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John Richmond, Oban Station, Hawke's Bay

John Richmond, Oban Station, Hawke's Bay

More Time on the Land

"Knowing in real time where Oban's financial and livestock numbers are at is a great advantage. Now I can be out on the land with confidence that the financial side of the business is under control."

John Richmond recently took over the management of Oban Station in Hawke’s Bay, on behalf of family shareholders. His first financial year-end was a frustrating exercise, trying to collate the business’s financial and livestock information and make sense of it.

Allocating payments, re-creating a livestock reconciliation and confirming questions from his accountant was a manual and drawn-out process. He wanted a solution that allowed him to spend more time out on the land, and less time trying to make sense of his financials.

A shift to farming in the cloud

John then heard about Figured and Xero and was attracted by the fully online capability to update and share financial and livestock information with his accountant, consultant, banker and shareholders, from wherever they needed to work.

“Finding out that everything could work seamlessly together and that my accountant could log on at any time to check I was doing my bookwork and managing my tax properly was a relief.”

Working hand in hand with Xero, Figured provides John with a real-time picture of where the farm is at, and where it is heading in terms of profit and cash.

“What’s important to me now is being able to code payments and income on the run using Xero, and easily monitor my livestock trading plan, my budgeted expenditure and my forecast profit in Figured,” John explains.

Livestock reconciliation made simple

Livestock reconciliation is a huge farming operation, and a time-consuming process without the right tools. For John, stock reconciliation is now simple and streamlined.

“You need to know what you have on the farm at all times,” John explains. “Updating a spreadsheet is simply not efficient.

"The fact that Figured has this built in means that you literally can’t get it wrong - that’s a huge draw card”.


Make confident financial decisions

“Knowing in real time where Oban’s financial and livestock numbers are is a great advantage. Now I can be out on the land with confidence that the financial side of the business is under control.”