An extra set of hands on the financial side
You’re focused on farming. Somebody on the place already opens the mail, enters the invoices and runs payroll, and that part works. What often slips is everything above it — reporting the bank can actually use, a lender relationship that gets tended year-round, and somebody to think out loud with when a decision comes up. That’s the gap I fill.
Mostly these four things
Scoped to what your operation actually needs. Most farms want some version of the first two and not much else.
Managing the lender relationship
Most of what I do. Being the person your banker can call and get a straight answer from, keeping them informed before they have to ask, and handling renewal season so it starts early instead of in a panic. A lender who never has to chase you behaves very differently from one who does.
Reporting that meets the bank’s needs
Covenant compliance, borrowing base certificates, annual renewal packages, whatever your loan documents actually require — prepared properly and delivered on time. This is the single most common reason a decent farm ends up with a nervous lender.
Keeping the accounting from going stale
Your bookkeeper handles the day-to-day. I keep the dust off the rest of it: making sure the books reconcile, that the entities tie together, and that when somebody asks for a current balance sheet it exists and holds up. Catching this quarterly is far cheaper than rebuilding two years of it under deadline.
Somebody to bounce ideas off
An offer on ground. A landlord wanting to renegotiate. A piece of equipment you’re weighing. Often what you want isn’t a project, it’s twenty minutes with somebody who understands lending and will tell you honestly whether an idea has traction before you take it to the bank.
And if you want more
Some operations want budgeting and variance tracking, rolling cash flow forecasts, hedging strategy, crop insurance decisions viewed as the revenue floor your lender is underwriting to, or coordination with your CPA through the year rather than in December. I do all of that, and I’ve run it for a large grain operation since 2011. But it’s there if you want it, not a package you have to buy.
Fractional means fractional
A full-time CFO for a farm your size is an expensive hire, and most operations don’t need one every day of the week. You need one at renewal, when the bank asks a hard question, when the books need straightening, and when a decision comes up that you’d rather not make alone.
That’s what this is. A set scope, a sensible rhythm, and a number you can plan around.
You don’t need a loan first
A lot of these engagements grow out of a financing, because by then I know the operation cold. But they don’t have to. If what you want is better reporting and a steadier lender relationship, that’s a fine place to start on its own.
Your team stays your team
I work alongside your bookkeeper, your CPA, your crop insurance agent and your attorney. I’m not here to replace people who are doing their jobs — I’m here to make the financial picture hold together.
Between the scheduled work
A lender calls with a question. A landlord wants to renegotiate. Somebody offers you ground. Those are the calls that matter most, and they don’t wait for a scheduled meeting.
Who this fits
Operations big enough that the financial side has gotten genuinely complicated — several entities, real debt, meaningful acres — but not big enough to justify a full-time finance hire.
You already know what you’re getting
The other option is hiring a full-time CFO. That can absolutely be the right move — but it’s a hire made largely blind. Most farm owners have never managed a finance professional and have no practical way to evaluate one in an interview. You find out whether the person can actually do the job somewhere around month eight, and by then you’ve carried a salary through a season on faith.
If we’ve already been through a financing together, you don’t have that problem. You’ve watched me work your actual numbers under real pressure, with a lender on the other end of the phone. You know what you’re getting because you’ve already seen it.
And there’s no ramp-up. I already know the entities, the landlords, the lien positions, the lender and the history behind the hard years — the things a new hire would spend half a year reconstructing.
A trained finance professional who can start Monday, at a fraction of a salary, whose work you have already watched.
Want the financial side off your plate?
Start with a conversation about where the reporting stands today. No loan required.