For most farmers, accounting is not the most attractive part of the business. It’s integral to the farm’s success, but it requires time in the office or at the desk — not aways a favourite way to spend the day.
That’s a key reason why Traction Ag appeals to farmers, says the cloud-based accounting software company’s sales manager Hannah Everetts. “By making it cloud-based, they can access it from anywhere, any device that they have. Even from the cab of a tractor they can be inputting their farm accounting and tying it to operations.”
In this interview from the recent National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky, Everetts shares how the Illinois-based company has grown since it launched in 2020, including a full engineering team to create the only cloud-based accounting built for farmers. “Our focus is on giving farmers accurate numbers so they can make the best decisions for their operations. And getting those numbers down to per acre, per bushel, to determine what their profit margin.”
Everetts says farmers who wrestle with spreadsheets and paper will appreciate the integration and access Traction Ag provides. “We’re integrating with bank accounts and credit cards so they can bring in all that information, and go in and categorize it into a chart of accounts that’s customized for farming operations.”
(Watch RealAgriculture’s Bernard Tobin and Hannah Everetts discuss Traction Ag’s cloud-based accounting software. Story continue after the video.)
Traction Ag also integrates with the Climate Field View precision ag program and John Deere Operations Center. “Farmers can pull in that field data as well and have that automated for all of their application, tillage, seeding and harvest records. So they’re pulling in that information, and then tying it back to the actual hard numbers and dollars,” says Everetts. With all this data available through the cloud, farmers can easily evaluate inputs for individual fields to do cost of production and profitability analysis.
Accounting support is also a key part of the offer. Traction Ag users have full access to the company’s support team. “We really pride ourselves on putting our customers first and making sure that we are there to help them every step of the way,” says Everetts. “From actually creating their accounts, setting up that chart of accounts, getting those integrations logged in — or they run into an issue where they’ve got a loan payment, and they’re not quite sure how to allocate it — we’re here to help by phone, by chat or by email.”
The company charges an annual subscription service fee depending on the farm’s needs. “We’ve got a basic accounting program where they can pull an income statement, a balance sheet, a Schedule F… or maybe they want to get super nitty gritty in terms of pulling out all of those numbers from both the operations side, and they want to do prepay, they want to do invoicing,” says Everetts. “We even have a payroll application that they can automate their payroll through Traction as well.”
Everetts says the company expects to continue its rapid expansion across North America, including Canada.
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