The Farmer’s Office: Tools, Tips and Templates to Successfully Manage a Growing Farm Business

290 Pages·2016·5.41 MB·English

by  Julia Shanks

US/CAN $24.95 FARMING / BUSINESS
Farmers as entrepreneurs –
learn to manage your growing business
[This book] will help everyone from beginners to experienced growers who need to understand the busi-
ness of farming. A must-have for anyone running, or thinking of running, a farm business.
— Andrew Mefferd, Editor, Growing for Market magazine
Julia Shanks shares solid advice about how to make your farm work financially.
A definite must-read for any serious small-scale grower.
— Jean-Martin Fortier, author, The Market Gardener
You decided to become a farmer because you love being outside, working the land and
making a difference in the way we eat and farm.
And when you decided to become a farmer, you also became an entrepreneur and business
person. In order to be ecologically and financially sustainable, you must understand the basics of
accounting and bookkeeping, and learn how to manage a growing business.
Author Julia Shanks distills years of teaching and business consulting with farmers into this
comprehensive, accessible guide. She covers all aspects of launching, running, and growing a
successful farm business through effective bookkeeping and business management, providing
tools to make managerial decisions, applying for loans or other financing, and offering general
business and strategy advice for growing a business. to suTOO
Whether you’ve been farming for many years or just getting started, The Farmer’s Office cL
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gives you the tools needed to think like an entrepreneur and thoughtfully manage your business FAes, T
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This book is just what so many of today’s new farmers need to face the SaD
— Sara Decnhta, lcloefnoguensd oefr a &g rciocourldtuinrea taonr,d Y tohurnivge A!grarians INESSnage a gr TEMPL
This book will become the go-to business guide for many, many farmers! owAT
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— Jonathan W. Jaffe, VP/Farm Business Consultant, Farm Credit East gS
Julia Shanks works with food and agricultural entrepreneurs to achieve financial and
operational sustainability. She has worked with a range of beginning and established farmers,
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providing assistance and coaching to allow them to launch, stabilize, and grow their ventures.
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Together with Brett Grohsgal, she is also coauthor of The Farmers Market Cookbook.
A TOOLS, TIPS AND TEMPL ATES
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to successfully manage a growing
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www.newsociety.com
J U L I A S H A N KS
Praise for The Farmer’s Office
I keep telling people, starting your own small farm is not easy; to make it
work, you need — p erhaps more than anything else — t o learn strong business
skills. This is the key element that The Farmer’s Office brings to the table; in
it Julia Shanks shares solid advice about how to make your farm work finan-
cially. A definite must-read for any serious small-scale grower.
— Jean-Martin Fortier, author, The Market Gardener
Julia Shanks has distilled essential lessons that go beyond business planning
to the financial know-how of operating a profitable farm. I will recommend
her book to our clients.
—Dorothy Suput, Executive Director, The Carrot Project
Managing books and accounts is one of the weakest links I see with farmers
today, and The Farmer’s Office comes at a perfect time to help. There’s so
much talk about production and even marketing, but not enough on how to
stay organized and manage the books. The Farmer’s Office will be a great asset
to farmers of all shapes and sizes.
—Curtis Stone, author, The Urban Farmer
Julia Shanks takes all the key topics to cover and lays them out in a logical
order. She then uses stories and examples to bring home why it is so im-
portant. This book will become the go-to business guide for many, many,
many farmers!
—Jonathan W. Jaffe, VP/Farm Business Consultant, Farm Credit East
The Farmer’s Office hits the mark in addressing the business needs of farmers
everywhere. Julia Shanks shares her business experience and real world fi-
nancial training in a meaningful and farmer friendly format. While a farmer’s
footprints may be the best manure, The Farmer’s Office is a key asset to the
farm’s bottom line.
—Richard Wiswall, farmer and author,
The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook
This is the real story of starting and managing a farm, albeit the unsexy one
that can lead to long term thrive-ability. Julia Shanks demystifies managing
the business of farming one chapter at a time. This book is just what so many
of today’s new farmers need to face the challenges of agriculture and thrive!
— Sara Dent, cofounder & coordinator, Young Agrarians
I don’t know anyone who got into farming because they liked business; but
anyone who wants to keep farming needs basic business skills, including re-
cord keeping. [This book] will help everyone from beginners to experienced
growers who need to understand the business of farming. A must-have for
anyone running, or thinking of running a farm business.
—Andrew Mefferd, Editor, Growing for Market magazine
Julia Shanks has helped our farm immeasurably. We are better at growing
diverse foods than at figuring out if specific crops make us money, break
even, or lose money. Indeed, I am sometimes even afraid of figuring out
detailed profit realities all by myself. Julia’s economic analyses and insights
into how farms work have been really empowering, and The Farmer’s Office is
simple, easily digested, and brings to life even the sometimes scary subject of
how to run a successful farm business. This book is a must-have for all new
farmers, and even we grizzled experienced growers will gain hugely from a
cover-to-cover read!
—Brett Grohsgal, Even’ Star Organic Farm
Julia has a uniquely comprehensive skill set that is especially beneficial to
the Farmer Entrepreneur. Her deep understanding of farmers, business, and
the business of farming make The Farmer’s Office both highly functional and
extremely informative.
—Susan Parke-Sutherland, Wingate Farm
THE
fa r m e r’s
OFFICE

THE
fa r m e r’s
OFFICE
TOOLS, TIPS AND TEMPLATES
TO SUCCESSFULLY MANAGE A GROWING
FARM BUSINESS
JULIA SHANKS
Copyright © 2016 by Julia Shanks.
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Diane McIntosh.
All cover images © iStock. Chapter image © Raven/Adobe Stock.
Printed in Canada. First printing September 2016.
Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of The Farmer’s Office
should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.
To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America)
1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com
Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:
New Society Publishers
P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada
[phone]
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Shanks, Julia, author
The farmer’s office : tools, tips and templates to successfully manage
a growing farm business / Julia Shanks.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
isbn 978-0-86571-816-6 (paperback) — isbn 978-1-55092-610-1 (ebook)
1. Farm management. 2. Farms, Small — Management. I. Title.
S561.S53 2016 630.68 C2016-903937-4
C2016-903938-2
New Society Publishers’ mission is to publish books that contribute in
fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with
the least possible impact upon the environment, in a manner that models that vision.
To all the farmers
who have demonstrated that it’s possible
to be both financially and ecologically sustainable.
You give us faith that we can build a more
sustainable and just food system.

Contents
Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Foreword, by Richard Wiswall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
How to Use This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
1. Introduction — Why Bother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Building the Foundation: The Financial Statements
and Basic Accounting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3. Planning Your New Venture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4. The Business Planning Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5. Financing Your New Venture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
6. Setting up QuickBooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
7. Day-to-Day: Using QuickBooks for Cash Management . . . . . 103
8. Digging into the Numbers and Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
9. Stabilizing Your Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
10. Growing Your Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Appendix 1: Sample Income Statement Accounts . . . . . . . 201
Appendix 2: The Business Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Appendix 3: Sample Chart of Accounts for Livestock
and Vegetable Farms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Appendix 4: Financial Projections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Appendix 5: Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
A Note About the Publisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
ix