Your budget is rebuilt in Figured rather than imported as-is, but with an important caveat. Figured can import last year’s actuals from your accounting software directly into this year’s plans, so you don’t have to start from a blank grid.

Then, production information, where it exists, can be imported into the relevant production tracker, which you can also build from last year’s actuals. Once both are in place, you’ll have the bulk of what a spreadsheet budget would typically contain, already sitting in Figured before you’ve entered a single new line yourself.

It depends on how much history you're bringing across and how many farm activities need tracking, so there's no single answer that fits every farm. The technical side moves quickly; for example, connecting to Xero, MYOB, or QuickBooks Online takes minutes, and most processor and livestock app connections sync within about 10 minutes once verified.

The part that takes more care is getting the farm-specific setup right the first time. That's your chart of accounts, stock classes, and production trackers, configured to match how your farm actually runs.

For farmers, this is one reason we typically recommend getting set up via a Figured-certified partner — trying to do it without an adviser tends to mean a slower start and more things to unpick later. For accountants and advisers, our team can help you get set up.

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Yes. Figured shows one live version of the farm’s numbers, and everyone with access, whether that’s a farmer, trustee member, accountant, or bank, looks at the same one. There’s no one working from an emailed file that went out of date three weeks ago.

When you want a record of how the plan looked at a point in time, simply take a snapshot. Snapshots can’t be edited once saved, so they become a real, locked record of what the plan said on that day, which you can look at any time to compare in future.

Figured is built for the whole farming team, including farmers.

Most farms get the most out of Figured when both sides are using it. The farmer’s role is keeping the underlying data current, for example reconciling in the accounting software and recording farm activity as it happens. The accountant’s role is configuring the trackers, managing the planning and reporting, and handling the year-end work that needs their expertise.

When both sides are doing their part, the conversation moves from what happened last season to what’s happening right now — and what should happen next.

Figured’s Planning Grid is actually built to work a lot like spreadsheets. You enter forecasts cell by cell, budget on a cash or accrual basis, and structure accounts the way that suits the farm. That said, you can’t build an entirely custom layout from a blank sheet, because Figured’s structure is what enables production data, actuals, and reports to all connect to the same plan automatically.

If you’re used to formulas that combine financial and production numbers, the Planning Grid’s dynamic calculation tool covers the same ground. Instead of typing a fixed number into a cell, you can set an expense or income line as a percentage of another account, or as a dollar amount per hectare, per kgMS, or per stock unit — and the forecast updates automatically as those actuals change through the season.

Custom formulas, columns, and tables are also a major component of Reporting Studio, Figured’s AI-enabled custom report builder. Here, flexibility is the point, allowing you to build the report template that best suits your clients once, at the organisation level, and roll it out across individual farms with the numbers updating themselves.

Figured is priced as a monthly subscription per farm file, managed usually by the accountant. There are two tiers: Farm Reporter for real-time compliance reporting, and Farm Manager, which adds planning, cashflow forecasting, and variance reporting.

Accountants typically hold the subscription and manage it on behalf of their clients. How they pass that cost on — whether itemised separately or folded into advisory fees — is a practice decision. Most firms using Figured across a wider client portfolio find the subscription cost sits comfortably alongside the advisory fees the platform makes possible.

For a clear picture of what the right combination would cost for your farm team, visit our pricing page.