Most bookkeepers have never run a business. Sarah has run several.

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Sarah Parkinson, AgBooks Founder, Bachelor of Business | Certified BAS Agent | Xero Certified | ICB Fellow

I didn't just learn about farming. I grew up in it.

I was raised on a cattle property north of Roma, Western Queensland.

I know what it means to grow up on the land. I know the particular silence of isolation, and the particular noise of a family running a farming operation together — the decisions made over the kitchen table, the stress that doesn't clock off when the workday ends, the weight that falls on whoever ends up responsible for the books.

After building and selling a 15-person business in Brisbane — my own front-row education in what financial chaos actually costs — I came back to where I started. I married a broadacre cropping farmer and returned to Western Queensland, this time with a decade of hard-won business systems experience and a very clear view of the gap I wanted to close.

Because I'd seen it from both sides.

I grew up watching farming families make million-dollar decisions with incomplete information. And I'd spent years in business understanding exactly what it costs to fly blind — in missed opportunity, stress, and decisions that look fine until the numbers finally catch up with you.

I also know exactly what happens when the books fall to the farm wife. The midnight reconciliations. The Nutrien invoices stacked on the kitchen bench. The guilt of not having it sorted, on top of everything else already being carried. The creeping dread of a BAS deadline when you're flat out with harvest or calving.

Farming families deserve better than this. That's why I built AgBooks Australia — and why I built the team the way I did.

THE TEAM

34+ Humans Who Get It

When I set out to build AgBooks, I made a deliberate decision: I would only bring in people who genuinely understood agricultural business — not generalists who could learn it on the job at a farmer's expense.

Many of our team live and work in rural and regional Australia themselves. They're not learning your world from a textbook. They're bookkeepers who understand why June needs to be handled differently, why your cashflow looks the way it does between sales, and why a fuel tax credit isn't a footnote — it's real money.

Behind your dedicated ag bookkeeper sits a 34-person Australian team with specialist depth across Xero, Figured, BAS, payroll, and ag-specific integrations. When your bookkeeper is unavailable — during seeding, at calving, at any inconvenient moment — the system keeps working. No coverage gaps. No three-week silences.

100% Australian. Zero outsourcing. Built this way deliberately.

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Zero Outsourcing

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Maximum Automation

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34 Bookkeepers

100% Australian

Executive Team

  • A woman with short brown hair wearing a black sleeveless top and a gold necklace, standing outdoors in front of green foliage.

    Kim Sharman

    PEOPLE & PRACTICE MANAGER

  • A woman with short brown hair, blue eyes, and a light pink patterned shirt standing outdoors with green foliage in the background.

    Kylie Westlake

    OPERATIONS MANAGER

  • Elaine Fenton

    CLIENT SERVICES MANAGER

Team Members

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    Jo Robinson

    XERO CERTIFIED

  • Smiling woman with light brown hair tied back, wearing a navy blue floral blouse, standing outdoors with green foliage in the background.

    Liz Weldon

    XERO CERTIFIED

  • A woman with light skin, wearing a sleeveless navy dress with white floral pattern and ruffled high neckline, standing outdoors in front of large green tropical leaves and trees.

    Rowena Hutchinson

    XERO CERTIFIED

  • Charlie

    XERO CERTIFIED

OUR VALUES

No surprises In agriculture, you already deal with enough uncertainty. The last thing you need is a bookkeeper who tells you everything's fine until it isn't. We give you honest numbers, straight advice, and the full picture — even when it's not what you were hoping to hear.

On time, every time A late BAS. A report that arrives after you've already had to make the decision. Figures that are two months behind when you're trying to talk to your bank. In agriculture, timing isn't a preference — it's everything. Monthly reports within 10 days. BAS lodged on time. No chasing.

DELIVERY

The whole family, not just the business There's always more behind a farming operation than the ABN. We know the books don't exist in isolation from the household, the relationships, and the pressure that comes with running a business where home and work are the same place. We work with that reality, not around it.

We actually know ag Commodities. Livestock movements. Fuel tax credits. Large machinery. Seasonal payroll. Primary production GST treatment. We've set up and managed enough farm files to know what proper looks like — and we won't learn it at your expense.

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Backed by Diverse Business Consultants

AgBooks Australia is built on the foundation of Diverse Business Consultants — the national bookkeeping practice I founded, and one of Australia's most recognised in the industry.

✓Xero Bookkeeping Partner of the Year FY23

✓ Australian Accounting Awards Bookkeeping Firm of the Year Finalist (2024 & 2025)

✓ Australian Accounting Industry Awards Bookkeeping Team of the Year (2022)

✓ Xero Platinum Partner

✓ Dext Advanced Partner

✓ 450+ Active Clients

✓ 34-person Australia Team

AgBooks clients get the ag specialisation they need — and the depth, systems, and stability of an established, award-winning practice behind them.

Client Reviews

  • "We are gaining far more value from our Xero software. Our data is up to date and the quality of our financial information has improved — both when we meet with our accountant and when we're making business decisions."

    — Amy, K & A Peart

Further testimonials coming — if you've worked with AgBooks and would like to share your experience, we'd love to hear from you.

You didn't get into farming to spend your nights on the books.

And you didn't build your operation to make decisions blind.

The farmers I grew up around were sharp, hardworking, and capable of running complex businesses under conditions most people couldn't handle. What held them back wasn't ability — it was never having the right financial information at the right time.

That's the problem AgBooks exists to solve.

When your numbers are current, your reports arrive within 10 days, and someone who genuinely understands your operation is across the detail all year — decisions get easier. Conversations with your bank get easier. The kitchen table gets quieter.

That's what this is for.