New farm business tools

Along with our helpline to call for advice and meetings to attend, the Scottish Farm Advisory Service has a wealth of online resources to support your business and to help it grow.  This week, we’ve launched a series of farm business tools that will provide the vital advice and data you need.

Understanding Farm Accounts

This interactive tool will show you how to use the information in your accounts to make better business decisions.

Before you can decide how best to take your business forward, you must assess its current performance.  There are three questions that your accounts can help you answer:

• How profitable is the business?
• How much is the business worth?
• How good is the cashflow?

Click here to use this tool: Understanding Farm Accounts

Liveweight Production

It is difficult to improve performance if you don’t know your starting point.  This tool aims to help mixed and drystock (beef and sheep) farmers calculate;

• Stocking rate per ha.
• The balance of beef and sheep on a farm.
• Liveweight (LWT) produced per ha.
• Total kilogrammes LWT produced annually.

This is an Excel based tool so must be downloaded to a laptop that can run this software.  It can be saved on your computer for future use.

Download the Liveweight Production Calculator here

Whole farm benchmarks

The Scottish Farm Business Survey is completed annually to accurately measure the performance of the main farm types found in Scotland. Check how your own business compares to the benchmarks by downloading Whole Farm Benchmarks.

Enterprise gross margins

Comparing the performance of your enterprises against national performance levels can help you identify opportunities for improvement. Click on Enterprise Gross Margins for the latest Scottish costings.

Cash flow budgeting

Farmers that do a cash flow budget generally perform better because the process helps them think through the year ahead. How many calves are available to sell? How much fertiliser to buy? What impact will draining that bottom field have on the bank balance? These are the types of important questions doing an annual cash flow budget forces you to think through. Getting the support of your bank manager is far more likely if they can see the budget behind your plan.

To see our cash flow budget tools, click here.

Scottish farm output prices

One to one support

If you want have any questions regarding these tools then you can speak to one of our trained advisers about any issue by phoning the helpline on 0300 323 0161, or explore this website in more detail.