NZ Dairy Autumn 2021

Farmers don't get into the business of farming because they enjoy bookwork. That’s why Figured, a leading farm financial management technology has teamed up with Xero and PaySauce to bring a unique oer to the market called Xero for Farming. The product integrates real-time financial data with farm production information and payroll to give farmers accurate and up to date data in one place, says Figured general manager for New Zealand and Australia, John Gibson. “The complexity of modern farming means that farmers need to be experts in a broad range of areas – both on the farm and in the o‡ce. It helps when farmers can surround themselves with good advice and make use of technology to lighten the workload. That’s why Xero, Figured and PaySauce have come together to provide the best integrated financial management technology stack for farmers and their team to e‡ciently and eectively drive the business of farming,” explains John. From humble beginnings to a global agri tech innovator, Figured is a great Kiwi success story of no.8 wire proportions. It was born in 2014 when two Manawatu farmers, both qualified accountants, Carl McDonald and David Marshall, got together while working at MyFarm Limited in Feilding. They conjured up the idea that the financial management of farming as a business had to be better and developed an industry specific solution. Figured is now used by over 25,000 farmers in six countries and the company employs a team of 65. Figured’s rapid success is not surprising given it is both simple for farmers to use and incredibly aordable. So what makes Figured dierent? Through its integration with Xero it provides immediate access to financial information along with insights into how to improve profitability across the business. “Farmers value their time. Xero and Figured allows them to do their financial bookwork anywhere they like, whenever they like. Bank transactions arrive automatically into Xero and farmers can code them, check their plan in Figured, make decisions, ask for advice and get back to farming. It’s about driving the business of farming in a new way and making it super e‡cient,” explains John. He says that Figured helps farmers to see the impact of their decisions in real time. “They can easily model dierent scenarios, for example if milk prices change what impact would that have on their business? Figured not only gives farmers visibility over their cashflow but also what their forecast profit and loss, balance sheet and equity position looks like.” Farmers clearly love using the tool, as recent independent research shows Figured has the highest customer satisfaction rating by a large margin, compared with financial software competitors.* By also integrating with PaySauce this provides a best in class payroll solution for farmers, he says. Figured also integrates with other solutions such as Trev, allowing for livestock data to be transferred between the two platforms helping to make farmers’ lives even simpler and easier. “The importance of Figured’s integrations is they allow for the automated transfer of data between our platform and another, in order to speed up the farm management process and avoid double entry of data, ultimately linking the entire process onto a connected platform. Because we operate in the cloud it's also easy for farmers to invite their advisors into their farm and get immediate advice and support.” John says new developments are the norm with Figured to increasingly make farmers’ lives even easier. The latest development is Figured Insights, the world's first agri data platform that will give farmers the ability to benchmark their business against other farmers in the same region. Scheduled for release later this year. “Typically when farmers are given access to benchmarking information it might be 12-18 months out of date. With Figured Insights farmers will be able benchmark their financial performance in dierent ways, using real time data as well as the option of using historic information. We’ve designed it to report across thousands of farms instantly with lightning fast reports providing farmers with incredibly valuable information. “Farming is an ever-changing industry so it’s vital that farmers have an up-to-date view of their whole business in order to build a clear strategy. We team up with the right businesses to give our customers complete control over how their business operates because, at the end of the day, more knowledge means more confident on-farm decisions.” *Research conducted by Cinta Agri Research, Spring 2020 National Omnibus Survey Figured's latest innovation set to give farmers even greater business insight