language questions, such as:

• What customers haven’t been contacted in the last week?
• How many customers have past due invoices?
• Which customers have open contracts?
• Provide a script to help discuss buying corn from a customer.

Expanded Card Acceptance Now Available

Bushel also announced that agribusinesses can now accept debit and credit card payments for grower invoices and balances due. This complements Bushel’s payment acceptance capabilities, allowing businesses to offer more flexible and convenient payment options to farmer customers and business partners, while improving cash flow and reducing manual processing.

Quotes in Customer  Portal Now Live

Bushel announced that Quotes in the Customer Portal is now live for ag retail customers, enabling faster and more transparent quoting across digital channels. With this release, agribusinesses can:

• Send quotes directly to farmers through their branded portal
• Allow farmers to view, respond to, and accept quotes digitally
• Reduce manual processes and improve visibility into pricing and offer history

Contract Management Coming Later This Year

Bushel also shared that Contract Management functionality will be added to its platform later this year. The new feature will help automate contract creation and simplify contract management processes, reducing settlement questions and minimizing manual tie-out.

Key capabilities will include:

• Ability for merchandisers to enter contract details (contract types, price, quantity, etc.) directly in Bushel
• Full contract history tracking, with visibility into edits and changes
• Ability to edit existing contracts and create contract amendments
• Streamlined role-based permissions to control who can view and modify contract data

This enhancement will help agribusinesses manage contracts more efficiently and improve accuracy across their teams.

“Buddy makes it easier for agribusinesses to know where to focus and how to move faster,” said Jake Joraanstad, CEO of Bushel. “We’re working to streamline the entire customer workflow—helping teams go from identifying opportunities in the CRM to completing payments seamlessly. Adding card acceptance and delivering new capabilities like contract management are part of that effort to make digital tools more useful across the business.”

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About Bushel

Bushel is an independent software company based in Fargo, N.D. that provides an integrated workflow solution for agriculture. Bushel’s platform includes customer relationship management, customer and commercial portals, offer and hedge management, and farm management and advisement software. Through its wholly-owned subsidiary Bushel Exchange, LLC, Bushel also provides digital payment solutions to its customers. These solutions improve operational efficiency, deliver crucial insights, and increase flexibility, enabling grain buyers, processors, ag retailers, ag lenders and farmers to adapt and expand their operations. Bushel now powers more than 3,500 grain and ag retail facilities, representing more than 50% of U.S. and Canadian grain origination. Over 100,000 farmers use Bushel’s technology, making it one of the largest technology networks in U.S. agribusiness. Bushel also meets SOC 2 Type II standards, ensuring robust data security. 

Bushel was recently awarded “AgTech Finance Platform of the Year” in the fifth annual AgTech Breakthrough Awards program conducted by AgTech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies and products in the global agricultural and food technology markets today.