# Need advice on bookkeeping!!!!



## Millroad (Oct 15, 2010)

I'm a reasonably intelligent person with a Ph.D. in a scientific field, but I'm hopeless at devising a good system for bookkeeping. I'm trying to take our hobby farm to the next level by making some kind of profit with cut flowers, and so I need to get a lot better at keeping books. I'd like to try Quickbooks, but am not sure which one - small business vs. self-employed, since i am technically both. I am a self-employed writer with a few different farming enterprises, some of which I try to make a profit at and some I'm just getting rid of extra stuff, like eggs. This is what I have going on - 

Writing:
Writing as an hourly university employee from home
Writing as a government contractor from home
Writing as a freelancer where I issue an invoice

Farming:
Rabbit breeding - operates at a loss
Hay - operates at a break-even or slight profit (mainly because we hire someone to cut and bale)
Locker lambs - profitable, but not a lot of money
Cut flowers - hoping to start this and make a small profit this year

Does anyone have any advice on how I can best track profit/loss from all of these enterprises through Quickbooks or some other software?

Also, in terms of accounting, how do I keep track of things like hay, eggs, lamb and rabbit meat that we keep and use? I don't want to call it income and pay taxes on it, but it seems like it needs to be accounted for.

Thanks!!


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

I initially used Quickbooks. It worked great for me. Then, they changed it to make it better. Doesn&#8217;t work for me. I used another software, can&#8217;t remember the name of it, that was made for small business. Did not work for me. A major problem is that every time you have a client you have to create a new page for that client. This is fine if you continue to do business with the same clients over and over. Not so good if your business is selling to many people who may not ever buy from you again.

Go to an accountant and have them set up books for you. You don&#8217;t need software to keep all of your paperwork in separate file folders. In your case, it may be better to set up an old fashion system so that you can see where everything is filed and how it is later used to figure out income and expenses and taxes. Also, taxes are different for agriculture than for other businesses. Once you have worked with paper you will have an easier time transferring the idea to software. There are programs made specifically for agriculture.

So many businesses fail because of book keeping problems. Don&#8217;t be one of them.


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## po boy (Jul 12, 2010)

Millroad said:


> I'm a reasonably intelligent person with a Ph.D. in a scientific field, but I'm hopeless at devising a good system for bookkeeping. I'm trying to take our hobby farm to the next level by making some kind of profit with cut flowers, and so I need to get a lot better at keeping books. I'd like to try Quickbooks, but am not sure which one - small business vs. self-employed, since i am technically both. I am a self-employed writer with a few different farming enterprises, some of which I try to make a profit at and some I'm just getting rid of extra stuff, like eggs. This is what I have going on -
> 
> Writing:
> Writing as an hourly university employee from home
> ...


I used quick books for 15 years and it worked well for me. You could set up individual accounts for each of your enterprises, but I don't think it's the best way to go.

Read some of this information about P&L by class

You can set up your own income and expense accounts by enterprise. Something as simple as rabbit income and rabbit food cost or if you have multiple incomes and expenses by enterprise just come up with an appropriate name.. 

You should be able to pull up P&L by enterprise and one on all your activities.

I used QuickBooks pro.


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## BillW77 (Nov 10, 2011)

I've been watching the videos that this guy has been making on facebook. He posts alot of really helpful information related to small farm operations:
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftn4VSjF8sk[/ame]


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