Bryan Rendle and Liz Russell farm hill country across the Rangitikei River from Ohingaiti. They run 1,800 breeding ewes, finish their lambs and trade cattle each year. Bryan spent several years in the agribusiness team of a large bank, so he knows what lenders want to see.
His view is simple: “forward planning and setting a cash flow budget for the year ahead is critical”.
Why bring your own numbers to the bank?
Before Farm Focus, Bryan built his budgets in spreadsheets. Now the couple’s cashflow budget sits alongside their actuals, and they take it to the bank themselves.
“We can now go to the bank with solid and verifiable information about our business, rather than how it used to be when the bank came to you with that information. Having this data provides a huge amount of confidence – we’re not on the back foot anymore which can make a big difference when you’re locking in cash flow details for the year ahead.”
Seeing the pinch points early
Their cashflow budget links into their working plan, so they can see where the tight months are and what their overdraft will be, and when. With some banks now asking for principal repayments on loans, they build those into the annual budget too. That way there are no surprises at year end.
More confidence to spend
For Bryan and Liz, clear numbers mean they now have “more confidence around spending money on farm that we didn’t really have before.”
Still planning ahead today
Bryan and Liz have used Farm Focus since 2019 and still plan the year ahead in it. Their bank feeds and Farmlands account flow straight in, the Invoice Scanner handles the bills, and GST is filed every two months from the same numbers. Since July 2026, they can also ask the AI Farm Assistant quick questions about their actuals, plans and reports.
Every Farm Focus customer gets free onboarding and phone support from a team that knows farming, in New Zealand and Australia.
