Most ag accounting practices are still running a once-a-year rhythm, built on the tax work that is getting faster and cheaper thanks to AI. But a growing number are turning those tax meetings into the first conversation of a more resilient year-round relationship...
For ag accounting practices built on compliance, there's pressure on the horizon.
The technical side of accounting is changing fast, with software and AI preparing returns, reconciling books, and even answering technical questions in a fraction of the time they once took.
But if clients start paying less for the same work ... what will they pay their ag accountants for in future?
For most farm clients, the relationship with their accountant still runs mainly on the tax calendar. They come in at tax time, sometimes with a shoebox of receipts, file, and then disappear until next season.
The thing is, though, there's a whole year of decisions being made before that where their accountant isn't in the room, so they don't have the advice that could be making or breaking their business in really key moments.
"I tell my clients all of the time, 'Listen, if I'm doing my job right, the tax return should be just the pin in the project at the end of the year, and there should be no surprises,'" said Dr. Christine Gervais, co-founder of Cultivate Consulting, in a Figured-sponsored Insightful Accountant webinar.
"We should have had enough conversations during the year so that when we get to that final document creation, it's just the necessary evil. We already know everything that's on there, and we controlled and intentionally made decisions around that."
That's the kind of structure that is set to resist the pressures that AI is placing on the tax-only work. Instead of having one meeting a year, it's about transforming existing planning meetings into the first of a year-round relationship.
Also in the accountant's favor is the fact that you have something few other service providers have, and those qualities - described recently by Pinion's Lance Woodbury at Adams Brown Beyond the Harvest 2026 - can help you stand out against cheaper tax alternatives.
You have access, talking to the owner every year.
You have visibility, seeing the business, family, and the money side by side, which means you can see problems coming years before anyone else does.
And you have credibility. Clients trust the objectivity of their accountant. That, and many practices work with the same family for generations.
So you have the roots of a great advisory relationship, and the business case. How do you get from one to the other?
If clients only see you once a year, add a tax planning meeting in the fall, after harvest. Farmers already see the sense in meeting before they file, and the busiest part of their year has passed, so most will be open to just one extra catch-up.
Fall also matters for cashflow. In farming every month counts, and cashflow problems spotted in October still leave time to act before planting.
Open the meeting with one good question. One of these two will get you started:
"It's starting small, so like adding an extra meeting and simply posing a question," said Erin Arick, senior account executive at Figured, on the same webinar.
"It's almost a carrot, because a lot of times they're gonna be like, 'I don't know what's making me money.' And then you say, 'Great. Why don't we spend 20 more minutes, not 20 hours, and find out what part of your business is being the most profitable?' And so you're leading with that advisory insight in the conversation."
When you start to dig into those questions, try to answer them with the farm's own numbers. That way, you're basing discussion on what's actually happening on the farm - right now - as opposed to events which happened six months or a year ago, the last time someone updated the spreadsheet.
That's Where Figured Comes In
Figured is the world's largest agri financial management platform, which pulls in live actuals from QuickBooks Online or Xero, puts that alongside today's production activity, and splits the data across enterprises. You'll see, in real time, which part of the operation is carrying the farm, and where cash is tight.
Farmers can see their own numbers too, so you can work together in one live dashboard. Figured is a shared platform, and each member of the farming team, from the farmer to the lender, gets access based on their role.
Learn more: Planning in Figured
If you're not in Figured yet or the farmer is just getting started, then before the meeting ends, collect everything you need to build their first budget:
If that farmer's relationship with the practice was only compliance, the charge would have sat there until early January or February.
From there, that tax planning meeting becomes the first in a year of check-ins that follow the farm's own calendar. Meet to agree the budget before planting, reforecast mid-season when prices or the weather move, and review at harvest, which sets up next year's tax planning meeting.
Helping this go further is that when farmers see you throughout the year, they start calling while the big decisions are still open. You have time to help them make faster, smarter business decisions because you were in the trusted advisor seat.
No compliance tool can replace that relationship. Instead, those same ag tools augment the work you're doing.
To learn more about the three-level framework that sits behind a year-round relationship, download our free guide, Farm Planning and Budgeting Made Easy.