Farmers not including you in multi-million dollar conversations that impact the future of their farm? They might not believe you can handle the kind of scenario modelling they need—but you can. Here’s how.
Tired of reconciling the consequences of a major financial decision made by your row crop clients—instead of guiding them to the right one?
We’re guessing if you’re here, you’ve probably met a lot of farmers who’ve made decisions you don’t agree with. But when was the last time a client rang up to get advice before making a decision? For most American agricultural advisors and accountants, the answer might be a little uncomfortable.
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Mainly it’s perception, but that perception is guided by market conditions.
On the market side, the reality right now is that farmers haven’t had it this tough in over a decade. Profitability is the number one agribusiness priority across America (AgriWebb 2025), but everything’s working against that at the same time: input costs up 30-50%, interest expenses up over 6%, commodity prices down 10-20% … the list goes on (source).
“With the extreme volatility that we’ve seen, the high interest rates, it’s put pressure on our cash flow position,” said Jonathon Haralson, co-founder of Texas-based farm advisory firm Empire Ag in a recent Figured webinar. “A lot of these bankers are starting to retreat and walk back from agriculture.”
“They look at row crop farming and say, ‘Hey, I know that you’ve had an operating note of a million dollars for the last 5 or 6 years, but we’re going to cut you back to 750 and hope that you can do it. It’s not based on anything other than their gut reaction to what’s going on.”
Then on the perception side, farmers just don’t believe their accountants can provide the advice they need when they need it in this environment
Traditional farm accounting firms are fantastic at looking at what’s come before: historical data, tax returns, retrospective reports. But farmers need someone who can look ahead. They want to know if they should move on a new property purchase, lock in today’s price, buy that new combine, and all of those little decisions that affect profitability.
If their accountant’s response to the question is “I’ll come back to you in two months”, the opportunity will either have passed—or they’ll have made the decision alone.
Getting really good at scenario modelling in row crop accounting isn’t as hard as it might seem—though it’s not easy on traditional tools.
Legacy accounting platforms (like spreadsheets) might be fantastic at what they do, but they struggle with the agriculture side and it’s extremely time consuming to look ahead at what’s coming next. It’s not a failing of these platforms, they just weren’t built for this purpose.
If you want to get more efficient at looking ahead, you need ag-specific financial management software that can handle the job. Something with clear visibility into both the cash and production sides, which syncs automatically, calculates reports for you, and dramatically reduces the time needed to build scenarios.
For Jonathon and Holly at Empire Ag—along with 35,000+ farms globally—that software is Figured.
Learn more: Why Traditional Accounting Tools Are Failing US Farmers
Figured is the world’s most popular farm financial management platform.
Unlike other agri-specific accounting tools that require you to switch completely to their software, migrating your data and leaving behind trusted names like QuickBooks Online or Xero, Figured takes what you’ve already got and builds on it.
Essentially, it brings in all of that great financial information on the accounting side and lays it out next to farm-specific production data—the data that shows you what's really happening on the farm.
Plus, rather than awkwardly trying to define the nuances of farming within traditional accounting terms, Figured lays it out in a format that mimics how farmers actually work. Think 'corn production on Field 7’ rather than ‘fuel costs’.
Empire Ag is based in Texas but operates across four time zones, with 15,000 head and over 125,000 acres on their books.
What enables their efficient advisory approach:
At Empire Ag, their team blends expertise across farmers, accountants, and farm consultants, letting them play the role of bookkeeper, CFO, and advisor. Their advice is contextual and actionable, not generic, because they understand both the agronomic and financial implications of a decision.
But they also use Figured, in combination with QuickBooks, to ensure they can access the farm data they need, when they need it, in order to produce faster budgets, more flexible plans, and a variety of rolling scenario models.
"I can almost remember to the day when we discovered Figured,” said Holly Haralson, Empire Ag co-owner. “It was like, oh my gosh, this is it. And it's just been so nice to get off the spreadsheets, get off the pen and paper, get off the napkins, and actually be able to put some useful tools and information out there that you rely on and that you have confidence in."
“ I compare that to where we started 5 years ago,” added Jonathon. “We had a lot of spreadsheets and we had a lot of data, and you would ask for information from clients but it might take a month or two months to gather this stuff up. Whereas now, it’s instantaneous. We can look in there and say, ‘Hey, are you on track or are you not?’ Or ‘what are you thinking on your projections for this year?’”
Figured's scenario planning starts with live data.
As we mentioned above, the platform connects directly to accounting tools like QuickBooks Online, pulling in all transactions automatically so they sit side by side with production and inventory information.
From there, Figured lets you create a "status quo" projection and then build variations to see what might happen in different contexts. What if corn prices drop 50 cents? What if your client wants to buy 500 acres? Plug it all in, check the consequences, and work with the client to make informed decisions so fast you can do it on the phone.
Use it to plan an expansion. Use it to model a succession plan. It can be 1 year, 5 years, 10 years in advance. Bring as much or as little data into the scenario as you like, then download it as a report at the click of a button to show your client, or their bank.
Jonathon, Holly, and the team had one young client approach them looking to buy out their dad and uncle for $1.2 million, taking over the farm.
Their goal was to “creatively finance” the deal so that it would get the client what he wanted, without leaving him “destitute”, as Jonathon described it, for the next 10 years. Using scenario modelling, they could test what kind of financial stress this would put the client under but also prove that it would maneuver him into a more profitable position.
The result
They had a plan, a goal to reach that plan, and could articulate that clearly—provably—with real farm financial data.
Want to learn more? Download our free guide below: