New Financial Resource to Help Farmers

The developers of AgPlan and FINPACK are excited to announce a new financial resource to assist farm producers.

This new financial tool can be found by going to http://z.umn.edu/AgPlanFinancials. The tool helps producers create a balance sheet by breaking the balance sheet sections into easier to enter pieces, such as machinery and equipment or loans. That information is transferred into a complete balance sheet which can be printed as a PDF and uploaded to AgPlan, if you use AgPlan.

There is also an income statement section for evaluating historical performance and a cash flows area where producers can project how their business plan will affect their financial health. After the information is entered into the Excel based spreadsheet, producers can view the Dashboard to quickly analyze their business health as well as see how they compare to the Farm Financial Standards Council ratios in the Scorecard tool. The scorecard is also a great way to compare their farm information with farms in the FINBIN database.

There is also a set of help videos available which can be watched in the resources tab of the Financial section of AgPlan or by clicking on the help video buttons within the spreadsheet.