Sharpen Your Skills in Cost Management and Profitability With This Online Course

Sharpen Your Skills in Cost Management and Profitability With This Online CourseThe University of Florida is offering a new online course on Costing and Profitability. This advanced course is designed for experienced growers or technical managers in the U.S. and other countries. It will be offered in English and Spanish, and is designed to help growers develop the skills to accurately estimate production cost and profit for their businesses.

“We will take growers through the process of how to accurately evaluate cost of production, labor efficiency, pricing, and equipment investment decisions,” says Paul Fisher, Professor and Extension Specialist in the University of Florida (UF) Environmental Horticulture Department, who is instructing the course.

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“With the highly competitive nature of our industry, this topic is very timely for any greenhouse manager,” Fisher says. “We have the leading economist in our field, Charlie Hall of Texas A&M University, as a key contributor, who is providing a lesson on pricing. We also feature Bill Swanekamp for a grower perspective, who will show how he calculates costs and profitability for his business, Kube-Pak Corp. The team also includes economists Alan Hodges and Kevin Athearn from UF, Rosanna Freyre for Spanish language, and myself as a horticulturist.”

The topic of cost accounting really lends itself to having time over the four weeks of lessons, Fisher notes.

“There are several steps to collecting data and analyzing a business. Participants will come out with concepts, apps, and spreadsheets they can directly apply to their operations.”

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The course runs from Oct. 30 to Dec 1. During that period, growers can access the lessons at any time of day or night. There is a certificate of completion.

Registration for the course is available at http://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/training/. Growers can contact [email protected] for more information.

AmericanHort is partnering on the course, and AmericanHort Basic and Plus members receive 5% off of the registration price, and Premium members receive 20% off. Email Meagan Nace for a promo code.

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