Financial Management for Farmers and Rural Managers, 4th Edition
February 1998, Wiley-Blackwell
This book is a practical guide to all aspects of financial management in the smaller business. Although the prime focus is on owners and managers of farm businesses and farm diversifications, it is equally valuable for other types of rural business and organisation. It has proved popular on degree and diploma courses in Rural Resource Management, Countryside Management and Rural Estate Management, as well as those concerned with Agriculture. In this fourth edition, increased emphasis has been given to general accounting principles and techniques, especially those of management accounting, cost-volume-profit and break-even analysis and pricing. While maintaining and strengthening the farm business focus, the new edition also better accommodates the needs of non-agricultural enterprises, including service and manufacturing businesses and non-profit organisations such as Wildlife Trusts.
Part 1 Basic Issues: Why bother?; In the beginning...; Building a framework; Cash Flow, Profit and Capital: Cash flow; Net Profit; Profit statements; Capital; Capital Statements; Depreciation; Interpretation of Financial Accounts: Adjusting for realism; Interpreting the profit and loss account; Interpreting the balance sheet; Management Accounts: Management versus financial accounts; Gross margin accounts; Full cost accounts; Allowing for cost behaviour; Pricing; Variations from the Norm: Farm management accounting; Partnerships and companies; Voluntary/non-profit organizations; Part 2: Basic Budgeting: A profit budget: Introduction; Compiling a profit budget; Home Farm profit budget; A Cash Flow Budget for the Whole Farm: Basic principles; Value Added Tax and overdraft interest; Cash flow budgets in practice; Reconciling cash flow and profit; A Budgeted Balance Sheet: Compiling the budget; A budgeted balance sheet for Home Farm; Budgeting for Incremental Change: Relevant costs and benefits; Partial budgets; Part 3 Financial History: Recording Cash Flow: Designing a cash recording system; The cash analysis system; Petty cash; Statutory records; Recording Profit and Capital: Preparing a profit and loss account; Valuing stocks; Recording capital; The 'Back-up' Records: Introduction; Transaction records; Physical records; Stock control; Background records; Organizing paperwork; Post-script; Part 4: Controlling the Business: Monitoring Cash Flow: Why monitor cash flow?; Comparison of actual and budgeted results; Interpreting the results; Annual cash flow monitoring; Monitoring Profit and Capital: The importance of monitoring profit; Comparison with previous years; Inter-farm comparisons (1): conventional profit and loss account; inter-farm comparisons (2): profit and loss accounts in enterprise account form; Budgetary comparisons; Variance analysis; profit monitoring for Home Farm; Monitoring capital; Part 5: More on Planning and Control: The Planning Process - A Wider View: Tactics and strategy; The mission; Setting aims and objectives; Assessing 'internal' characteristics and external environment; Generating alternative plans; Selecting the optimal plan; Implementing and monitoring the selected plan; Involving other members of the organization; Planning for Livestock Enterprises: Introduction; Feeding livestock; Allocation of forage costs; Estimating potential production; Replacement of breeding livestock; Livestock with long production cycles; Labour and Machinery Planning in Farming: Introduction; Estimating level of use; Estimating labour and machinery costs; Investigating alternatives; Capital Planning: Introdiction; Sources of capital; Estimating the cost of capital; Comparing alternative uses of capital (1): simple measures; Comparing alternative uses of capital (2): discounted cash flow techniques; Allowing for Risk and Uncertainty: Introduction; Allowing for risk and uncertainty in planning; Risk and investment appraisal; Allowing for Inflation: Introduction; Inflation and financial accounts; Inflation and management accounts; Inflation and planning; Inflation and investment appraisal; Appendix A. Personal Computers in Management: A.1 Introduction; A.2 Computers and farming; A.3 General business applications
* down-to-earth, practical guide to managing the finances of a small to medium rural enterprise * equally valuable for students and practitioners * approachable, easy-to-read text with ample worked examples * accommodates computer-users, without alienating non-users * provides computer spreadsheets, complete with formulas for the principal financial calculations * sections cover general financial management principles and techniques, basic budgeting, financial and physical recording, monitoring and control, long-range planning (including investment appraisal)