Market swings, pricing fluctuations, the weather—you can't predict any of it. But what if that didn't matter? Here's why volatility doesn't have to be a barrier to good forward planning in livestock farming.
People often tell us that livestock is too unpredictable to plan. It's a big part of why so many Australian farmers make major financial decisions alone, and why accountants often don’t offer agri advisory services.
Well, maybe it's true that the weather, pricing, and market volatility are unpredictable. But that's not actually the problem. A plan doesn't need to be right in October to be useful in March. What matters is whether it can flex—whether you can change a price assumption, or adjust a stocking decision, and immediately see what that does to the farm’s cash position. A rigid forecast filed away in April doesn’t have much value. A living one that moves with the farm provides value all year round.
The trouble is, most practices don't have the latter. So no one offers it. So no one asks for it.
Tony Olsen, co-founder of Mackay-based firm Flor-Hanly, has heard the "too unpredictable to plan" argument from clients his whole career—and he disagrees.
"All accountants have had plenty of clients tell them that budgeting's a waste of time, planning's a waste of time, because you can't predict the future,” he said in a recent webinar. “But that's not the point. If we're doing good modelling or forecasts based on what we know, it'll definitely help them make decisions and plan ahead."
Volatility isn't the argument against planning—it's the argument for it. When the farm team has access to a living forecast which adapts to changing conditions, they can test decisions before making them regardless of what the market is doing.
Most practices have something that looks like forward planning: a budget built at the start of the year, glanced at once or twice, and revisited at EOFY when the numbers come in.
The intention is right, but if that plan can’t move with the farm, and it’s barely used throughout the year, it’s less a planning tool and more a historical document with a future date on it.
Tony Olsen describes the difference between the two types of planning this way: "Long-term strategic planning is like driving with your high beam lights on. And the short-term cashflow, month-to-month modelling is driving with your low beam lights on to get through the year."
Both matter, and a dynamic forward plan connects the two—a living forecast built from last year's actuals, updated automatically as transactions flow in, with scenarios that can be modelled the same day a decision needs to be made.
Let’s look at a real scenario. Back in 2023, beef prices dropped significantly. For many farmers, there was pressure to sell before prices got any lower—decisions had to be made, and there wasn’t always time to wait around for different scenarios to be modelled in an Excel spreadsheet.
But, those farmers who had clear visibility over their data, and a system that enabled fast, flexible scenario modelling, could run through their options over the phone—hold, sell, or even buy at the trough.
Beef prices recovered 29.8% from 2024-25. The farmers who held made fortunes. Their secret wasn’t better market knowledge or luck, it was their clear financial picture and sound, evidence-based advice.
“I’ve been able to use [forward planning] to prepare a 10-year board projection. And I’ve been able to do that pretty simply by putting in my expected sales and how much I’m going to produce, what those prices and expenses are—make things fluctuate just to see what it looks like. And it’s really helped me a lot.”
“It’s probably going to be the piece of information that I’ll use to get a loan.”
- Tim Fowler, Rosewood Pastoral, NSW
Remember, the bank is also on your farm team. When they’re left out of the planning conversation, they’re stuck making lending decisions with out-of-date figures. It slows things down again.
Instead, when a farmer and their accountant walk into a bank meeting with live scenarios, the conversation pivots from talking about what happened previously (and guessing what might happen next), to discussing what the team has already planned, stress-tested against different scenarios, and grounded in real farm insights.
With this live, dynamic data, you can better prove that the farm will be able to handle a new or updated loan, and that it has a clear pathway to profitability even as things change.
Traditional accounting tools can’t generally handle this kind of flexible, forward-looking work. They’re excellent at looking backwards, but they aren’t built with the connections in place to take data from one place and feed it live into another.
So, good forward plans in farming run on three connected tools:
With continuous data flowing in, Figured can take both the financial and production side of the farm and quickly plot out what might happen next, even dynamically updating as conditions change.
When it comes to building budgets and modelling scenarios, you can do all the work yourself—or let your tools do the heavy lifting for you.
We know things aren’t easy in accounting, with staffing issues a major concern among most firms across the country.
Part of the purpose of switching to modern, agri-specific financial management tools is to relieve some of that workload, freeing up your partners and other key personnel to have more time for higher-value work.
Adding advisory to a busy practice isn’t easy, but a focus on better tools plus a rethink of pricing, staffing, and other processes can all play a role in making it not only possible, but highly valuable.
Learn more: Adding Advisory Services When You’re Already Maxed Out on Compliance
Ready to take the next step? Then it’s time to turn to our free guide, “Closing the Strategic Planning Gap: Forward Planning”. Inside you’ll find:
Forward planning is also the second step in a three-part framework built around how livestock farming works: including continuous visibility and building proactive relationships. To maximise success, you can’t just do one—you need all three.
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