Tanner Farms

Tanner Farms is more than a business, it’s a family legacy stretching back five generations. Today, Brian Tanner carries the torch as the fourth generation. Located in Morton, Illinois, the “Pumpkin Capital of the World,” the farm was founded by Brian’s great-grandfather, who emigrated from Switzerland and began the family farming tradition with milking cows. Dairy farming eventually gave way to grain under Brian’s grandfather, and the family has expanded the operation ever since.

After graduating from college, Brian returned to the farm full-time and gradually diversified their crop rotation, growing both conventional and organic crops, including corn, soybeans, wheat, peas, popcorn, and pumpkins. Over the last 35 years, he has overseen the expansion of Tanner Farms into a complex operation that includes a trucking business and multiple entities.

But the farm’s most meaningful evolution is generational. In recent years, Brian’s son Brody Tanner joined the business full-time after earning a degree in agriculture from Illinois Central College. For Brody, returning to the farm wasn’t just an option, it was the plan from day one. “Farming is something that I've always been interested in ever since I was a little kid riding in the tractor with my dad,” says Brody. “I was always interested in doing it as a career full-time once I got out of school.”

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‍Challenges

Disconnected Data

Outdated Tools

No Scalable System

Cumbersome Payroll and Invoicing

Before Traction Ag, Brian used an aging, desktop-based accounting platform that simply couldn’t keep up with the demands of their modern farm business. It didn’t integrate with other tools. It didn’t run on a Mac computer. It couldn’t support the complexity of four legal entities. And it wasn’t designed for collaboration or succession.

“Growing up, I remember going into my dad's office. He'd be sitting at his desk on his old desktop with old accounting software that had all the old bars and lines of numbers,” Brody remembers. “That old accounting software never left the desk.”

Field data, invoices, payroll records, and vendor bills all lived in separate systems. Brian spent countless hours entering data, working long hours just to keep things organized. And with Brody coming on board, it was clear they needed something built for the future.

As his outdated accounting software started to phase itself out, Brian began looking for something different. He first heard about Traction Ag through his accountant, and was immediately intrigued. Not only was it cloud-based and easy to access from anywhere, but it was also purpose-built for real farmers.

For Brody, who had never used the old systems, Traction made a strong first impression: ”I like the usability of it, the way that everything is laid out, the way that it looks. And the fact that it's web-based is really nice because I can access it anywhere.”

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Results

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Unified accounting with profitability insights

Since adopting Traction Ag years ago, the single biggest transformation for Tanner Farms has been financial clarity. Before Traction, critical farm data was scattered across various disconnected platforms. Accounting in one place, field activity in another, vendor records elsewhere. This fragmented approach made it difficult to connect costs to operations and nearly impossible to get a reliable view of profitability.

“Prior to using Traction, one of the challenges we faced was the data we were collecting on many other platforms besides our accounting software,” Brian explains. “We really wanted to tie all that data to our financials, because we need to know our true costs.”

They now make breakeven calculations based on actual costs and real-time data, not spreadsheets or year-end estimates. This means Brian can adjust pricing, input strategies, and even decide whether to scale back or double down on a specific enterprise before it’s too late to make a difference.

For Tanner Farms, where they grow a mix of conventional and organic crops including corn, soybeans, peas, and pumpkins for Nestlé, this level of detail is a game changer. Traction doesn’t just show how the farm is performing overall; it helps the Tanners evaluate the profitability of each field, each crop, and each landowner agreement.

“Having a farm accounting platform that easily looks at different enterprises so we know where we're making money and where we're not, helps us make better decisions moving forward,” Brian says, “whether that’s about specific enterprises, different crops, or different opportunities.”

In the past, understanding profitability meant hours of data entry and guesswork. Today, it’s a central part of how Tanner Farms operates.

“Having an accounting platform that helps me out and saves time, and where I still get the information that I need, is one of the most valuable assets that I work with.” - Brian Tanner

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Seamless integrations save weeks of time

For a multi-entity operation like Tanner Farms, every hour counts.

“We're all limited with our time,” says Brian. Between managing crop inputs, processing payroll, handling vendor bills, and billing custom work to landowners, the administrative workload can quickly become overwhelming. That’s why Traction’s integrations have been a game changer, eliminating redundant tasks, reducing errors, and giving Brian and Brody their time back.

FS Billing integration

Traction’s integration with FS has saved Tanner Farms a tremendous amount of time. Previously, every FS bill required manual entry of line after line of detailed product data, often across multiple fields and entities. It was a tedious process. “With the number of farms we're covering and the detail of the products that are used on each farm, there would be hours and weeks spent entering data when we got our supply bill,” Brian recalls. “With that [FS] integration, all that information comes in automatically and saves weeks worth of time.”

John Deere Operations Center integration

In addition to the FS integration, Tanner Farms finds Traction’s John Deere Operations Center integration to be crucial to the farm’s success. Every pass through the field of spraying, fertilizing, and planting is automatically imported and tied to previous purchases in the accounting system. That means fewer hours spent reconciling what was done in the field with what was paid at the office.

“One of the biggest benefits that we see from using Traction for our farm accounting is the integration with John Deere Operations Center,” Brian says. “When I'm spraying or applying a product to my field, that automatically comes into Traction and gets tied to the purchase I made earlier. And those numbers are all true and correct, and I can track each enterprise to see where I'm profitable and where I'm not.”

With the John Deere Operations Center integration, invoicing landowners is now fast, accurate, and connected directly to field data. “It’s a huge benefit using Traction at the end of the season when I wanna bill my landlords.” He says. “I use the numbers from the John Deere Operations Center integration to easily bill my landowners for the inputs that they owe.” With a few clicks, he generates and sends bills that are backed by actual records, not estimates.

“I use Traction for all of my invoicing.” - Brian Tanner

Paylocity

With six full-time employees across the operation, payroll used to involve spreadsheets, time tracking, and manual calculations. Traction’s integration with Paylocity has eliminated yet another administrative headache. “On a weekly basis, the integration with Paylocity to handle my payroll saves a lot of time and makes life really easy on me,” Brian says. “That's probably one of the bigger [time-savers] on a regular basis.”

This isn’t just about convenience, it’s about confidence. Because the data enters the system cleanly and directly, it ties correctly to fields and financials without guesswork. What used to be a full-time chore is now a background task.

“I really value the integration with both FS and John Deere Operations Center, bringing information in from other platforms and tying it to my farm accounting.” - Brian Tanner

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Multi-entity management

Tanner Farms isn’t a simple operation. With four distinct legal entities including Tanner Farms Organics, Tanner Farms Trucking, a family partnership, and Brian and Don Tanner as a sole proprietorship, the accounting workload used to be fragmented and frustrating. Most accounting systems treat each entity as a separate account or file, making it nearly impossible to get a unified view of the entire business.

Traction changed that.

With Traction, Brian and Brody easily toggle between individual entities or view them all together in a single, cohesive system. Whether they’re evaluating the performance of their trucking entity, assessing profitability from organic pumpkin production, or managing Brody’s personal expenses, everything is housed in one platform with no need for multiple logins, data transfers, or disconnected reports.

“It's nice with Traction, having multiple entities,” Brian says. “We can look at each entity alone and its profitability and we can combine them to look at the big picture to see where we're at in a general sense.”

Unlike other farm accounting software, which often requires separate subscriptions or accounts for each entity, Traction lets farmers manage unlimited entities under one roof. It was built for multi-entity complexity, no workarounds required.

“We can look at each entity alone and its profitability and we can combine them to look at the big picture to see where we're at in a general sense.” - Brian Tanner

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Generational transition peace of mind

For Brian, farming isn’t just about growing crops, it’s about managing risk. Every decision comes down to weighing cost versus benefit, and that includes decisions about the future of the farm itself. As a fourth-generation farmer, Brian knows succession isn’t just about handing over land and equipment, it’s about passing on systems and workflows that set the next generation up for success.

“I don’t know if I have one role more important than another, but I think ‘Risk Manager’ fits. Every day we’re asking: what’s the cost, what’s the benefit?”

That’s why Brian trusts Traction to carry the farm forward into the fifth generation. It’s more than software, it’s a system that gives him peace of mind knowing his son Brody has the tools to succeed. “One thing that I really appreciate about the Traction accounting platform is the ability for the next generation to come along behind us,” Brian says. “It's a very user-friendly platform. Something that somebody can start with on a pretty general basis, and as time goes and they learn, they develop into using the data really well.”

Brody is already doing just that. After coming back to the farm full-time, he began using Traction to manage his own books, and immediately appreciated its accessibility and layout. “It makes tax season a lot easier for me,” Brody says. “It creates income statements and balance sheets that I can then take to my accountant.”

Brody's favorite part of farming is being in the field… running equipment, handling day-to-day operations, and keeping things moving. “Traction is very modern and I can take it anywhere, anytime, since it's a web-based software,” he says. Traction lets him stay focused on what he loves, without falling behind on the business side.

And for Brian, that’s the real win. He sees Traction as a partner in transition because the Traction team is responsive and committed to building tools that evolve with farms like his. “I really appreciate Traction’s independence and the ability to talk directly to the owners and the developers of the software to make changes on a rapid basis.” In Traction, Brian found a system he trusts, not just for today’s numbers, but for tomorrow’s leadership.

Tanner Farms is a case study in modernization done right: legacy values, smart succession, and the right tools for the job. Traction Ag hasn’t just streamlined their accounting, it’s positioned them for a future where every generation can thrive.

“We're able to know our true numbers and not guess what they might be.” - Brian Tanner

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