Agribusiness control program focuses on the following:

Document Control:

– Most businesses have controls that assure standardized documents, such as guides, specifications, work instructions or policies and procedures.

– All documents must receive approval before use. The approval process may include naming the document, assigning a control number and a date.

– Typically, documents must undergo approval before use, identified with dates and given control and revision numbers.

– Revisions must also receive authorization. Some control procedures may also include a method of distribution and assign responsibilities for updating documents.

Marketing:

–The marketing function develops a plan and establishes marketing objectives. Typically, the schemes include controls to measure, monitor and regulate marketing campaigns and related activities.

– Management employs a range of reports to track progress and make comparisons, including variance analysis or expenses-to-sales analysis.

– Sale control mechanisms include budgets, sale quotas, credit criteria and sales force automation.

Financial Controls:

– Companies use financial reports, such as income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements, to form the core of financial control systems.

– Balance sheets help business owners and managers determine the financial strength — business liabilities and assets — at a specific point.

– This report can help owners determine if a firm has the resources to grow or survive during economic downturns. Income statements, or profit and loss statements, track revenues and costs over a particular duration.

– Managers can review itemized expenses to identify items out of line with the budget, or increase the budget as warranted.

– Cash flow statements provide a business with projections of revenue and costs for each month over, at minimum, a 12-month period.

– This statement helps keep a business on track to meet it income targets.

Human Resources:

– The human resource aspect of businesses must focus on systems for hiring, training and recruiting staff.

– Controls also extend to the development and management of existing employees.

–  Businesses require techniques for assessing employees’ skills, and assuring the business has staff with the necessary skills and abilities to move the organization toward its objectives.

Quality Control:

– Business must have quality control, or QC, procedures in place to review and check the quality of materials, products or service.

– The manager will need to determine what quality assurance methods to use.

– Business owners may use statistical techniques to ascertain the quality of raw material on arrival to the plant, or may perform visual inspections of finished products.