Get value for money invested in Farm Focus

Tania and husband Andy run sheep and beef on their 440ha block on Glengarry Road, 30kms from Napier. Tania says she is the books person and Andy is hands on day to day with stock management and they both share the constant decisions that come with farming.

“Running a business I understand the importance of effective and efficient bookkeeping systems. I’m also a firm believer in ‘working smarter not longer' so when a new time saving application such as Focus pops up, I’m interested!”

Tania says switching to Farm Focus was easy for her because she had used an accounting package before. “I understood the logic behind running two screens - one panel for actuals and another for invoices to be matched. It’s a simple and logical step that saves so much time “

She says the new invoice scanning application is a time saver. “I scan every business-related document, arriving by post, and email all invoices that arrive via email into the system which ensures all our financial transactions have a document attached. This makes year end less of a challenge because all the information is already there, saved in the system.

“GST is easy. We have an additional business as well as our farm business and, with Farm Focus, I can keep the two separate – the new system provides another level of clarity which has helped make “doing the books” more streamlined!”

Tania and Andy are also fans of the Livestock Reconciliation Report. “Andy is still a paper person and uses his trusty diary. I enjoy a paperless approach, and our system allows Andy to ‘check in’ to the online system. We can track sales, purchases, births, and deaths in a month-by-month view and Focus also manages the ‘aging’ process automatically for us.”

Tania says she has found she is dipping into Farm Focus more often because the system is user friendly. “So rather than my previous one day a month check-in, I’m using Farm Focus maybe once or twice a week which means I’m always up to date and find it easier to manage balancing.”

Tania recently ticked the box to give their accountant online access to their farm business accounts so they can share with their accountant (and bank manager if needed) so no-one has to leave their office to drop off the annual end of year papers.

"In the future, if we become less hands-on, Farm Focus will allow us to monitor and maintain an active overview of how the farm is operating."

For now, Focus’s time saving attributes are one of a series of processes Tania has adopted to manage the couple’s business accounts while balancing her busy community involvement in a large rural district.