# bookeeping



## jbarn (Jun 21, 2012)

What are most of you guys using for keeping the books at home? Is there a quick books or ap for that? Just looking for something that is efficent and easy to use. Been doing on my own with home made excel spreadsheets but just seems like I am making it more complicated than it should be. Just looking to track cashflow, expenses, etc. If you have found a program that works good or you please let me and all of the rest of us know. Thanks and hope we can all find some rain clouds soon or keeping the books will be a thing of the past.


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

jbarn said:


> What are most of you guys using for keeping the books at home? Is there a quick books or ap for that? Just looking for something that is efficent and easy to use. Been doing on my own with home made excel spreadsheets but just seems like I am making it more complicated than it should be. Just looking to track cashflow, expenses, etc. If you have found a program that works good or you please let me and all of the rest of us know. Thanks and hope we can all find some rain clouds soon or keeping the books will be a thing of the past.


Using homemade excel sheets here. I had Quickbooks, hate everything about it.


----------



## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

I tried Quickbooks too....it was a real PITA. But, I've been using Quicken for years. It captures and categorizes (you do have to watch it though) every transaction going through all my accounts and I only have to manually edit the few paper checks we write. How well it does things depends on how good your chart of accounts (categories) are when you start and how well you maintain the data. It's not perfect, but it works. We use a separate program to keep track of the services, receivables, and billings for the horsey business.....I've tried a bunch and haven't found one that I really like. For the hay side, I use Excel spreadsheets to keep track of fertilizer, cuttings, sales, etc.

The trick is to find the level of granularity that works for you. If you get too detailed you'll spend a lot of time splitting transactions between accounts. Not detailed enough and you'll go nuts trying to figure out what something cost. It will change over time as well. I used to keep deposit records on the checks and cash we received; this year we started accepting credit cards and now an entire days worth of transactions shows up as a single deposit from the merchant services. Ultimately, I may have to return to Quickbooks to manage the complexity and keep my accountant happy, but I'll sure put it off as long as I can.


----------



## jbarn (Jun 21, 2012)

[sup]Excel seems to be the ace in hole since we can detail it to meet each individual need. I am doing the dratf and trash thing for now. Each year I seem to change a sheet because I found a loop hole in my own design. Thanks for the input. I was under that impression of quickbooks. Maybe there is a grass techy out there that can design something specific to agriculture for us.[/sup]


----------



## downtownjr (Apr 8, 2008)

I like my excel spreadsheets but have and use Quickbooks as well...PITA for sure...but it becomes easier. Seems all financial software is always cumbersome. Unless you have a large operation, excel will do what you need. Some university's have some great templates. I have not used any of the ones I see at the farm shows...curious if anyone uses one of them and thoughts.


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

downtownjr said:


> I like my excel spreadsheets but have and use Quickbooks as well...PITA for sure...but it becomes easier. Seems all financial software is always cumbersome. Unless you have a large operation, excel will do what you need. Some university's have some great templates. I have not used any of the ones I see at the farm shows...curious if anyone uses one of them and thoughts.


The thing I hate about Quickbooks is they seem to assume you'll use it for hours every single day and you won't forget just how involved it is to use. Maybe it's because I'm a lefty, maybe it's because I think of solutions that no one else seems to, but Quickbooks seems completely and totally half *ss backwards to me. I BURNED the last upgrade CD they sent me, I'd rather head to the dentist and get a filling with no shots than try to use QuickBooks again.


----------



## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

downtownjr said:


> I have not used any of the ones I see at the farm shows...curious if anyone uses one of them and thoughts.


I was looking at one at a farm show and he wasexplaining to me that it would tell me how much my oil expence was for Truck A.Well I don't care how much oil costs for truck A, and I would have to take the time to put it into the program.TO MUCH INFO for me.

I want simple,easy.


----------



## barnrope (Mar 22, 2010)

I use PCMars. It is made for farming, but is a pita just like the rest!


----------



## Bob M (Feb 11, 2012)

I have used quickbooks for years and love it. I like that I can easily set up my yearly or monthly budgets. Also the payroll is great. I also use Finpack from the U of Minn.


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

When I was looking into mapping and tracking software for my autosteer this spring I quickly realized the same people who write the software for financial programs also handle mapping software. Everything I've found so far is a PITA, of course if you want to pay for the classes they'll show you how to use it. I used to write my own apps for my PalmPilot even, I have a high end video editing program and play around with that and get good results without ever using the help section, but the mapping and financial software programs are all horrible and usually result in the destruction of some more liver cells before I toss em in the trash.


----------



## FCF (Apr 23, 2010)

When we lived in Maryland, UofMd had a prof., Dale Johnson, that worked through the extension service giving classes on using the basic version of Quicken for farm accounting. In later years he came back offering a basic and advanced versions of the course. I do remember that we were able to set up enterprise accounting and various other features that you would not expect in an entry level program.

Bob M do you know if this is still happening or is any of it available online?

Dave


----------



## Bob M (Feb 11, 2012)

Dave, not sure if U of Md is offering any classes . Seems like the Md extension is more worried about the back yard or weekend farmer now. I have been very happy with U of Minnesota and their Finpack program. They are very helpful.


----------



## RockmartGA (Jun 29, 2011)

For those who use Excel spreadsheets, I suggest looking into how to use the Pivot Table function. It is a very powerful data analysis feature and you can make some great custom reports with it.

What I do is have one worksheet as the "data entry" sheet with the following columns:
Year
Month
Allocator (this is where I break it out for different properties)
Type (Revenue, Expenses, Capital, Statistical)
Tax Category (Fertilizer, Repairs, etc)
Vendor
Amount
Description / Comments
I also have a separate page with a monthly template of transactions that occur every month. Simply copy and paste into the data entry worksheet and you have all the usual categories there (power bill, water bill, etc) and you just type in the amount.

I then use the Pivot Table feature to summarize this data into useful reports. Once you have the pivot table set up, it is a simple drag and click to set the report up into different type reports.

It works well for small businesses whose accounting resembles a "cash basis" method. For accrual basis accounting, you probably will be better off with a program such as Quick Books.


----------

