Falling incomes; changing technology; Government red tape and form filling; succession and estate planning are just some of the issues affecting the sector.

Chantrey Vellacott DFK has been advising farmers and landowners for many years.

John Harris, the partner who leads our team of agricultural specialists, has long-term links within the industry. He was brought up on a family farm in Northamptonshire, which he continues to manage as a working farm. He has a special insight into the challenges of the sector. Some examples of how we have helped clients are provided here.

We provide a full range of accounting, taxation and advisory services to suit individual requirements – whether in respect of a farm or other landholding or the personal requirements of the owner. Our services include:

Auditing & Accounts 

• Auditing services 
• Complete accounting service from source documentation 
•  Monthly accounts production and monitoring from client’s records 
•  Annual accounts production from client’s records

Taxation Services

• Income based taxes 
• Negotiating with HM Inspector of Taxes and HM Customs and Excise to obtain agreement of clients’ accounts 
• Prediction of liabilities, rather than reaction to demands 
• Capital based taxes 
• Estate planning to mitigate capital taxes, whether in lifetime or upon death 
• Observance of laws to ensure all available reliefs claimed upon time 
• Partial support wage preparation and VAT returns

Specialist Services

• Insurance and agricultural claims 
• Business start-ups 
• Venture capital and acquisition capital 
• Holiday and relief staff 
• Management structure analysis 
• Consideration of diversification opportunities 
• Farm potential reporting 
• Preparation of business plans, cash flow forecasting and monitoring

Information Technology Services

The firm prides itself on its use of technology. In particular we are able to tailor our software systems to the client’s existing packages in order that maximum efficiency can be achieved in extracting the necessary information to perform our work. Members of the agriculture and estates team have good working knowledge of Sage, Farmplan and Landmark (Key) accounting software packages, to name but a few.

If required we are willing and able to advise on hardware purchases and systems implementation.