The Perfect Partnership, Farm Accountants and Farm Accounting Software
The top farm accountants wholeheartedly accept and use farm accounting software because it makes them and their clients more efficient more of the time. When each individual, the farmer, the accountant, or their bookkeepers input the factual details correctly into the farm accounting software program or service – something a caveman can be trained to do, the output is accurate and gives the farm accountant the data they need to do their most important job.
Filing taxes, creating P&L statements, doing the work required to create audited balance sheets and all the tax prepration work farm accountants do – well those are simply tasks. Their job is more than that. It is to take care of their clients with insights, strategies, and support from their viewpoint as both an accountant and as a confidant.
A common farm accountant keeps track of the funds, files the various reports with the separate agencies and entities the farmer is involved with. A ordinary farm accountant spends a large percentage of their time in compliance – defense and putting out fires.
Prominent farm accountants on the other hand, the type of advisor every leading farmer should be looking for, uses compliance as it was intended, to report on what has happened – and they use farm accounting software to slim down the amount of time it takes, while remaining as accurate as it is possible to be.
Popular farm accountants zero in their efforts on the offence – doing the planning, directly or indirectly, in advance that will make the next round of reporting more agreeable than the last and the next even more so and so on and so on.
A popular farm accountant is above all an advocate and advisor to their clients. They know, for example that when two or more brothers/cousins etc. are in a business or on the farm together – that there will be problems.
Invariably those challenges involve funds, show me the money is often heard out behind the barn. And since one sister can’t pick up and leave – taking her land with her, and move to the other end of the county and start over, the top accountant will lend a hand to help them discuss creative ways to handle the checking account problems for example so the whole farm doesn’t sink because of a conflict about dollars. The accountant is ever vigilant, on the look out for any trickery with the farm’s property and resources too.
Whether estate taxes, federal and/or state inheritance taxes etc. are part of the equation or not – cash is still going to be required when one of the principles of the farm dies. There must be enough funds, without bankrupting the farm, to buy out the heirs of a dead partner so the farm can go on and so their family gets a fair return for their life’s do the job.
Leading farm accountants will recognize when it is essential to reorganize the farm in order to shift some of the farm’s growing importance to the next generation in anticipation of the farm gets too big for one or the other partner to buy.
And the prominent farm accountant has contacts they trust – so the farmer can trust them too, who have extensive private knowledge in matters of estate planning, succession strategies, management transfer etc. And it is their job to emphasize that the farmer talks to these specialists!
Every farmer, even if he or she does plans to live forever, must have an exit strategy. Popular farm accountants are key advisors who assist the farmer know how much money in the bank account they will need to live on, how ever so many dollars from the gross revenues of the farm that will take, and where will the money come from.
They can help the farmer select assets that can be liquidated today – with some of the proceeds set aside for retirement and the rest used to replace the land (for example) that was sold.
Successful farm accountants know the importance of making decisions regarding cash on hand, sooner rather than later – so less interest is paid and the farmer has longer to benefit from compound interest!
These are but of few examples of ways outstanding farm accountants spend their time for the benefit of their clients. Whenever they can harness the power of farm accounting software to crunch the numbers, giving them accurate instructions sooner, rather than later – they will jump at it.
If your farm accountant says that they “don’t believe in farm accounting software” or something irrationallike that – you need to find a new one. This joker is not ever going to be a top farm accountant for you. For them, possibly, since they are padding their bill – but for you, I don’t think so.
Farm accounting software combined with the services of outstanding farm accountants are a match made in heaven. The software essentially eliminates the time and cost of crunching the numbers – leaving the accountant to do what they are uniquely situated to do.
Recommended Reading
- Farm Accountants Serving America's Heartland
- Managing the Farm: The Top 10 Per Cent Is Timing
- New York Accounting Firm – A Feasible Way of Managing Accounting Work – Best Syndication
- Small Business Viral Marketing Tips, SES San Jose 2008
- Business Strategic Development For Farm Accountants
