"It makes your finances and livestock so much easier to handle - giving you up-to-date information allowing you to make better decisions."
Will Foley is a sheep and beef farmer from Hawke’s Bay who was looking for a comprehensive farm financial management system to look at his whole farming picture – not just the cashflow. Now, Figured is giving him up-to-date information that allows him to make more informed decisions.
“A key part of the profit and loss is your change in livestock values over the period and your depreciation,” Will explains. “This is where the cashbook, livestock reconciliation and balance sheet all need to interact to produce meaningful and beneficial reports - our old system wasn’t about to do that.”
Will had heard about the advances Xero was making in accounting software. He went along to a demonstration of #FarmingInTheCloud put on by BDO in Napier and liked what he saw.
The power of the cloud
One of the key benefits of switching his farm financial management system to Figured and Xero was the fact that it gave him one integrated cloud-based platform that gave him and his accountant access to farm data, wherever he was working.
“The fact that I can access my information from wherever I am on any device is a big plus."
"In the past if I was asked a question by someone in the field I would have to say I’ll check that when I get back to office.”
Financial performance at a glance
Will tells us that the profit and loss report in Figured is definitely his favourite feature. “The Profit and Loss is a very powerful financial report all on the one page as you have the ability to see actual vs budget month, actual YTD vs budget YTD and then revised FY forecast vs budget,” Will explains.
“By producing this each month we can see exactly where we are in relation to the plan."
"We can make decisions accordingly, whether we are behind or ahead and assess the current position on the likely effect of the full year result.”
Simple & seamless reconciliation
The livestock tracker in Will’s Figured account automatically syncs with his Xero account, saving him time and reconciliation headaches.
“After you have entered your budgeted and actual livestock transactions almost everything else is automated, making payments and bank reconciliation very easy."
"Not only that, if any errors occur, Figured and Xero won’t reconcile and you will be notified straight away.”
Collaboration with the farming team
With Figured, the whole farming team can be on the same page, working collaboratively to make sound financial decisions based on real-time information - without anyone even having to leave the office.
With on-demand access to financial reporting, Figured has allowed Will to take a proactive approach to his finances, working with his banker to plan and budget for the future.
“I am in a growth phase of my business, so to get my banker on board with financing, I need detailed and accurate reports to produce comprehensive forecasts of the business.”
What would Will say to other farmers thinking of giving Figured a go?
“It may seem a bit daunting at first but once you get up to speed with Xero and Figured, it makes your finances and livestock so much easier to handle – giving you up-to-date information that allows you to make more informed decisions.”