Monitoring and control is a process of measuring performance and taking corrective action to assure that the business is on track to meet its goals. If the owners have specified a certain level of equity as one of their long-term goals, an intermediate goal could be generating a level of income each year that would increase the farm's equity after paying expenses. However, one aspect of assuring that the farm generates the necessary level of income each year is to use the appropriate level of seed, fertilizer, and other inputs in planting the crops. Thus, monitoring spring planting has a direct connection to fulfilling the owners' long-term goal. It is a process of looking for symptoms rather than waiting for a shortcoming to become a problem.
Monitoring also involves searching for opportunities.
A business is monitored by measuring the most important factors and determining whether changes should be made. Monitoring can be described as a process that involves a series of activities. Even though the activities of monitoring a business may be identical among firms, the uniqueness of each business compels the owners to devise a monitoring and control procedure to fit the needs of their farm. For example, the factors that one farm owner monitors may not be the same factors that a neighbor tracks. Likewise, the range of acceptable performance will vary among businesses.