Ravensberg Contractor - Series by SimpleFarmer

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SimpleFarmer
Posts: 468
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2019 6:03 pm
Location: Boise

Ravensberg Contractor - Series by SimpleFarmer

Post by SimpleFarmer »

Introduction
Welcome to another series by SimpleFarmer. If you've read any of my previous ones, thanks for reading. I mostly do these for my own enjoyment; I find it's more fun to keep a journal or record of what I'm doing, even if just to read it myself sometimes. But I also like reading other people's as well so maybe you might like reading this too.
On this series I will explore being a contractor and own little to none of my own land, but as much equipment as I need to get everyone's contracts completed every day. It's a sizable task, as every day there are about 2-3 hours worth of contracts posted on the community job board, and completing them all would take a large fleet of equipment.
I chose the map Ravensberg, as it has a very well rounded feel to it, and there are a lot of contracts.
The idea behind this is that in the real world, there are large contractors that can afford the best equipment because they have enough work to keep it all busy. The problem they are faced with is trying to get all the work done on time, which means their fleets have to be quite large. To simulate this, I will keep the clock at a minimum of 5x with 6-day seasons, and occasionally put the clock at 15x on slower days. This may mean that during the first year(s) I will not be able to complete all the contracts in a given day, but the idea is to somehow grow to the size that I can.
I won't be using the ability to lease the equipment in the contract, as the idea is to see if I can be successful using my own.
Additionally, I will raise some animals, first starting with horses, and maybe moving to sheep or pigs.
The economic difficulty will be on hard, as I've done a few series before on medium, and it just seems like they are too profitable after a year or so. This won't affect contracts too much until we get to the harvest contracts, but will affect any other choices I might make along the way such as other sources of income or forestry.
I will start with as a Farm Manager, and keep the possibility of loans open. I will most likely finance quite heavily as I think this simulates a lot of the contractors who probably are investor owned/debt leveraged. I will leave the interest rate where it is, so people who play on consoles will be able to relate to my profitability as well.
I will track my progress using my Financial Statements for Farming Simulator I published awhile ago on this forum, and they will accurately portray the real expenses over time as opposed to just the basic cash flow shown in the finance window in-game.
Thanks in advance for reading, and I hope you enjoy.
SimpleFarmer
Posts: 468
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2019 6:03 pm
Location: Boise

Spring - Year 1

Post by SimpleFarmer »

March - April
A bright, sunny spring day was in full swing when I stepped off the train in Ravensberg, and I could feel the endless possibility in the air. I had visited this area before and was already familiar with the town and surrounding countryside. I went straight to a meeting with the real-estate agent and looked over a few places to build a new headquarters. I ultimately decided on a flat piece of land located north of the canal and just beside the Spinnery. I also purchased the horse corral. Things happen fast here in Ravensberg, you just buy land and that's it - no messing about.
After that meeting, I went to the equipment dealership to start putting together my fleet. The first tractor I went with was a Case Maxxum, but it didn't seem to have enough hp for a lot of the 7-10m tools, and was too big for basic tasks I could do with a small tractor. Instead I exchanged it for a Fendt 724 Vario. I also bought a small trailer and set to work on a few transport missions around town. A local delivery company needed help delivering some luggage from the train station to the resort at the top of the mountain, and a few pallets of seeds from the docks to a local vendor. Additionally, there was a huge local demand for field preparation, such as cultivating and plowing. The 724 could pull a 6m cultivator, perhaps, or a 4m plow, but if I wanted to get going on this many contracts... I needed more horsepower. To meet the contracts I shopped for a disk first and then bought a tractor to pull it. I went with the 9m Joker and paired it with a Fendt 942 Profi Plus. I also bought a case 7m plow to start working on the incredible amount of plowing that needed done. The residents of Ravensberg clearly missed the memo that plowing is bad for soil biology and soil health. As I work in this area I will try to impart to them the knowledge I have on going no-till. But for now I need the money.
May - June
Plowing and cultivating seem to be very meager contracts and pay next to nothing per hour, with plowing being the worst. Despite this, I seemed to make the same amount off of contracts per day, even when I started on "more lucrative" contracts, such as fertilizing later in the spring. The reason for this is I stopped working so late in the day most days. In the beginning I would continue working until close to 9 or 10 at night, but as the spring went on, I started to enjoy my afternoons off, and started quitting more around 3 or 4, leaving a lot of planting or cultivating tasks undone.
In the Ravensberg area there are a lot of livestock farms, so I started doing fertilizer missions with a manure spreader, instead of a chemical solution. Manure is cheaper than the chemical fertilizer (unless purchased by the farmhand, wow). Additionally, the farmers appreciate it more, as manure works into the soil better, and doesn't cause soil health problems. At this point I should point out I don't actually know very much about farming in real life, I've watched a few YouTube videos by farmers, but other than that, I've never farmed a day in my life. Any of the farming advice I deal out in this series shouldn't be followed (at all) if you're actually trying to make a living at farming. Please consult an actual farmer:)
Soon, however, I found I wouldn't be able to keep up with the volume of fertilizing that needed done, so I started using chemical fertilizer on fields that already had a coat of manure. I lost track of that eventually, and just started trying to keep both tractors busy fertilizing. My chemical fertilizer solution was a new (used) JCB 150 with a Kuhn 24m spreader. The JCB looked a little odd at first, but slowly grew on me over time. The Fendt 942 I put to work with a Lemkin 12m seeder.
Livestock
My horses were kept happy all spring; I bought a used Massey Ferguson 390T from the Farming Classics pack, and used it to feed them and move the pallets of oats and bales around for them. At the time I started this series there wasn't an option to avoid using the forage extension (that I knew of anyway). As a result, the horses needed all kinds of different hay or grass. I planned on buying anything the horses needed, but there was no way to buy any of these, so I bought a bailer capable of making them and manufactured my own using the Easy Dev controls. My next post will be about how happy I was to see I wasn't going to be forced to deal with the forage extension clutter forever.
Financial Report
The quarterly earnings were published and the board wasn't happy.
Income Statement
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Balance Sheet
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Analysis
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Placeables
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Summary
Net income couldn't have been more dismal. Most of the Spring was a loss, but just at the end, with the onset of fertilizer contracts, we were able to become "profitable" with an income of 17,000.
Based on how the Spring went, I made a forecast for the future. The main reason we were unprofitable was depreciation. Nearly 20% of the value of our equipment is depreciated in the first hour of use, which is definitely not straight line method. Over the life of the machine, the depreciation curve would straighten out, so eventually we would be profitable. The problem is that we plan on being a front-runner in the field--meaning always having the best technology, and enough equipment to handle all of the contracts in the area. This means we will always be buying new equipment and selling it when it starts to get old and require more maintenance. In the simulator, the equipment functions the same whether its a year old or 5 years old, so this doesn't seem to matter, but in real life, the reason these contractors always have such shiny new equipment is that it requires very little maintenance per hour of use. We will see how I manage to simulate this, at the moment I don't really know. What the forecast showed however, was that we will be unprofitable when buying new equipment and using it for contracts only. IF we were to stop buying new equipment, we would become profitable over time. We will continue to explore this as the types of contracts change, but with how expensive harvesters are, I don't have much hope that the slightly higher paying harvest contracts will change this.
Nearing the end of spring I started to fear what the board would say, as profits were just refusing to be profits, so I tried to think of a way to gain some income without too much risk. I was saving the remaining capital and loan buying power I had to get a harvester later in the year, so a lot of options were off the table. Instead, I went with a greenhouse for 18,000. I had to buy trailers to deliver the manure and water with. It turned out to be too little too late, and as far as the quarterly report was concerned, made our position worse.
At some point I plan on getting into forestry; I am hoping this coming winter, but with the cost of harvesters it might be next year some time.
SimpleFarmer
Posts: 468
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2019 6:03 pm
Location: Boise

Map Update

Post by SimpleFarmer »

After Spring Year 1 I found that a new version of Ravensberg was released, and as luck would have it, the option to have Ravensberg without Forage Extension was available. I have never been able to get on board with Forage Extension, it always just seems like too much clutter, but maybe at some point in the future I will get more into it. The same is with Precision Farming. I tried it when it came out, but it didn't seem to make sense why my yields were so poor, despite trying to apply fertilizer multiple times, etc. I am sure if I did more research I would figure out the reason, but being as I wasn't really too exited about it in the first place, one or two wasted years of farming was enough to make me just go back to the regular type of farming.
I started a new savegame and copied/pasted as much from the old game files as I knew how to, but couldn't figure out how to get the field info to transfer without all the forage extension information, so I just left all the field and crop information out. As a result, all the fields at the beginning of summer now are all harvested and re-set. All my fertilizing was for naught and I doubt there will be a harvest season this year. For this reason, I am just going to fast forward to next summer and see if it resets/ see what happens. Either way, I'm not too concerned because I am just a contractor and none of my own fields were at stake. The tears of the townspeople of Ravensberg have no effect on me :)
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DEERE317
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Joined: Fri Dec 25, 2020 5:01 pm

Re: Ravensberg Contractor - Series by SimpleFarmer

Post by DEERE317 »

“ I will track my progress using my Financial Statements for Farming Simulator I published awhile ago on this forum,” may I ask where to read more?
FS15 & FS19 Platinum Edition PC (and War Thunder, Gaijin is way worse than GIANTS ever has been accused of being)
FS Comunity Trader: https://fs19communitytrader.freeforums.net/
Desktop: i5-9400f, RTX 2060, 8gb RAM, 256gb SSD.
Laptop: Pentium Silver N5000, UHD605, 4gb RAM, 1tb HDD.
Deere, Fendt, Claas, and sometimes the rest of Agco.
SimpleFarmer
Posts: 468
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2019 6:03 pm
Location: Boise

Re: Ravensberg Contractor - Series by SimpleFarmer

Post by SimpleFarmer »

DEERE317 wrote: Sun Mar 14, 2021 1:31 am “ I will track my progress using my Financial Statements for Farming Simulator I published awhile ago on this forum,” may I ask where to read more?
viewtopic.php?f=988&t=159723&p=1254552#p1254552
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DEERE317
Posts: 3189
Joined: Fri Dec 25, 2020 5:01 pm

Re: Ravensberg Contractor - Series by SimpleFarmer

Post by DEERE317 »

Thanks
FS15 & FS19 Platinum Edition PC (and War Thunder, Gaijin is way worse than GIANTS ever has been accused of being)
FS Comunity Trader: https://fs19communitytrader.freeforums.net/
Desktop: i5-9400f, RTX 2060, 8gb RAM, 256gb SSD.
Laptop: Pentium Silver N5000, UHD605, 4gb RAM, 1tb HDD.
Deere, Fendt, Claas, and sometimes the rest of Agco.
SimpleFarmer
Posts: 468
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2019 6:03 pm
Location: Boise

Summer - Year 1

Post by SimpleFarmer »

June - July
Summer came in unnoticed due to the amount of stress I was under to figure out how to become profitable. I was worried that another contractor would some into Ravensburg and take all the work that needed done. I needed to find a way to secure the area while the demand was high.
Additionally, I was looking to diversify my revenue sources. Currently I was relying almost entirely on contract income, but had just added a lemon greenhouse. The lemons don't sell during some seasons as well as others, so there are periods where the income from them will drop to nothing. (I do this because the AJTech greenhouses are a little too profitable for my style, so I let them go unused some of the time). My third revenue source are the horses, which provide about 10,000 per month after expenses. I plan on going into forestry at some point, hopefully in year 2 or 3, which will bring in another source of revenue. This summer though, I invested in new straw pellet production technology, which will bring our primary revenue streams to 4 total.
June and July were mostly spent fertilizing and enjoying the sights of Ravensberg. I went on a small vacation during July and came back at the start of August to prepare for the harvest.
August
August was a very busy month. We purchased the new harvester - a New Holland CR10.90, and got it ready for work. Additionally, we began preparations for the Straw Pellet Expansion. We paid for the harvester with the remaining cash we had, and a conventional loan for the remainder. We financed the straw production expansion via a $1,000,000 bond sale.

Straw Pellet Expansion: The first order of business to get started with production was to purchase the land we would need. We settled with a flat area just east of Ravensberg near a small community at the base of the mountain. We started construction on the warehouse we would need and ordered the production equipment. The warehouse would have a crane and palletizer, and we would purchase a bale shredder, pelletizer and semi. The semi we selected was the TGS AgroTruck, with a Fiegl bale transport trailer. Lastly, with the (happy) end of forage extension, we didn't need the bail wrapper bailer, and traded it in on a Fendt square bailer.

Harvest Work: Once the harvester was outfitted and ready to go we put it straight to work. Already in late summer there were some pretty large harvest contracts that opened up, and we were looking at a very tough schedule. We just hoped the weather would cooperate because with only one harvester, we couldn't afford to have it idle, or we wouldn't be able to complete all of the contracts by the turn of the season.
We completed 4 large harvest contracts, fields 5, 2, 20 and 22. It started to rain just as we were finishing up field 22, so we lost some of the straw, but were able to get all the wheat. The leftover harvest was higher than usual on all these contracts because of all the plowing/fertilizing we had done earlier. We ended the summer with an inventory valued at around 25,000.
Financial Report
The quarterly reports came in and the board was "concerned". If I don't turn a profit in year 1 they are going with another farm manager.


I explained to them that a homeless guy who collects aluminum cans along the freeway and recycles them "turns a profit". They weren't impressed.

Income Statement
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Balance Sheet
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Analysis
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Miscellaneous Information
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I think we have a truly impressive contracts income amount at nearly 400k. That's a lot of contracts - maybe if I remember I'll look at the stats and update the exact number. With the harvest contracts ahead of us, the number should hopefully continue to grow by at least 30%.
The harvest income is from selling straw pellets. Each straw pallet sells for about $1,000, so to pay off the initial investment, I will need to produce 1,000 pallets. Luckily, I will have a few years to do it in. The board demanded to know how I plan on paying off the bonds in 10 years. I reminded them of elementary math techniques, showing them that when dividing the number 1,000,000 by 10, we take one zero from the larger and end up with: 100,000. This is our annual goal/year. This divided by 4 quarters gives us 25,000/quarter. At 27,000, we are ahead of schedule. By 2,000. They should require some kind of math test to get on this board.
The majority of the loss is from the depreciation of the straw expansion, which will even out over the next 10 years as the building won't continue to depreciate, and we shouldn't need to update any of the equipment over that time.
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