Rural Business Tasmania – Rural Financial Counselling Service

This program aims to provide confidential and independent counsel to primary producers, fishermen and small rural businesses that are suffering financial hardship, and that have no alternative sources of impartial support. It is part of the national Rural Financial Counselling Program.

The service:
- Helps clients gain better understanding of their financial position.
- Helps clients identify financial and business risk and opportunities.
- Helps clients negotiate with lenders and creditors.
- Gives clients information about government and their assistance schemes.
- Refers clients to specialist service providers including accountants, agricultural advisers and educational services, succession planners, family mediation and personal counselling, and emotional and social counselling.

Areas that the program can assist include:
- Farm debt mediation
- Cash flow forecasting analysis
- Loan/grant applications
- Financial negotiations
- Business plan development
- Viability analysis
- Farm exit planning
- Succession planning
- Financial literacy
- Small business advisory service

Applicants must contact one of the Rural Financial Counsellors during business hours to arrange an appointment.

Eligible applicants must either be:
- Involved directly in primary production – farming, fishing, horticulture or viticulture.
- A small rural business reliant upon primary producers for income (over 75% of income) and suffering financial difficulties, with no alternative source of impartial support.

To be eligible, the family enterprise must:
- Have a right or interest in land or assets used for the purposes of primary production, small business or fisheries.
- Contribute a significant part of labour and capital to the enterprise.
- Be registered with the Australian Taxation Office and have an ABN thus indicating the applicants run a small business, farming or fishing enterprise.
- Still be conducting this enterprise and/or intend to continue/resume in the foreseeable future.
- Be suffering hardship at the present time.