Enterprise Budgeting and Whole Farm Financial Planning
FarmCalc 2.0 is a newly rebuilt online financial planning tool to help farmers achieve greater profitability and other business goals. The program creates a whole-farm financial picture, and breaks that down into unit costs for all products produced. By integrating farm financial information across enterprises, FarmCalc helps farmers directly compare their costs and profits between types of crops and products so that farms can better match their production to their sales potential.
In FarmCalc you can:
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- Calculate your unit cost: discover what it costs you to produce 1 lb. of beets, a bunch of kale, or gallon of milk and make sure your pricing is above your costs of production.
- Find your most profitable products: Compare your fully loaded unit costs and which products are making you the most profit per unit.
- Production Plan: Decide how much of your products to produce based on the production needed to meet their sales potential and maximize profit.
- Plan investments, add or eliminate enterprises, and other changes: What happens if you buy that piece of equipment? Drop an enterprise? Duplicate your farm scenario and make changes to see how your costs, profits, and profitability will change.
- Compare year over year: Copy last year’s farm scenario and update with new numbers to compare how your farm financials change season after season.
- Download: Export all your financial benchmarks into a csv.
FarmCalc is free to use on your own and with your farm business advisor. You can access FarmCalc through your web browser after MFT sets up your user account. Your information is protected and always secure.
Getting started with FarmCalc
To set up your private FarmCalc account, please review our privacy statement and request an account set up from MFT.
Request a FarmCalc account:
*Bookmark this page so it’s easy to find the next time you want to launch FarmCalc.
Have your data handy
As with most recordkeeping and business planning, good data in will give you actionable information out. You’ll do your best work in FarmCalc if you have ready access to:
- Inputs used and their purchase prices
- Labor rates for pre- and post- harvest tasks, tools, etc.
- Production records (yields)
- Sales forecasts or sales history
- Customer lists
- Overhead costs
- Equipment list
If you need help with FarmCalc
If you encounter problems while working in your FarmCalc account, you can contact us at farmcalc@mainefarmlandtrust.org or by calling (207) 338-6575. Support is available during our office hours, 8am – 4pm. You will need to provide the information you used to set up your account.
Throughout FarmCalc you’ll find Help for every step in your work. Look for the 
icon.
Resources
Understanding farm finances can be a challenge. If you want to get comfortable with terms, concepts, and processes – and learn to use financial information to plan your operation – you could start with these resources compiled by the Beginning Farmer Resource Network of Maine or with MFT’s Farm Network services.
Thank you
FarmCalc was developed by Maine Farmland Trust, Jed Beach of FarmSmart Maine, and Perch Design Studio. This material is funded in partnership by USDA, Risk Management Agency, under award number RM18RMEPP522C033. This material is based upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, through the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program under subaward number ENE21-171.