Agricultural Budget Calculator Training

It’s always important to estimate cost of production for our agricultural enterprises, but now with the volatile input and crop prices, it’s even more critical. Knowing your estimated cost of production can assist you in making important management decisions now and throughout the production and marketing year.

We have scheduled workshops, both online and in-person, so Agricultural Budget Calculator users can get hands-on experience and learn about how the program can assist ag producers and managers.

Hop on your computer, create an Ag Budget Calculator (ABC) program account (agbudget.unl.edu), and let us walk you through the program features and provide instruction on using the program!

In-person and Virtual Training

Virtual Sessions

Online sessions using Zoom are offered periodically. Check here for the schedule and various offerings for beginners and to assist those that are using the program but want to keep advancing their use or simply have some questions. We don’t want anyone to be stuck on something! So please ask!

Upon your registration to any virtual session, a Zoom link and passcode will be emailed to you.

ABC Overview and Whole Farm Features (1.5 hours)

For beginners or anyone wanting to learn how to make full use of the ABC program.

Schedule:

Oct. 2, 2023, 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. CDT

Topics covered:

Using the ABC program to create and/or update crop budgets for your farms or fields (owned and/or rented ground)
What’s included in the projected cost of production and anticipated return reports generated by ABC (cash and economic costs and returns)

Reconciling operation expenses to account for farm totals
Allocate overhead expenses to enterprises
More about ABC program features, including breakeven, crop comparison, and risk analysis, and how can use program features in decision making.
How does the cash flow feature in ABC work?

ABC Office Hours — Q&A Help Sessions

ABC Q&A help sessions are scheduled regularly to provide an opportunity for program users to join on Zoom to ask questions about making the best use of the ABC program for their operation. You might be running into questions about the program that others have as well. Hop on Zoom at the scheduled times and we’ll help you out. We appreciate hearing your questions and receiving your feedback on ABC.

Schedule:

September 25, 2023, 11:30 a.m. CDT

It helps to know if users are planning on a help session, so please register here. Upon registration, the Zoom link and passcode will be emailed to you.

If you have a question and don’t want to wait for a training or Q&A session, please call or send an email to Glennis McClure, Extension Educator, 402.472.0661, or gmcclure3@unl.edu.

In-person

We’re willing to provide in-person ABC trainings wherever there is interest, and where we can gather at least 6 to 8 producers, farm managers, bankers, or others interested in learning about using ABC. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own laptop or mobile device to learn how to use the program during workshops. Mobile lab computers can be made available if needed.

Schedule: Call or email us to schedule a workshop in your area.

Topics covered at in-person workshops:

Using the ABC program to create and/or update crop enterprise budgets for your various farms or fields on owned and/or rented ground. A cow-calf enterprise module will be ready in ABC for user testing within the 3rdquarter, 2023.
Save and print enterprise cost of production and return reports.
Get details with hands-on demonstration of combining enterprise budgets using the “whole farm” component of the program, including reconciling operation expenses, and allocating overhead expenses to enterprises.
Learn more about other program features, including breakeven, crop comparison and the risk analysis module and then learn how the cash flow module in the ABC program works.

Back to ABC Home

This material is based upon work supported by USDA/NIFA under Award Number 2018-70027-28586 and 2021-70027-34694.