By Alan Miller Let’s consider one windshield metric that I first learned to appreciate in the early years of the farm financial crisis of the 1980s. That financial measure is capital debt repayment margin (CDRM). This windshield metric can help provide direction where the farm balance sheet still looks great,

By Alan Miller Future accounting information is inherently valuable for decision-making because it is so relevant to the decisions we need to make now. Forecasted, projected, budgeted, or whatever you want to call it, future accounting information is never more valuable than when the economics of farming are in transition.

By Scotty Elston It is inevitable as a producer you will be faced with adversity, whether weather-related events, volatile markets, labor issues, regulatory burdens, or perhaps farm policy shifts. If you are faced with a substantial financial loss in your farming or ranching operation, what should you do when it

By Carroll Merry In the motion picture Close Encounters of the Third Kind, there’s a scene near the end where the humans are using sound and lights to communicate with the alien mother ship. When the alien craft takes over total control of the computers, one of the scientists comments

By Kieth Raynor On January 21, 2016 the Farm Financial Standards Council will once again team up with the staff from Farm Futures magazine and host an Ag Finance Boot Camp in St. Louis. If you have not attended one of these in the past, I strongly encourage you to

By Jim Casler When considering benchmark data, the three important items to consider are accuracy, timeliness and applicability. The Benchmarking Part 2 article discussed accuracy of industry benchmarking data and the Benchmarking Part 3 article explored the timeliness of industry benchmarking data. The significance of using benchmark data that is

By Joe Kessie The Farm Financial Standards Council recommended using accrual earnings in 1991. Think about all the technology that has been adapted by farmers since that time. Even Round-Up-Ready soybeans were not introduced until 1996. That is why I am still amazed that after over 23 years of having

By Todd A. Doehring The Farm Financial Standards Council (FFSC) recommends 21 financial measures as part of its Financial Guidelines for Agriculture. A previous post looked at the Current Ratio (a measure of financial liquidity), and in this post we’re going to look at another measure of liquidity, “Working capital

By Stephen Severe Some of you who have a lot of gray in your hair will identify with this saying, the rest of you will wonder if the baby can actually go down the drain. Enterprise accounting is an ideal way to understand the strength and weaknesses of your operation.

By Jonathan D Shepherd Basic business structures include sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations (both C corporations and S corporations) and limited liability companies (LLC). LLCs are business structures recognized by state statutes that can be treated as a sole proprietorship, corporation, or partnership. There are many factors that should influence a