Computerized Farm Record Keeping

Bulletin 890-01

Budgets

Using Quicken to keep your farm records makes record keeping easier. It also allows you to make more use of your record data than you might with a hand-kept set of records. Using the budgeting feature in Quicken to create and monitor projected income and expenses allows you to use your computer records for more than just tax purposes. By creating budget projections and examining projected versus actual income and expenses on a monthly or quarterly basis, you will know how your business is doing financially and can quickly take needed corrective action. It is too late to take action if you wait until the end of the year to find out that your farm business did not do as well financially as you had planned.

Budgets can be based on the previous year's income and expense records, but need to be adjusted for any changes in the operations and for price changes for products bought or sold.

Creating Budgets

To create a budget for ACTUAL expenditures Click Banking from the menu bar (Click Planning if you are using Quicken 2001 Home & Business), Click Budgeting to open the BUDGET window.

**Note** The first time you enter the BUDGET window the FIRST TIME IN BUDGETS window appears, when this happens Click OK.

At the top of the BUDGET window, the buttons on the toolbar are:

Categories - select categories to include/exclude in your budget

Edit - edit the current budget

Alerts - set up alerts for monthly expenses

Report - create a budget report or graph

Options - change settings for this window

How Do I - help on tasks

X - close the budget window.

Click the Options button on the toolbar, Click Show Category Groups to remove the checkmark, (skip this step if the checkmark is not present), Click the Options button, Click Other Budgets, Click Create, Type name of budget (i.e., 20XX Actual Farm Budget), Type description (i.e. Year 20XX), Click Autocreate Budget, Click OK, set date range, Click Use Monthly Detail, Click Categories, Click Mark All, Click OK, Click OK.

**Note** This budget has been created using data you have previously entered.

To create a PROJECTED budget Click Banking from the menu bar (Click Planning if you are using Quicken 2001 Home & Business), Click Budgeting to open the BUDGET window. Click the Options button on the toolbar, Click Show Category Groups to remove checkmark, (skip this step if the checkmark is not present), Click the Options button, Click Other Budgets, Click Create, Type name of budget (i.e. 20XX Projected Farm Budget), Type description (i.e. Year 20XX), Click Autocreate Budget, Click OK, set date range, Click Use Monthly Detail, Click Categories, Click Mark All, Click OK, Click OK.

**Note** You may now begin entering your projected budget information. Click Edit and use the fill commands to quickly enter data. Once your projected budget is finished, Click the Categories button on the toolbar, Click Clear 0 Amounts. This will remove all categories with a $0.00 projected amount.

Examples of an Actual budget and a Projected budget created using the directions outlined above are on the following pages.

Budget Report

This report compares actual to budgeted income and expenses by category. You need to establish a budget before you can use this report. The budget report prorates amounts in the Budget column according to the report period. To compare actual spending with what you have budgeted for the entire month, make sure to specify whole month report periods in the CREATE REPORT window.

Creating a Budget Report

From the menu bar, Click Reports, Click Reports and Graphs Center, Click How am I spending my money, Click Budget Report, set report date, Click Create Now.

**Note** This report can be customized to display budget comparison by the Month, Quarter, etc.