Tocal Plan to Profit Course NSW - August 2026 Intake

The August 2026 intake of Plan to Profit, Tocal College's accredited online farm business management course, starts on Monday 17 August and wraps up on 16 November - so you finish with a complete financial plan for your farm before the new year. The course was designed by P2PAgri founder Mike Krause and is delivered by Mike and Tony Hudson through five group Zoom workshops, five assessments and five private coaching sessions, all built around your own farm's numbers.

Farm business management training, fee free through AgSkilled

Plan to Profit is an accredited three-unit short course in Tocal College's AgSkilled program. The indicative fee is $3,100 (GST free), but it is fee free for eligible NSW applicants under AgSkilled funding, with eligibility confirmed by Tocal during enrolment.

Everything runs online via Zoom, so there is no travel, sessions are recorded, and the workload (around six hours a week) fits around the farm. The course text is Farming the Business, the GRDC manual on farm business management written by Mike Krause. No advanced financial literacy or computer skills are needed.

What the course covers

• Reading and understanding your farm's financial statements: cash flow, balance sheet and profit
• Working out which enterprises are actually making money, with gross margin analysis
• Building and tracking farm cash flow budgets
• The financial ratios banks use to assess your business, and how to walk into a bank meeting with bank-ready numbers
• Testing decisions before you make them with what-if scenario analysis: land purchases, enterprise changes, seasonal risk
• A practical framework for managing farm business risk

August 2026 course schedule

The intake opens on Monday 17 August 2026 and concludes on Monday 16 November 2026. Each fortnight pairs an assessment on your own business with a two-to-three-hour group Zoom workshop:

• Monday 17 August - course opens
• Tuesday 25 August - Zoom 1 with the lead trainer
• Monday 7 September - Assessment 1 due; Tuesday 8 September - Zoom 2
• Monday 21 September - Assessment 2 due; Tuesday 22 September - Zoom 3
• Monday 12 October - Assessment 3 due; Tuesday 13 October - Zoom 4
• Monday 26 October - Assessment 4 due; Tuesday 27 October - Zoom 5
• Monday 9 November - Assessment 5 due
• Monday 16 November - course concludes

You also get five private one-on-one Zoom sessions with your coach (Mike or Tony) across the course, arranged at times that suit you, to work through your own figures confidentially.

Who delivers the course

Mike Krause has spent 40 years in farm financial modelling, agribusiness training and risk management. He designed Plan to Profit, founded P2PAgri, and wrote Farming the Business for GRDC.

Tony Hudson is a farm management consultant (Hudson Facilitation), a past Director of Farm Business Management at Marcus Oldham College, and senior farm finance trainer for the Rabobank Financial Skills course. Hear Tony on Your Farm Business Podcast discussing the five challenges facing farm businesses.

How to register

Register through Tocal's short course enrolment page, or read the full course outline and FAQs on the Tocal College website.

Want to start sooner? The July intake begins on 13 July 2026. Not sure which intake fits around your season? Get in touch and we will help you decide.