In today’s rapidly evolving agricultural landscape, producers are tasked with managing increasingly complex business environments where processing vast amounts of data is essential for success. Accurate and consistent financial reporting is critical not only for meeting external requirements from creditors, government agencies, and stakeholders but also for making informed internal decisions that drive operational efficiency. As farms and agribusinesses scale and diversify, the need for standardized and reliable financial practices becomes even more important. To meet this growing need, the Farm Financial Standards Council (FFSC) offers comprehensive guidelines to help producers generate accurate financial reports and conduct meaningful financial analysis. With the release of the 2025 Farm Financial Standards Guidelines, producers now have access to the latest updates designed to improve financial transparency and decision-making.

Farm accounting got you stumped? In the ag industry, many farmers rely on preparers for their farm accounting needs, but those services aren’t always an option. So, it’s important to understand the basics of farm accounting and the challenges that they introduce.

According to IBM, business intelligence isn’t a new concept. But, it wasn’t until the 1990’s that data management systems really took off, despite their complexity. At this stage of development, anyone who wanted to use business intelligence tools needed an IT specialist to help them understand and utilize the software. Today, we’ve reached a point where business intelligence tools are being adopted for all kinds of uses, even farm operations and management.

To be a technology driven business, you need to explore new innovations as they emerge and, let’s face it, agriculture is, increasingly, dependent upon technology. For farmers, this includes the latest ag tech updates. In order to efficiently run a farm, these tools can ease many day-to-day processes and address common challenges, such as labor shortages and reporting struggles. 

As a business operator, you likely rely on your data to drive decisions. Once you receive the raw numbers, what do you do with it? An abundance of data without any context can quickly become overwhelming. In fact, with new smart farming technology, such as satellites and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, there’s more data than ever to deal with. 

Fortunately, combing through the data to find meaning doesn’t have to be a challenge. Farms that leverage Power BI™ (business intelligence) solutions have the ability to view their data in a manner that provides big-picture insights and makes the raw numbers easy to understand and use.

Are you looking to switch from legacy tech to an advanced ag-specific ERP tool? Enterprise resource planning tools designed for farmers account for the nuances that make the agricultural industry so unique. With such a high demand for crops and livestock all over the world, it’s important to have a highly efficient ERP system to help you with data aggregation, decision making, and management functions. However, before making the switch to a new ERP software solution, you’ll need to complete the ERP implementation process.

By 2034, it’s estimated that farms will generate more than 4 million data points in a single day. How is this possible? Smart technology and advanced cloud tech are unlocking access to high quantities of highly accurate data for farms to analyze. This information is essential for proper implementation of farm operations and increasing efficiency across all management areas. 

Introducing cloud tech capabilities to your farm operation can help you streamline your business practices and make informed decisions while staying connected to both your team and your customers. Here’s what you need to know.

New technology is being utilized across numerous industries, and it’s rapidly changing the way that we live and work. You’ve likely heard of “The Cloud,” a term commonly used throughout the technology space and made popular by big companies like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. But what is “The Cloud,” and what does it have to do with farm management? 

The cloud, while not a physical entity, is a collection of servers used around the world to store data. This makes critical information highly accessible for farmers by creating an optimized digital ecosystem for your farm data to live. Cloud data management is creeping up all over the place and has shown a wide range of benefits for farmers in particular.

Have you been struggling to assemble accounting documents for your farm? With such large enterprises and a range of inventory, assets, and employees to keep track of, farm accounting mistakes have become fairly common. Additionally, farmers aren’t always knowledgeable in accounting best practices, but it’s still their duty to compile and submit the right financial reports each period.

Some days it’s tough enough to keep up with the work, whether it be in the back office, field or barn, or both. This is, perhaps, one of the daunting aspects of the influx of data tools and ag tech. Advancements are designed to be time savers and, up until now, they seem to, in some ways, create more work. However, both AI and Internet of Things (IoT) devices are promising to change that.

Looking to improve the success of your farm business? Farm data reports might be the key to unlocking your potential. Think of these data insights like the report cards you used to receive in school. Looking at performance metrics on a regular basis can keep you in line with your goals, whether that be productivity or profitability, and help you identify which areas could use a little extra work. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has left no stone unturned. Nearly every industry is talking about the ways it will impact them and what opportunities exist for how it can revolutionize the way we build and grow businesses. Farming is no different. Still, we’re an industry that’s notorious for slow adoption of technology and so how quickly will AI impact farming? How will we see it integrated?

Have you ever struggled with inaccurate data as a result of legacy tools or errors made as a result of manual entry? Truthfully, most businesses have and, thankfully, most have found a solution.
Enterprise resource planning software streamlines data entry and allows for connections between an array of processes already being conducted on your farm. Thanks to integration capabilities, it seems as though farmers have successfully found their “holy grail” for accurate data management and reporting.

Eisenhower once said "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the corn field." But for the back office, their plow is the pencil. While the pencil itself may not make the actual work in the field easier, applying guidelines in the back office can make the business of farming easier.

The guidelines created by the Farm Financial Standards Council (FFSC) can help improve the quality of financial management standards on your farm. These guidelines serve as a framework for financial management practices in the agriculture industry. Implementing these standards will help your farm establish benchmarks, make informed decisions, and have accurate and comparable financial data to refer to across accounting periods.

There are few things more important in accounting than accuracy, especially when managing your farm and making strategic decisions relies upon those numbers. For that reason, the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) were established to standardize accounting methods for reporting inventory and submitting financial statements. 

Get excited for this year’s BOOST/23 Agriculture Software Success Summit with FBS Systems! This November, join us for an exclusive event that highlights agricultural management accounting and technology integrations that can transform the way you run your farm.

Farm data can be invaluable for helping farmers improve their operations for greater productivity and profitability. Data from your fields or profit centers can help you identify what’s driving costs on your farm versus what’s driving profits for your farm.

For modern farmers, agriculture technology has become an integral part of business. However, when most people think of “ag tech,” farm accounting solutions might be one of the last things that they think of.

Margin analysis, or marginal analysis, is the practice of examining the cost of a good or service versus the potential benefit of that good or service. Even if you hadn’t heard of the term before, odds are you’ve made this comparison for yourself countless times as a farm owner or operator. However, there’s a danger to basing margin analyses on general assumptions—which is why it’s important to utilize activity-based costing.

Finding ways to improve the profitability of your farm is crucial for your long-term success. Farm management software can play an enormous role in keeping your farming business’ balance books in the “black.”

The idiom “lean and mean” often refers to someone getting in shape and preparing for a challenge. It’s not too far off, honestly, when we refer to getting lean in business. It suggests that there are significant challenges ahead and getting in shape, financially and more, means getting lean so you can withstand the potential fight ahead.

Given recent farm financial forecasts, getting lean should be on the agenda for nearly every farm operation out there. Not only will it help manage the margins on the horizon, but it can also help keep you profitable in the future as well.