The farmer-accountant relationship has worked for decades, but today’s climate is a lot more complex than it used to be. In response, a small and growing group of Australian accountants are working very differently—and the results are hard to ignore.

For most farmer-accountant relationships across Australia, the story runs on a simple annual cycle: tax time arrives, do the paperwork, see you again next year.

It’s a relationship that might seem like it works well, but in today’s volatile climate it’s showing its limitations. The compliance calendar is built around deadlines, not decisions. Farmers run on the latter, and those can happen at any moment.

A small but growing number of Australian accountants are starting to work differently, building year-round relationships that keep the conversation going beyond tax time. They’re becoming genuine partners in the farm business—not just a compliance function getting in touch once or twice a year.

Here's what that looks like, and why it matters for both farmers and accountants.

Why This Relationship Doesn’t Already Exist (and Why It Should)

The most common reason accountants don't offer proactive advisory to livestock clients is a common belief that it isn't useful—that livestock is too volatile to advise on ahead of time. If you don’t know that beef prices will have dropped 30% by the end of the year, is there much value in providing advice—and will it even be useful?

We challenge that belief.

When you look at the core of the problem, volatility isn’t the main issue. The issue is speed. Markets will always shift, and in those moments farmers need input quickly—the plan has to change, sometimes over the phone, while still maintaining its integrity.

Increasingly, farmers are valuing advisers who already know their operation, who are a genuine part of the farm team. They already have live, continuous data, and they can respond very quickly when volatility creates a new need. Their tools let them model new scenarios that update as the year unfolds, and they’ve built their practice around the idea of maintaining long-term, proactive relationships.

Farmers get better value from their accountant, making better business decisions as a result. Accountants maintain higher-value relationships.

What Changes When You Build Proactive Relationships?

→ For farmers...the change is felt in how decisions get made. Instead of figuring out major financial decisions alone, you have an adviser who already knows your operation, already has the data, and can lend you their specialist expertise to work through the best options. It's the difference between reactive guesswork and evidence-based confidence.

→ For accountants...the revenue case is straightforward. Xero/Figured research shows that farmer value perception of their accountant lifts from 23% to 83% when advisory is added, along with an average revenue uplift of 198%.

Beyond the numbers, you also build a different kind of practice: deeper client relationships, more challenging work for your team, and a service that stands out from the competition.

Learn more: How to Increase Your Value to Clients as an Australian Agri Accountant

What Proactive Relationships Actually Look Like

“The farms that are doing really well right now in either good or tough conditions aren't necessarily the biggest farms or even the ones having the best seasons,” said Figured’s Lachie Thomas in a recent webinar on this topic, “it's really the ones where the whole team is connected and making smart decisions with their collective knowledge.”

A year-round farmer-accountant relationship runs on three proactive touchpoints, each triggered throughout the year by different scenarios:

• Scheduled strategic reviews are quarterly, accountant-led conversations anchored to the farm's annual decision rhythm rather than the tax calendar.
  
  “ We talk to our clients regularly,” said Tony Olsen, co-founder of Mackay-based Flor-Hanly in another recent webinar. “We at least like to catch up with our clients two to four times a year with strategic, structured meetings.”

• Responsive touchpoints are farmer-initiated. When there’s a decision to be made, they pick up the phone and call their accountant. Both parties access the live farm data (more on that below), check the farm’s current position, and talk about the options.

• Proactive outreach is accountant-initiated. Here, the accountant—while routinely monitoring the live data—notices something. It could be something going wrong (feed costs tracking 20% over budget), or a new opportunity (a cash position strong enough to revisit a deferred equipment purchase). Either way, they get on the phone before having to be asked.

This last type of touchpoint is one of the least common, but one of the most valuable.

Billing as a Barrier

You’ll notice that in a proactive relationship, both parties need to feel free to talk to each other when it’s relevant, not necessarily when it’s scheduled. For some firms, this has necessitated shifting away from hourly billing—if every call triggers an invoice, everyone on the team thinks twice before reaching out.

"When you're not billing by the hour, you can actually pick up the phone and call clients because you want to, not because you're worried about whether or not they're going to get a bill for that,” said Emma Olsen, Flor-Hanly’s other co-founder.

Accountants—it's worth noting that this is one piece of a broader capacity puzzle. Adding advisory services to an existing compliance workload isn't simple, and pricing is only part of it. If you're wondering how firms like Flor-Hanly have solved that greater problem without just hiring more people, we’ve got another article for you to read:

Learn more: Adding Advisory Services When You’re Already Maxed Out on Compliance

What Does Flor-Hanly Do?

"For the clients that we work the closest with on a more regular basis, updating their Figured cashflows every time we catch up helps them see whether they're going to be able to stay within their financing facilities, their overdraft, etc."

"When you sit down with them and say, 'you were planning to sell steers next month, are you still going to do that?', things might change. And by doing that on an ongoing basis, they might say 'Oh no, it'll be now.' So we can quickly change the cashflow and then look at the impact it has on the short-term funding arrangements—rather than just reacting and saying 'we'll run out of money, we've got to sell something'."

"If we're doing that and talking with their bank—ideally their bank manager is also in those meetings—then the bank can say, 'yeah, we'll give you short-term finance to carry on' now that the sale program's changed, because obviously you're going to get better money when you sell them from the extra weight gain. They're not reacting, they're planning and they're getting the help they need to get through."

- Tony Olsen

The Tools That Make it Possible

None of these three touchpoints work without continuous visibility over the farm's finances. For the relationship to work effectively and efficiently, the data has to be there already when either party picks up the phone.

To get there, farmers and their accountants need to move on from traditional accounting tools (like spreadsheets), to a connected system of three platforms:

1. A cloud accounting platform, like Xero, MYOB, or QuickBooks Online
2. A livestock management app, like AgriWebb
3. Figured, which pools that data together so you can access it in one place on either end of the phone

Closing the Strategic Planning Gap

Ready to take the next step? Then it’s time to turn to our free guide, “Closing the Strategic Planning Gap: Proactive Relationships”. Inside you’ll find:

• A detailed walkthrough of all three touchpoint types
• Figured's Reporting Studio in action—automated monthly reporting to the whole farm team
• How Flor-Hanly structures its client contact throughout the year, and what they talk about