Abstract: A livestock and material inventory system having a database storing inventory data, at least one data explorer operable to access predetermined portions of data in the database, and a graphical user interface operable to display data accessed by the at least one data explorer to a user is provided. The graphical user interface includes a first window operable to display a hierarchical tree structure representation of the inventory data, and a second window operable to display a data summary associated with a selected node in the hierarchical tree structure.