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Business Skills for New Entrants

Agricultural business (agri-business) management is essential when building or developing an agricultural business.  By using tools such as cashflows, accounts, record keeping, and benchmarking, enterprises and business performance can be analysed.  This can lead to reducing costs, increasing efficiency and profitability.

Business skills aid informed business decisions and equip people with the skills for applying for tenancies, joint ventures, borrowing finance, preparing for interviews, etc.

We have numerous resources including:

Starting Up In Business

This guidance note explores the type of business to set up, taxation, insurance and pensions, this has been written by a professional accountant.

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Foundations For Success

Your experience is something every lender, accountant, solicitor and potential landlord or partner will want to know.  This guidance note aids in thinking about your skills, decision making, your strategy and finally an action plan.

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Business Planning & Financial Management

Creating a business plan is a challenging task that requires various elements including business objectives, financial projections, experience, forward planning, an operation plan and a management team.  This guidance note will aid in creating a business plan.

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Succession & Business Structures

When setting up a business you will need to decide what structure is best including sole trader, partnership, limited company or a limited liability company, this guidance note explains the key attributes to each structure.  This has been written by a professional accountant.

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Taxation In Agricultural Business - A Summary

This guidance note summarises taxation including, income tax, corporation tax, national insurance, VAT and making tax digital.  This has been written by a professional accountant.

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Tax Basics for New Entrants

This was an interactive webinar, covering, the basic points surrounding business structure and income tax for new entrants to farming George Gauley from the farm advisory service was joined by SAC Consulting rural business consultant Chloe McCulloch.  This meeting was hosted in January 2020.  For the most up to date tax information always speak with an accountant.

Employing People

Employing people can be a daunting thought, or is it just common sense? Employees are most firms’ greatest assets, so it’s worth spending a bit of time making sure you get it right. This note summarises some of the main points to consider.

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Marketing & Negotiations

Marketing is about going to the market to identify what it wants rather than just changing something you already make or selling something you hope the market will take, this guidance note will take you through the marketing process.

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Acquiring Farm Machinery or Livestock - The Procurement Process

Obtaining finance is often a limiting factor for many new entrants, but there are methods or using finance be it for livestock or machinery.  This guidance note discusses the procurement process.

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