Farmer as CFO
My friend Alex Tiller recently had a great post on how a farmer must be a good CFO in order to be a successful farmer in today’s complex financial world. As I quote him “Most ag producers are their own chief financial officer”.
Most farmers are doing this job right now, but many of them do not have the training to perform this function. As a CPA I have many years of this type of training and production, but you as a farmer, may not have any of this background.
For those of you in that situation, the Center for Farm Management , which is part of the University of Minnesota, has a new website to help you get that training. They have created a new online workshop series to help farmers understand how to read and use their financial statements to make you a more successful farmer.
This site will help you interprete your 4 major financial statements and 21 key financial measurements. It is a series of online videos that producuers can do at their own pace. There are several actual farms with data that you can use to benchmark and the service is free.
I would strongly recommend all farmers take a look at this site and take advantage of it. You can never learn too much and I even learn a little bit when i went through the courses.
Paul Neiffer is a certified public accountant and business advisor specializing in income taxation, accounting services, and succession planning for farmers and agribusiness processors. Paul is a principal with CliftonLarsonAllen in Walla Walla, Washington, as well as a regular speaker at national conferences and contributor at agweb.com. Raised on a farm in central Washington, he has been immersed in the ag industry his entire life, including the last 30 years professionally. Paul and his wife purchase an 180 acre ranch in 2016 and enjoy keeping it full of animals.
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