Coming Soon! Farm Financial Management Course

We are converting a recently held and well received training program into a self-directed on-line course.

Farm Financial Management: a 6-class course designed to provide food-producing farmers the knowledge and skill to better understand and use financial information to make sound business decisions.

Classes:

1. Good Business Practices: how to reduce overall workload by working smarter. It includes a suggested Chart of Accounts, useful non-financial records, and a list of considerations to start determining your own “best” scale of operation.

2. Financial Literacy: how to record financial data and interpret what your accountant presents in your Financial Statements and how to understand the Key Ratios your banker uses to determine your interest rates and debt capacity.

3. Calculating Full Cost of Production: easily decide which products to promote, which to raise prices, and which to cease production. After comparing with benchmarks of similar operations, you will know where to look for more efficiencies. 

4. Setting Prices and Marketing to Optimize Sales: how to ensure reasonable margins, smooth cash flow, raised profit, and increased equity.

5. Cash Flow Budget Projections: get realistic monthly estimates of cash availability. This assures that you have balanced all the cash elements of your business. When kept up to date, you (and your banker) can immediately foresee the impact of any unexpected challenges. 

6. Creating a Farm Business Plan is the most effective tool for supporting farm sustainability. Primarily prepared to clarify the ongoing Vision, Mission, Goals and Strategies of the owner(s), it is also a document for explaining the business to investors and lenders. It describes the Marketing Plan, appropriate Scale of the selected enterprise(s), Production and Labour Plans, Risk Analysis, and multi-year Financial Projections.