We understand the many complexities producers face and the challenges to operating a successful farming operation; from narrowing profit margins to commodity price fluctuations, government and environmental regulations, and new technologies. As a national firm with a global network, we have the resources to provide an in-depth suite of services focused on providing innovative solutions to help ensure your success. We can work with producers and other agri-businesses at every stage of their lifecycle.
Here are the services we offer:
Financial Statement Preparation
Your financial statements tell the story of your farming operations for lenders, yourself, and other important stakeholders. Our accounting advisors use best-in-class tools and data to offer a streamlined approach for your financial reporting, including a segregation of your farming operation and capital/financing activities.
Tax Planning and Compliance
The increasing complexities of the Income Tax Act make compliance a challenge but also provide opportunities for capitalizing on tax-efficient planning opportunities. Our dedicated team of tax professionals can assist you with tax planning and compliance. This includes planning to maximize the use of favourable income tax rules, such as the capital gains exemption for qualified farm property and tax-deferred intergenerational farm transfers, and reacting to changes in tax legislation.
Commodity Tax
Although many farming activities are zero-rated for GST/HST, significant implications remain for real property, registration, and reorganizations. We offer comprehensive indirect tax advice to help ensure no consequences are overlooked, especially in farmland sales or transfers.
Bookkeeping and Cloud Accounting Services
As farming operations continue to grow and become more complex, the need for timely information becomes more important. We can assist with this by providing accurate, up-to-date monthly or quarterly bookkeeping to satisfy any tax filing requirements you have, using up-to-date cloud-based software. We can scale our services to meet your evolving needs.
Succession and Transition Planning
Succession may be one of the most critical aspects of farming life, with a lifetime of effort and investment leading to a smooth transition. Addressing the end-to-end challenges of this transitory step, we can help you develop a seamless exit strategy that aligns with your personal objectives and desire to see the farm succeed, including valuation and profitability analysis.
Digital Transformation
Truly effective digital transformation must align with your strategic vision and lead to a measurable impact on farming operations. We can help your business succeed by providing leading-edge technologies to enhance your agility and competitive advantage.
Benchmarking
Financial benchmarking helps farmers make better decisions by highlighting operational performance trends and showing them how they compare to other Canadian farms. Keeping track of every detail is even more important with fluctuating commodity prices, supply chain disruptions and narrowing margins. With more than 100 offices across Canada, we have the necessary data to accumulate relevant benchmarking data specific to your operation.
Business Planning
You continually face challenges and opportunities that may significantly impact your operations. We combine industry expertise from across the firm to help ensure your business plan includes an integrated strategy designed to address these challenges and growth opportunities.
Government Funding Incentives
With years of experience advising producers and farm businesses on a range of government incentive programs to fund innovation, expansion, talent, and green initiatives, our team can help you navigate the complicated landscape of funding programs—from tax credits to low-interest loans.
Cybersecurity
Today, farming operations are adopting advanced and emerging technologies at a much faster rate than ever before. We can work with you to build a comprehensive cybersecurity program to manage your risk and help minimize the impacts cyber incidents can have on your business.
Financial Checkup and Profitability Analysis
Profitability is the single most important factor in creating sustained growth. We can perform a financial checkup to assess the health of your farm, including a review of key performance indicators and ratios that, if improved, could improve your profitability.
Data Analytics and AI
Technology is continually challenging the way you plan and manage your farming operations. Using data and technology in various aspects of your farming operation also adds another layer to your success and confidence in making important decisions.
Sustainability considerations
We understand the sustainability challenges regarding GHG emissions, including a lack of cost-effective GHG emission measurement and monitoring systems, rising input costs, reduced biodiversity and soil health, access to capital, and ROI uncertainty. We can work with you to create sustainability programs that focus on reducing costs as well as helping improve commercial resilience and operational efficiencies while meeting regulatory standards.
Financial Management Coachings
Accountability is a cornerstone of any successful farming operation. We can help you create a 10-year vision for your farm of where you want to be and what each operation defines as success. From this vantage point, we work our way down to quarterly strategic tactics required to fulfill the long-term vision.
Financial Controller and Human Resource Services
The complexities of today's farming landscape require many varied skills and responsibilities, including financial and human resources management. While critical to your operations, it's not financially prudent to hire full-time staff to take on these responsibilities. We offer these services on an as-needed basis to help you access the necessary expertise to properly manage your farming operation.
Financial Planning and Wealth Advisory
Planning your financial future is extremely important. We prepare comprehensive written financial plans based on your goals and priorities. Our professionals are dedicated to optimizing your plan from a financial and tax perspective.
Significant funds are often generated within a farming operation. This can result from sustained profitability or the disposition of a major asset. We are dedicated to optimizing your return while helping minimize risk by working with independent investment management firms.
Business Interruption and Insurance Claim assistance
The time following a business interruption can be overwhelming. Filing a commercial insurance claim can be both complicated and taxing on your team. We provide counsel on all aspects of business interruption and insurance recovery through every stage of the claims process, reducing your burden while helping ensure documents are properly submitted. We can also assist in quantifying loss scenarios to help you decide how much insurance to place when it's time to renew.
Farm Consolidations and Acquisitions
We continue to see a movement towards producer consolidations as smaller operations are often acquired by larger, neighbouring farms. For buyers, we can prepare projections and cash flow forecasts to help secure the necessary funding. For sellers, we can help ensure the structure of the sale is designed to reduce taxes and that your proceeds are properly managed.
Real Estate and Farm Appraisals
With rising quota and land prices, farm values continue to rise at unprecedented rates. Capturing the correct value is critical when the farm is sold or transitioned to the next generation. We have the necessary experience to help ensure the proper value is calculated.
Additional services
If you are interested in learning more about how we can play an integral role in your success, here are some additional options:
Managing a farming operation is difficult and costly, but the pressure has never been higher for Canada’s farmers. We can offer strategies to help you overcome these challenges and accelerate your operations’ growth.
BDO LEAP is a tool designed to thoroughly review the complexities and challenges of your business and provide prioritized strategies to help grow your farming practice. If you are interested in a free consultation with one of our advisors, please contact Mike Ketler at [email protected].
These are a great way for a member of our team to review your operations and get a better understanding of your specific challenges and opportunities. Please feel free to reach out to a local BDO office representative.
How BDO can help
Our vision is to play an integral role in the success of our agriculture clients. As one of the leading agriculture accounting and advisory firms in Canada, we employ a relationship-based approach—focusing on building long-term partnerships with our clients based on trust, integrity, and collaboration.
With more than 100 years of experience in agriculture, we have developed the industry expertise needed to help our clients navigate the unique challenges of the sector and capitalize on opportunities when they arise. In Canada, we proudly operate more than 100 offices—many of which are located in smaller communities. Our commitment to community welfare is unwavering as demonstrated by our annual Drive Away Hunger fundraising campaign, which aligns seamlessly with our internal sustainability goals.
Contact a local office
With offices located from coast to coast, we encourage you to reach out to an office within your vicinity to set up a meeting. We have provided a listing of BDO offices dedicated to the local agriculture community.