Joe Brattin

A drastic before and after

Beth Luebbering, vice president at FCS Financial, has worked with Rafter B Farms for over a decade. Joe and Angela Brattin own and operate the Missouri cattle feeding and backgrounding operation with help from their sons, Riley and Jayce, daughter Sarah and Angela’s dad and brother.

Since they started working together, Beth noticed Joe kept a lot of critical information in his head instead of putting numbers to paper.

“When we first started with Joe, it was very much an estimate. In his head, I know he had a great grasp and a great understanding, but to be real about it, I had never received any closeout information on a group,” Beth says. “Whenever you have all the scattered information, it just doesn't show good trends and accurate financials, so it makes it more difficult for us to support financial decisions.”

Then something changed. In early 2022, Joe started using a cattle software called Performance Beef. He walked into his next meeting with Beth armed with precise feeding records and built-in analytics tied to Rafter B Farms’ data and insights.

“When he handed me my first printout, I said, can I have a copy of that?” Beth laughs. “I can now support all the groups he's sold. It makes for a much easier analysis for future projection because we have all the numbers and there's no guessing. It really makes us all better decision-makers.”

The before and after was a huge boost to Joe’s operation. Beth says maintaining accurate records – herd performance, balance sheet, income statement and cash flow – is the most effective tool to monitor progress and gauge success.

That all became possible with Performance Beef and opened new opportunities to work together.

“We background several outside cattle and Performance Beef helps see what our cost is with those cattle as well and with how we manage those cattle,” says Joe. “Being able to show Beth the closeouts on groups of cattle have helped us secure a bigger line of credit. She likes having that information and we can know down to the dollar what the cattle are making.”

He’ll give Beth a printout before and after he sells a group of cattle. He and Beth can review those numbers together, plus easily see the number of cattle he still has on feed and any pre-purchased commodities.

Those real-time numbers give Joe an accurate breakeven and give Beth a clear picture of financial health to make faster decisions on growth opportunities.

“As a loan officer, I'm trying to capture what my customer sitting across the desk is telling me. When they can hand me a printout with that breakdown on it, I have everything I need for my credit team to review and analyze the operation,” Beth says. “Joe has made great headway in his business decisions and in his operation. I think a lot of that is attributed to Performance Beef.”

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