This project increased participants' management knowledge and
ability to identify production and financial risk based on analyzing benchmarks
of their farm/ranch enterprises. Regular, face-to-face instruction resulted in often
more than one participant per farm developing the skill to:
- Assign financial
transactions to their key enterprises,
- Close out their fiscal year
financials in preparation to complete a FINAN® enterprise analysis focusing on
key enterprise benchmarks,
- Analyze the FINAN® for variances of regional,
state, and national industry enterprise benchmarks,
- Based on benchmark
variances, develop strategies to favorably influence each business enterprise,
and
- Develop a matrix of important benchmarks to begin a historical
benchmarking trend analysis tool.
At the end of the project, 28
producers completed a FINAN® analysis, with 21 having enough quality (enough financial
and production detail) to submit their FINANs® to the National Farm Business
Management Database, FINBIN®. Twenty-eight
producer families and management teams acquired the ability to identify benchmark
variances and to incorporate enterprise plans into their future management. Face-to-face instruction facilitated
approximately 280 instructional activities during the project's duration. These instructional visits occurred as often
as monthly and were spread out quarterly for some participants and every six
months for a few others.