Why Sound Financial Management Will Make or Break the Next Generation of Family Farms

By Brian Stark, Co-Founder of Traction Ag

This is the third blog in a new thought leadership series from the team at Traction Ag. We’re opening up the hood to share what we’re working on and how we’re building a better business to serve farmers more effectively. The posts in this series will come from different voices from across the company, giving you a look at how we’re evolving Traction: from the way we support customers, to how we design the product and bring it to market.

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I'm excited to share my very first thought leadership blog post. Since starting my career with Farm Works Software in the mid-1990s, I’ve seen the ag tech space evolve in ways I never could have imagined. This perspective gives me a clear view of where things are heading.

When I co-founded Traction Ag in 2020, it wasn’t because farmers were asking for one more piece of software. It was because we saw a massive gap in what was available. As a team of farm kids turned ag professionals, we realized that despite all the innovation in machinery and agronomy, one critical area was being overlooked: farm accounting and finances.

I’ll be blunt. Up to that point, farmers hadn’t had the tools they needed to be successful. The ag tech industry had failed them when it came to farm finances. Most accounting systems weren’t made for farming. They were built for restaurants, small businesses, and/or big corporations. They were not built to manage multiple entities, Schedule F reports, input costs by field, or grain inventory.

And the reality is this: the farms that take financials seriously are going to separate themselves from the pack. The good operators, the ones who want to build something that lasts, are treating their finances with the same urgency they bring to planting and harvest.

The rest? They’ll get left behind.

The status quo isn’t cutting it

Here’s what we still see way too often:

• Farms scrambling during tax season to pull together spreadsheets and invoices.
  
• Daughters, sons, or in-laws who want to help with farm management, but can’t make sense of the paper files and existing processes.
  
• Financial decisions being made based on gut feel, not per-acre costs or cash flow trends.
  
• Operations that appear profitable on paper, but in reality are bleeding money due to poor inventory tracking or missed expenses.
  

I’m not saying this to knock anybody, because farming is hard enough already. Between volatile markets, unpredictable weather, and rising input costs, we don’t need another challenge. But that’s exactly why staying stuck in the old way of doing things is no longer an option.

In order for farms to grow and keep growing for the next generation, the books have to be dialed in, ready to inform decision-making. That’s why we created Traction Ag, the next generation of farm accounting software.

The bridge between generations

Farming will always demand grit, resilience, and hard work. The farms that grow stronger over time also operate with intention and clarity. They don’t just react, they plan and that mindset starts with the numbers. That’s the power of having a true farm accounting system. It builds a bridge, not just between data points, but between people.

Let me give you a real-world example. A farmer I recently spoke with, let’s call him Gary, has been running his family’s row crop farm for decades. He’s smart, hardworking, and has always found a way to get by financially. But he’d admit he was managing his records the old way: pen and paper, desktop spreadsheets, and in his head.

A year ago, Gary signed up for Traction Ag. He didn’t do it because he wanted bells and whistles. He did it because his daughter and her husband decided to join the farm. That’s when everything changed.

They needed a way to work together. Not just in the field, but in the office, too. They needed shared access to inventory, income statements, cash flow, and financial reports. His daughter didn’t want to search for receipts. She wanted it all in the cloud, accessible from her laptop or phone. Gary saw the writing on the wall. If he didn’t modernize how the business was managed, he risked losing buy-in from the very people who would one day take it over.

Now, both generations are working side-by-side in Traction Ag. They see the same financial dashboard. They tag expenses by entity. They run breakeven reports by crop and bushel. There’s no confusion, no duplication, no delay. It’s a single, accurate version of the truth, and they’re all heading in the same direction.

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A system that’s built for the farm

One of our core beliefs at Traction Ag is that software should work the way farmers work. That means we didn’t just build a finance tool, but rather we built a platform to support the entire farm business.

Whether farmers manage 1,000 or 10,000 acres, we believe in providing tools to:

• Understand their costs
• Make better decisions
• Prepare for the future
  

The question our farmers are asking isn’t just how things are going today. It’s how they’re going to be five, ten, or twenty years from now. The operations that succeed through generational handoffs are those that equip their successors with more than lessons. They provide tools.

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The future is in the numbers

Markets will fluctuate and the weather will remain unpredictable. But one constant farms can control is how well they understand their numbers.

Because when they truly know their operation’s financials such as breakeven, cash flow, true cost per bushel, they’re no longer guessing. They’re leading.

The future of farming won’t be built on guesswork. It will be built on insight, intention, and a strong central shared vision across generations. That’s not just good accounting, it’s good stewardship.

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Brian Stark
Co-Founder, Traction Ag