The Farm Financial Standards Council has developed and released a 17-page Implementation Guide to assist non-accounting individuals in developing sound financial reports. It is available free of charge and is designed to be used in tandem with the Financial Guidelines and Management Accounting Guidelines documents available through the Council.

The document is designed to assist in developing sound financial statements on agricultural operations.

“The first obstacle to adoption is often expressed as the question, ‘How do I get started moving beyond basic, mandatory tax records to meaningful financial reporting’?” said Jeff Bushey, CPA, a managing partner with Nietzke & Faupel, PC, an accounting firm in Pigeon, Michigan. “Most agricultural producers and lenders are already using some system to collect and report financial information with farm record books or record keeping software programs which are designed to provide information for two purposes: reporting federal income taxes, and; securing a loan from a financial institution.” 

The second obstacle is farmers and ranchers are generally not accountants.

“The new Implementation Guide is a simple way to learn how to use the Financial Guidelines. It’s written for a farmer using everyday terms,” Bushey said. “The Financial Guidelines explain how to produce useful financial information.  The Implementation Guide is a road map of how to get there.” 

This publication leads non-accountants in an abbreviated implementation of the Guidelines by applying a checklist approach and discussion of implementation issues.  This checklist enables users to assess the information needed at the various stages of implementation and the benefits and costs associated with moving to each successive stage.

“Once they categorize their current level of farm records users can then begin advancing at their own pace through up to four stages of implementation,” he said.  “For example, Stage I only requires a cash basis tax return, Stage II adds a market value balance sheet, Stage III incorporates cost basis valuation and Stage IV completes the process with double-entry accounting records.”

“The Implementation Guide suggests that producers don’t have to go all-in to benefit from partially implementing the fundamental financial reporting concepts discussed in the Financial Guidelines and that the recommendations are likely to be implemented in stages,” said retired Purdue University Extension Specialist and CPA Alan Miller.

A level of commitment will be required to achieve meaningful results, Miller said.  These commitments will often require changes in daily, or at minimum weekly, operating procedures.

“Family members and employees must also be committed to the timeliness, accuracy and discipline in gathering information and coding transactions to lay the groundwork for improved financial control and decisions,” he said. “Each producer must ultimately determine to what extent they will receive additional net benefits from adopting more of the recommendations.”

As farmers implement the Guidelines they can begin benefitting in these areas:

“A fundamental concept of financial reporting is that accounting period profitability can only be measured accurately on an accrual basis. Cash basis income tax returns are not indicative of farm profitability,” Miller said.  “The net benefit of moving to the next stage --- accrual-adjusted financial reports to assess farm profitability and financial condition — will be a huge improvement in the quality of information available for decision-making.”

Both the Financial Guidelines for Agriculture and the Management Accounting Guidelines for Agriculture are available as pdf files that can be purchased at http://www.ffsc.org/. The Implementation Guide is available at no charge on the web site.

Source: Farm Financial Standards Council