A share price is a loan with produce as the repayment
Members hand over the money in advance and take delivery over months. Between those two events the farm is holding money it has not earned yet, and the size of that obligation is the interesting number. At the defaults — 40 shares at $650 over 20 weeks, $150 down and the balance due in delivery week eight — the farm collects $6,000 at sign-up against $26,000 of boxes it has promised to deliver.
The interesting part is watching that obligation drain. By the end of the seventh delivery week members have paid $6,000 and received $6,431.60 of produce at the values in the table, so the deposit has been fully worked off and the farm is $431.60 ahead of it. Then the balance lands in week eight, $20,000 arrives at once, and the outstanding obligation jumps straight back to $18,415.20 of boxes still to hand over.
Where a payment plan bites
Split the price into a deposit and a mid-season balance and the farm carries the early weeks on the deposit alone. $6,000 comes in, $4,200 goes straight out on seed and supplies before the first box, and the season then costs $520 a week to run. That leaves $1,800 going into week one, $1,280 at the end of it, and $240 by the end of week three.
Week four is where it turns negative, and the thinnest point is the end of week seven at $1,840 in the red — while boxes are going out every week and nothing has gone wrong. The balance lands in week eight and the picture reverses immediately, ending the season at $11,400. Whether that trough is a problem depends entirely on what else is in the account, but it is a lot easier to arrange for in February than to discover in July.
| End of week | Collected | Produce delivered | Members money held | Cash |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $6,000 | $742.80 | $5,257.20 | $1,280.00 |
| 4 | $6,000 | $3,323.20 | $2,676.80 | -$280.00 |
| 7 | $6,000 | $6,431.60 | -$431.60 | -$1,840.00 |
| 8 | $26,000 | $7,584.80 | $18,415.20 | $17,640.00 |
| 20 | $26,000 | $26,000.00 | $0.00 | $11,400.00 |
The box values have to add up
Whatever shape you give the season, the weekly values are split out of the share price so that they total the price exactly. A season that builds from a light June box to a heavy September one at two and a half times the value gives $18.57 in week one and $46.43 in week twenty, and the twenty of them add to $650.00 to the cent — against an average box of $32.50. That matters because the delivered-to-date column is what you would show a member who asks in August what they have had for their money, and it cannot be allowed to drift.
What the calculator will not do is check the shape against reality. If your week three box cannot be worth $8 because there is nothing ready, the curve is wrong and the answer is wrong with it. Price a real light box and a real heavy box, and set the multiplier from those two.
Related
The ground behind the boxes is the CSA share planting plan calculator, and the morning behind each delivery is the market harvest pick list calculator. A market stall is the opposite money shape — paid on the day, stocked in advance — and is covered by the farmers market stall break-even calculator. For a straightforward fixed-cost break-even, see the break-even calculator; for what a deposit does to a booking business, the no-show and deposit policy calculator.
Questions people ask
Is the money from a CSA revenue when it arrives?
How it should be recorded is an accounting question and depends on your books and your situation, so ask someone who does farm accounts in your state. What this page shows is the operational reality behind the question: on the day the money lands, none of the boxes have been delivered, and the obligation column tracks how much of the promise is still outstanding week by week. That column is useful whatever your accountant tells you to do about the ledger.
Why does the cash go negative when the season is fully sold?
Because the money and the spending are on different calendars. A payment plan collects a deposit in winter and the balance mid-season, but the costs run every week from the first sowing. At the defaults the deposit covers the pre-season spending with $1,800 left, and $520 a week has eaten that by the fourth delivery week. Nothing is wrong with the season — the timing is simply out of step, and either a larger deposit or an earlier balance date fixes it.
How should I set the shape of the season?
From two real boxes. Price what you can actually put in a first-week box and what you can put in a peak-week box, using what you would charge for the same items at market, and set the multiplier to the ratio between them. Guessing the multiplier and then reading the box values off the table is backwards, and it will produce a delivered-to-date figure you cannot defend to a member who asks.
Does a positive figure at the end mean the season worked?
No. The cash line only counts the pre-season spending and the weekly operating cost you entered. It does not include anything you pay yourself, land, machinery, insurance, repairs, loan payments or the winter months. Add those and the picture usually looks quite different. The page deliberately does not offer a verdict on whether a share price is right or a season is viable.
What if a member drops out mid-season?
The page does not model it, and what you may or must do about refunds is a question about your own agreement with members and about consumer law in your state, which is not something to take from a calculator. Operationally, the way to see the effect is to run the season again with one fewer share and compare the two cash lines — the boxes you no longer pack save a little, and the money you no longer collect costs more.