Driving the business of farming forward is Figured’s mission, so we were absolutely thrilled to see so many stories from advisors and accountants who are doing amazing work on this front alongside us. From transformative advisory service design, to integrating Figured Insights into core advisory services, to proactive, hands-on support for the local community, we received some outstanding submission for the FY24 Q3 Quarterly Figured Partner Awards.

We'd like to give everyone who submitted entries a massive thank you. Each entry was worthy of celebration and appreciation. But as the saying goes, there can be only one...So here are your winners of each Quarterly Figured Partner Award.

Top Partner of the Quarter: Lawson Avery

Identifying a gap between what advisory support is being proactively offered to farmers and what they currently need in order to improve their outcomes with the banks, Lawson Avery undertook several initiatives to ensure farmers have the best access to the right information when it is most relevant.

These initiatives included designing services packages that are centred around delivering key future-focused reports out of Figured at a frequency that encouraged the consistency and accountability from farmers. The approach Lawson Avery took ensures that farmers are able to improve their financial performance and importantly, get better outcomes with the banks, which is crucial to the local farming community at this time.

Alongside their work to transform how they deliver key services to farmers, Lawson Avery has successfully leveraged Figured Insights to drive deeper curiosity and engagement from their customers by incorporating Farm Stats and Benchmarking reports into their client meetings.

Adviser of the Quarter: Stacey MacDonald, Velocite

Stacey MacDonald, a Business Advisor at Velocite, played a crucial role in leading their firm’s roll out of Figured Insights. Understanding the importance of working with high-quality data, she took the initiative to ensure their client data was clean and accurate so they could build out their benchmark groups in Figured Insights and deliver quality financial insights to their clients.

Due to her work, Velocite has been able to adopt and implement Figured Insights to deliver differentiated value to their clients, and provide them with a deeper understanding of their farming business and where they can optimise their performance.

Rising Star of the Quarter: Emily Rampling, Rural Accountants

Since joining Rural Accountants in October 2023, Emily rapidly established herself as an invaluable member of her team, particularly in her mastery of Figured, and received  exceptional feedback from her firm and clients.
Seeing the opportunity in leveraging the full potential of Figured, Emily has helped to improve efficiency within her firm as well ensuring that clients are receiving the right information they need in a timely manner. All of which has meant that her work has raised overall client satisfaction, a significant achievement at any level.

Due to her exceptional skill with Figured, coupled with her ability to translate complex software features into tangible benefits for our clients and our business, we’re proud to award Emily as this quarter’s Figured Rising Star!

Farmer Support Award: BM Accounting

BM Accounting has gone above and beyond to really step up and support their farmers in the face of the significant challenges this season. Members of this firm were unrelenting in their efforts to provide continuous support to farmers struggling with the effects of the severe North Island weather events by helping them proactively manage the impact and better understand their current position.

For clients in need, they used reporting from Figured to assist with numerous applications to access central and local government funding that were made available to support farmers impacted by the weather events.

BM Accounting proactively brought together different members of the farming team, working extensively with the banks to ensure their clients were bank-ready, so they could efficiently access capital, which was a huge stress relief for several farmers this past season.

Our sincere thanks and congratulations to the winners of the Quarterly Figured Partner Awards! It was a privilege to hear your stories and to play a small part in the amazing work that you and all of our partners do for the New Zealand farming community.

We look forward to reading more submissions in the next quarters awards! The FY24 Q4 Figured Partner Awards are now open for submissions. Submissions are as easy as possible, taking only a few minutes with one question to answer in your submission. Enter your submission here, and you or your firm could be one of next quarter’s winners!

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