How to conduct an end of year business audit (SFFF 79)
The end of a growing season has a familiar rhythm. The fields quiet down, the buckets get shelved, and the last bouquets leave the farm stand. This transition is the perfect moment to sit down with a notebook and walk through the process that has shaped the direction of my flower farm for years. An end of year flower farm business audit is more than a reflection. It is a reset button, a way to gather clarity, protect your time and energy, and build a farm that supports your life rather than draining it. This approach has become one of the most powerful tools I use to plan a profitable and sustainable season ahead.
Instead of letting another year slip by on autopilot, this audit invites you to pause and look at what actually happened. What worked. What didn’t. What surprised you. What drained you. This type of honest evaluation prevents you from repeating the same mistakes year after year and gives you the confidence to make decisions based on data instead of guesswork. It is also an unexpectedly grounding experience, especially for farmers who feel pulled in too many directions or overwhelmed by the endless options available in small scale flower farming.
Step One: Dreaming and Setting Financial Goals
The audit begins with something simple. Dreaming. Before touching spreadsheets or calculating profit margins, take a moment to think about the revenue and profit you want next season. Not the number you think you should want. The number that feels right for your life and your family. Many farmers skip this step and jump straight to what feels realistic, but setting clear intentions gives you a target to work toward. Once those goals are on paper, the path becomes much easier to map out.
Journal prompts work beautifully for this step. Write down what you want to earn, the roles or offerings that could support that goal, and any changes that would make this vision possible. Treat it like a conversation with your future self. This is your chance to name what you want without judgment or pressure.
Step Two: Aligning Your Flower Farm With Your Lifestyle
The next part of the audit dives into lifestyle and values. A flower farm can be profitable and still make you miserable if the work you are doing doesn’t fit the life you want. Weddings, farm stands, wholesaling, subscriptions, and on-farm events all offer different types of pressure and different types of joy. The goal is to identify which areas of your business felt energizing for you this year and which ones drained you mentally or physically.
Once those insights are written down, connect them to next season’s planning. Maybe weekends are sacred family time. Maybe early mornings feel peaceful. Maybe you realized workshops light you up more than bouquet making. These preferences matter. When your farm aligns with your values, everything else becomes easier to maintain and grow.
Steps Three and Four: Reviewing Projected vs Actual Numbers
When the dreaming is done, it is time to dig into the numbers. Start with the big picture. Look at your projected revenue and profit for the year and compare them to what actually happened. Identify where expectations were met, exceeded, or missed. Then reflect on why. A weather event, a lost crop, a marketing lull, a sudden spike in demand. Every number tells a story.
After that high level review, go deeper. Analyze each product and sales channel one by one. Which offerings carried the farm this year. Which ones were surprisingly profitable. Which ones absorbed far too much labor for the return they produced. This step often reveals the truth about what is worth scaling and what is worth letting go. A profitable flower farm is one that knows exactly where its money is coming from and where its resources are being wasted.
Steps Five and Six: Turning Insights into Action
The final steps are simple but so, so important! The Start Stop Keep list is where everything becomes actionable. Write down the habits, systems, crops, and practices you want to start doing, stop doing, or continue. The key is honesty. Be willing to let go of what no longer serves you and commit to what has proven to work. This list alone can shape your entire business strategy for the coming year.
Then take inventory of your achievements and disappointments. Celebrate what went well. Name what didn’t. For every disappointment, assign a solution category like systems, research, equipment, infrastructure, or help. This turns frustration into something tangible and fixable. It also gives you a clear list of improvements to invest in over time, which transforms the audit from a reflection into a growth strategy.
Build a Better Flower Farm With Purpose and Clarity
By the time you complete all six steps, you will have a deep understanding of your farm’s strengths, challenges, goals, and future direction. The audit brings structure to your decisions and gives you permission to build a flower farm that you truly love. This work changes everything. It has changed everything for me, season after season.
To walk through the process with me listen to the full episode of the Six Figure Flower Farming Podcast. Also be sure to grab the FREE Workbook that will guide you through each step with prompts, examples, and templates to make your planning easier and more effective.
