Knowledge Base

How to Approach Credit Analysis in FINPACK
This step-by-step guide to approaching credit analysis in FINPACK covers data sources, financial analysis tools, projections and credit analysis, providing a broad overview of the many tools FINPACK offers and giving guidance on how to choose the best tool to fit your credit culture.

Cash Discrepancy Triggers
Doing a thorough, accurate evaluation of a customer’s past performance is key to feeling confident when evaluating credit requests. Oftentimes in agriculture, the customer data received to perform this analysis is incomplete. Therefore, cash discrepancy errors can leave you scratching your head when completing a financial analysis (FINAN) or Schedule F cash to accrual analysis. Either missing sources or uses of cash may be a cash discrepancy culprit in an analysis. This missing cash can lead to either positive or negative cash discrepancies. Here we will look at potential culprits for both positive and negative cash discrepancies.

Accessing FINPACK Legacy Credit Presentations
A new presentation text editor was introduced into existing FINPACK credit presentation templates last fall with the November 2021 FINPACK update (6.2.1 version1). Presentations created prior to this update are now termed ‘legacy presentations’. The following explains how legacy presentations can be printed, accessed, and modified.

Entering Finance Leases in FINPACK
When should a lease be recorded on the balance sheet? If a lease is included on the balance sheet, how do you determine the asset value and loan balance? These are frequent questions as the use of leases for machinery, buildings, and other assets become more common.

Treatment of Breeding Livestock in FINPACK’s Earned Net Worth Analysis
The purpose of Earned Net Worth Analysis is to back out Change in Market Valuation from total market value net worth change to arrive at the amount of net worth change resulting from earnings.

PPP Loans and the Impact on Credit Analysis
PPP loans have been an important piece of the pandemic related relief packages. Many farmers and small businesses took advantage of these programs. This information is intended to help you correctly analyze the 2020 year in FINPACK Credit Analysis.

Detail is Your Friend in FINPACK’s Enterprise Analysis
This document provides a short list of areas where it is important to enter detail in FINAN to aid in completing the Crop and Livestock Enterprise Analysis.”

How Schedule F Income Is Used in FINPACK
“What is the proper way to handle Ag Co-op stock in a balance sheet in which the stock changes in value from year-to-year?”

Discrepancies Caused by CCC Loans in Sched F Cash to Accrual
Tax preparers are not consistent in reporting repayment of CCC loans that have previously been reported as income for tax purposes. FINPACK tries to adjust for these inconsistencies but adjustments are not always possible.”

 Handling Fluctuating Values of Ag Co‐op Stock
FINPACK uses IRS Schedule F data in two analysis tools: 1) it is used to generate an accrual adjusted income statement in the Schedule F Cash to Accrual tool; 2) it can be used to calculate the cash based debt coverage measure that appears at the bottom of the Schedule F data entry in Tax Forms.”

Updating Cash Flows for Prevented Plant Acres
Challenging production years lead to abnormally high levels of prevented plant acres. When this occurs, many revisit cash flow projections completed earlier in the year to consider the impact of prevented plant acres, including the addition of cover crop plantings. This document provides recommendations and considerations when working through cash flow projection updates for prevented plantings.

Understanding Cross-Collateralization in FINPACK
In complex agricultural or commercial lending, a single asset often secures multiple loans across different collateral analysis groups.

Importing and Exporting Balance Sheet Detail
A helpful guide on the process of working with Intermediate, Long Term, and Personal Assets of an Agricultural balance sheet and Noncurrent and Personal Assets of a Commercial balance sheet.

Consolidating Balance Sheets
FINPACK allows users to consolidate the balance sheets or tax forms from several different data files into a consolidated file.

FINPACK Projection Tool Choices
“Which projection tool should I use?”

Farm Finance Scorecard
Guidelines for the Farm Financial Standards Council’s recommended financial ratios and measures.

Minnesota Price & Cost Summary
These prices and costs are suggested as guides for planning based on historical cost and returns for Minnesota farms included in the FINBIN Farm Financial Database.

FINPACK Labor Hour Estimates
FINFLO calculates Cost of Production Estimates for crop and livestock enterprises. These calculations rely on labor hours in the budgets. This document summarizes labor hours for several crop and livestock enterprises from FINBIN which can be used in the budgets.

Cash Flow Management for Financial Stability: Profitability, Debt Service, and Projections
Cash flow is a critical component of a business’s financial health and performance, yet it is often confused with profitability.

Tax Impact on Debt Coverage (agriculture files)
This paper discusses how to handle income taxes payable so the calculation for term debt coverage includes accrual income taxes rather than income taxes paid.

FINPACK Shortcut Icons
Quick explanation of the toolbar icons

Importing Data from Another FINPACK File
FINPACK allows users to import data from a different FINPACK data file into their current file. This feature allows the receiving file to add or import new data, without overwriting the remaining contents of the file.

Importing Data into FINPACK+ Credit Analysis Files
New data, from an external FINPACK Credit Analysis file can be imported into your institution’s FINPACK+ Credit Analysis file for a customer. This feature allows you to add information, like a balance sheet or cash flow projection, into existing Credit Analysis file, without overwriting the remaining contents of the file.

Consolidating Data Sources in FINPACK+
FINPACK Credit Analysis allows users to consolidate the balance sheets or tax forms from several different data files into a consolidated file.