T&J Clifford Family Farm Legacy, Inc.

T&J Clifford Family Farm Legacy, Inc. has a rich history as a family-run operation based in Auburn, Indiana. Between owning and renting land, they farm approximately 5,000 acres of corn and soybeans. The Cliffords have been involved in farming for generations, evolving with advancements in agriculture while maintaining their strong roots in family tradition.

Tracey Clifford has been an integral part of T&J Clifford Family Farm Legacy, Inc., officially taking on a leadership role in financial management in 2021. Her full-time return to the farm was driven by a commitment to her family following the unfortunate passing of her brother, who previously handled financial operations. She now plays a pivotal role in managing accounting, paperwork, and key partnerships with agencies such as the Farm Service Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. This transition motivated Tracey to seek more efficient ways to manage the farm’s financials, ultimately leading her to explore and implement Traction Ag.

Challenges

Before adopting Traction Ag in 2022, Tracey faced several financial management challenges. The farm relied on Quickbooks and spreadsheets, which lacked agriculture-specific functionalities. This led to difficulties in categorizing farm-related expenses, tracking transactions, and preparing financial reports. The manual processes were not only time-consuming but also made tax preparation particularly frustrating and labor-intensive.

Additionally, Tracey faced challenges in reconciling multiple entities, as the farm operates under both a corporation and an LLC. The previous accounting software did not provide an easy solution for handling these separate accounts within a single system.  As the farm grew, these inefficiencies became more apparent, prompting the need for a more streamlined and farm-specific financial management solution.

Results

Farm-Specific Accounting

As Tracey took on the financial role at the farm, she realized the basic accounting software they used lacked a way to track expenses that made sense for farming. “I wanted something much more specific,” she remembers. “I heard about Traction as I was looking for a quick way to handle our accounting software. I was able to start a trial and really see the ins and outs of how the software worked.”

"My favorite thing about Traction is how farm specific it is."

With Traction Ag, Tracey can categorize expenses specific to farm inputs such as seed, chemical, and repairs. “We’ve been using Traction for three and a half years now, and it’s been a huge time saver. Especially when reconciling things and putting them in categories,” she says. “I can easily pull reports for my dad or different companies that are looking for numbers from us. That would’ve taken me a couple days to go through and provide that information. It’s just a huge time saver and really cuts down on the amount of work that I have.”

Organized Tax Preparation

Tax season had previously been a stressful and time-intensive process for T&J Clifford Family Farm Legacy, Inc. Before implementing Traction Ag, Tracey had to manually sift through spreadsheets and categorize expenses to prepare farm tax filings. “I was trying to figure out the best way to organize a tax return for the farming side of things,” she recalls. “The challenge was to categorize things for the farm specifically, and to fill out that return.”

With Traction Ag’s built-in farm-tailored reporting tools, organizing financial data became significantly easier. The ability to pull categorized reports with a few clicks meant that tax preparation, which once took days of manual work, was now streamlined and efficient. “Traction saves me a lot of time in a lot of different ways during this time of year,” Tracey says. “Instead of having a spreadsheet or multiple spreadsheets where I need to find information, it’s all in one spot with Traction. And it’s so neatly categorized for the farm that I know where to look for specific categories of things.”

"Instead of having a spreadsheet or multiple spreadsheets where I need to find information, it's all in one spot with Traction."

Clear Financial Oversight

Having real-time financial visibility is crucial for the farm’s decision-making process. With Traction Ag, Tracey instantly generates financial reports, enabling the farm to make smarter choices around budgeting, purchasing, and operational adjustments. “It helps us make more informed decisions than we have in the past because we haven’t been able to capture that as quickly,” she says. “You can look at your field profitability by feeding in field records and looking at different inventory and inputs.”

"Traction helps me thrive because it really helps us as a farm look at our growth from year to year in a way that we haven't been able to before."

The ability to track farm expenses in real time helps ensure that financial goals remain on target, and that they have the data available to steer the business in the right direction. “One of the key features that our farm likes about Traction is the income and expense side of things,” Tracey says. “We can quickly pull up that report and it’s categorized so we can really drill down to see: this is what we’ve spent on farm repairs in 2024. This is what we spent on chemicals. This is what we spent on seed… And this is what we can do next year.”

“It’s encouraging and motivating to look at how you have grown or how you may be able to grow. It’s not only a time saver, but provides a big picture look at what we’ve done over the years.”

Easy Inventory and Record Management

“Traction has a really neat function of being able to attach receipts. If we need to go back and look at something, I can actually just pull up a line item and look at a copy of the receipt,” Tracey says. “And I can even break it down to specific types of seeds, or chemicals, rather than searching through a big file of receipts and not often finding them right away… Previously it could take a whole day to track down a receipt.” The ability to attach receipts and transaction records directly within Traction Ag eliminates the need for manual recordkeeping at the farm.

With digital receipt storage and easy search functionalities, Tracey quickly retrieves financial documents, and keeps track of expenses, inputs and inventory. “I really like how I can see a report of what we have. We use a lot of different types of seed and it’ll tell me what we’ve used throughout the year, and that’s really nice. With the amount that we use sometimes it’s hard to keep track of that.”

“It would be very troublesome for us to not have the information we do now.”

“I can categorize everything in a farm category, and there’s all sorts of reports that I can pull and easily provide to my dad. This is what we have in farm expense, this is what we have in repairs, this is what we have in chemical expense,” Tracey says. “There’s a lot of different things that make Traction more than just the accounting side of things.”

Multi-Entity Management

One of the challenges T&J Clifford Family Farm Legacy, Inc. faced was managing multiple business entities under a single financial system and subscription. “We have just recently switched to operating as a corporation. With that, our farm operates under a corporation while our owned land is under an LLC,” says Tracey. Unlike traditional accounting software, which requires separate accounts for each entity, Traction Ag’s ability to manage multiple entities within one platform and subscription fee allows Tracey to reconcile the finances seamlessly.

"[With Traction] you can have multiple entities, and that's just not common for a lot of accounting software. It really benefits us rather than having multiple subscriptions."

“The really neat part about Traction is that I can have both entities and reconcile both accounts in the system, and then when it comes tax time I have all of that information separate,” Tracey explains. “I have my own farm, and I can even have that information in there as well. It’s just really neat because a lot of software doesn’t allow you to do that.”

A Trusted Partner

Customer Support

Traction Ag prides itself on providing strong customer support, ensuring that farmers receive personalized assistance with onboarding, troubleshooting, and maximizing the software’s benefits. Tracey says, “The customer success portion of Traction is something I have really benefited from. I don’t know of any other software out there that provides responsiveness or the overall kindness in dealing with their customers.”

One notable experience involved a reconciliation error that required urgent attention for a banking report. She recalls, “They actually sat down with me and helped me work through reconciling and fixing some of the errors that I made. I was then able to get those reports to the bank on time. I would not have been able to do that on my own.”

Independence

As an independent company, Traction prioritizes the needs of family farms rather than external industries. “My dad and I really appreciate knowing that Traction is independent and that’s important to them to stay that way,” Tracey says. “There’s so many companies out there trying to sell things to farmers, so it can be hard to know who to trust in industries like this.”

Data Privacy

This independence also extends to data privacy, as Traction ensures that farmers retain full ownership and control over their financial and operational data, without the risk of third-party exploitation.

“Data privacy is extremely important to me and it’s very important to my dad as well. I really like that about Traction,” Tracey says. “I’ve never felt like our information is compromised… That’s something you hear about a lot – information being leaked and that sort of thing. That was one of the hurdles when looking for a company to feed our financial information through. Feeling that sense of trust and that our data was safe… I’ve never questioned that with Traction.”

Looking ahead, T&J Clifford Family Farm Legacy, Inc. plans to explore key features of Traction Ag that they aren’t yet utilizing, such as the John Deere Operation Center integration. “I have the ability to actually feed our field records into Traction, so there’s a lot of potential for me to look at inventory and provide even more information to my dad and different companies on how to make our operation more efficient,” Tracey says. “I’m excited about what Traction has to offer and what they’re working on. I think as they continue to grow, it’s going to help farms continue to grow as well.”

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