The money went somewhere. Usually it's one enterprise, one product line, or one channel quietly eating everything the others make.
$600K turnaround in one year at The Family Cow. Read how
Three problems, and the three things we do about them: accounting, business consulting and marketing. Usually more than one applies, and they are usually connected. Start with whichever is costing you the most and the others tend to loosen.
Pick the one that sounds like you, or let it turn
One set of books averages your winners and your losers into a single number that looks survivable. Put three lines in and see them separately. It takes a minute and we don't collect anything.
You have four enterprises and one set of books. Which one is losing money?
| Enterprise | Revenue | Costs |
|---|---|---|
| Beef | $ |
$ |
| Hay | $ |
$ |
| Farm store | $ |
$ |
How this is worked out: revenue minus the costs you enter, per line, then the same sum across all three for the blended figure. This is rough arithmetic rather than accounting. It ignores tax, depreciation, overhead you have not allocated, and unpaid family labor. The point is the gap between the lines, not the precision of any one of them.
The number you'd see on one P&L.
Revenue needs to be greater than zero on at least one line.
Fill in the three lines to see them separately.
The Family Cow was losing three hundred thousand dollars a year on strong sales. We rebuilt the chart of accounts, split the enterprises apart, and put real numbers in front of the people making decisions. A year later they turned a $300,000 profit.
Read the full story“You can have a tremendous mission and vision, but if you’re not financially stable and don’t have cash to work with, you can’t move your mission. Your mission is dead in the water if it isn’t a profitable mission.”
– Edwin Shank, fourth-generation farmer, The Family Cow
Broke even by month seven
Dutch Meadows and Omar King built their own USDA processing facility, self-funded, no debt. We ran the feasibility study, built the startup budget, and set up the books and KPIs.
“We used to be limited by external processors. Now we can flow products faster and deliver better quality.”
– Dave Stolzfus
Read the story
1,000+ retail stores in year one
Two sisters with a hundred ideas and no plan. We built the financial model and the brand, helped them secure a $1M line of credit, and connected them to the crowdfunding that raised $1.2M.
“We would simply not be where we are today if it weren’t for the supportive team at Good Roots.”
– Stephanie Painter
Read the story
Two farms, two generations
A $2.4M poultry purchase pushed the operation past what guesswork could carry. We built a 13-week rolling cash flow, wound down the enterprise that was losing money, and made the succession numbers work.
“Now Joseph owns a farm, I own a farm, and we farm together.”
– Luke Howard, Owner
Read the storyWhat they share is a set of books that can't tell you which part of the operation is carrying the rest.
Several enterprises, one set of books, and a succession conversation nobody has started.
See moreYield, throughput and true margin per cut, before you price the next order.
See moreMoney arrives in spring. Costs arrive all year. Everything depends on the gap in the middle.
See more
30+ people across 20+ states. People who have grown a farm from the ground up, run a processing floor, and priced a wholesale order that lost money.
With someone on our team whose job is to work out whether we can help. They know the industry. They are not the consultant who would run the work, and they will tell you if this isn't a fit.
A scoped review of whatever you already have, whether that is books, statements or a shoebox. You get our read on where the money is actually going, in writing.
If there's work worth doing, we scope it with a price and a timeline before anything starts. If there isn't, we say so and point you somewhere better.
We are probably not a good fit if you need a tax return filed and nothing else, or if you want someone running marketing without anyone touching the numbers.
We work best with operations already doing real volume, where the problem is visibility rather than effort. If you are earlier than that and want an idea put on paper properly, a feasibility study is the right place to start.
There's no pressure or obligation. Our goal is to help you leave the call with more clarity than you had going in.
Free. No obligation. Cancel the newsletter any time.