Livestock Wala'au

MINI-Ep.4 - Record Keeping Software

• Melelani Oshiro & Shannon Sand • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Aloha! In this mini-episode we will be discussing software tools for recording keeping. In particular are the software for financial management with your operation. We also have some brief updates for CTAHR and stay tuned to hear who will be our featured guest for this months full podcast! 


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https://cms.ctahr.hawaii.edu/forestry/Forestry-Agroforestry-Trees/Leucaena-leucocephala

Shannon Sand:

Today's episode is brought to you by the Western extension Risk Management Education Center, USDA NIFA, and the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and the livestock extension group.

Melelani Oshiro:

Aloha welcome everyone to livestock Walaau podcast aim to provide educational support information, guidance and outreach to our livestock stakeholders in Hawaii, we are your hosts, Mele Oshiro and Shannon sand. So today we are going to discuss some different software options for financial record keeping. But before we do that, I just want to give everyone a quick update. For you ah, things I guess were say it has changed but not really changed. Because basically, we're just going to make sure we tell everybody again, if you're gonna come to our offices, please call ahead. To ensure that you're able to visit the offices, things just change pretty quickly. So make sure you call ahead before visiting the offices, there is a little bit of a procedure, if you spend more than 15 minutes at the office, there are some check in procedures that you have to go through. So if you are planning to visit the office, for any reason, or any of the research stations, just call ahead and make sure you don't need to have any other sort of check in procedures or whatnot.

Shannon Sand:

Documentation things. Yeah,

Melelani Oshiro:

what all needs to happen if you're coming on. Yeah, so just make sure you check about that. So I will let Shannon take it away. So she can start to discuss a little bit about the software that's out there for record keeping.

Shannon Sand:

So hopefully, we're just gonna kind of have a general discussion. We're gonna attempt to include mele. The best of my ability, but also hopefully keep it kind of short. And talk about some differences and similarities. I'm going to mostly focus on a quicken and QuickBooks but I am briefly going to mention a easy farm, which is a specifically farm related farmer ranch related financial record keeping software that also does a little bit of inventory tracking as well. And I'm going to also briefly mentioned that, obviously, Quicken and QuickBooks are great, but you can always use Excel. And you can also use pen and paper, or calendars, which will, will have a whole episode kind of talking about how to keep track of your records and stuff using calendars or notebooks and stuff, at least with a mini one, because these are short, so you know. Yeah, so. But the nice thing about using software to keep track of your financial records, and inventory, which Mellie is going to do a whole little mini episode, I think related to some inventory tracking options and things like that. But you can keep track of things like your number of head fencing supplies, average number of eggs laid the cost of like, how much feed you put into that chicken coop? I'm thinking of mele because of her chicken right now, but things like that. And yeah, so honestly, record keeping software's just really handy for it. There are some really great ones. Many moons ago, well, not many. But like two years ago, I did some work on looking at the differences between quicken and QuickBooks. Some of this stuff has changed a little now in that all of them support online features. QuickBooks has a really cool app nowadays that they launched, I want to say, right before the pandemic, or like a year before that, even that it's just so handy. Like you can snap pictures of your receipts, and you can upload them and so it's just, it's just super handy.

Melelani Oshiro:

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna interrupt you real quick, but I'm just gonna shoot some questions to you because it's probably, you know, just ask you some questions about it. But so I'm one of those that go through, like, I want everything on my phone. I want everything on my iPad. I want to thank my computer so it'll drive this. Are you able to do that with these apps with this software?

Shannon Sand:

With QuickBooks with Quicken? I don't know. Because so Quicken QuickBooks, and maybe you've heard of mint, which is like a personal finance software, and it's free. It's all owned by Intuit. They're all owned by the same company. And they're just kind of designed for different people and different things, different needs, if that makes sense. Yeah. So I kind of think of Quicken as like a nice starter one. So if you're like a sole proprietorship, or if you're the only one worrying about kind of your business, and you can even use it for individuals like household expenses, which is really nice. It's very much like the checkbook type of app. Yeah, I'm

Melelani Oshiro:

familiar with mint and I use mint for a lot of my stuff. And I like it because it'll start to categorize purchases. So I That's a good one that I did see that there were for it. Yeah that you can you can I think you can link it up to like QuickBooks or something like that.

Shannon Sand:

Yeah. So Quicken it does have an app. I know I know QuickBooks does, because Quicken QuickBooks is one of the really popular ones particularly like, so if you have a few different employees are people on the road. So I know that people oftentimes will use it like to track their expenses. It's really nice because it can all be related to the same account, again, depending on which version of QuickBooks you get. Because there's a lot of versions of QuickBooks. That's one thing I will say Quicken, I think it's just like regular and there's only there's much, there's a lot fewer versions of Quicken out there, but QuickBooks, I mean, it's got stuff for contractors, it's got stuff for just the like, like a general small business, which does actually have an agricultural option, which is really nice, because it does do the categorizing thing. And it will like start pre populating your Schedule F, which is like real exciting. That's cool. Yeah. So yeah, a lot of them have similar features, but some of them are definitely different. Quicken has a retirement planning option where QuickBooks generally all the ones I'm familiar with all the versions of QuickBooks I know of do not. Like I said, Quicken is definitely more towards like individuals, small business planning, things like that, which is great. QuickBooks is also got small business options too. But just what I would say is a slightly larger small business option, if that makes sense. So it can do like it can track employee time, which is important, especially here we have a lot of day laborers. It can tell you kind of it's really smart, to be honest, all the software's they can tell you when you need to send out 1099. Some of that stuff's really nice and very handy to have. So they both track accounts payable and reimbursable. They will both monitor unpaid invoices, which is always nice, because we all like to get paid. And they both can create an estimates and invoices, and they both can kind of like Mark things like if it's a tax deduction again, which is nice. So they're they're both fairly user friendly. Again, I would say that like, Quicken is really nice to start out. But QuickBooks is the one that you know, a lot of small businesses use. So yeah. And it's one that like, I think, like 90 to 95% of accountants use QuickBooks versus Peachtree. So those two are generally the ones that are used most of the time.

Melelani Oshiro:

So are there a free versions of this? Or is it always a paid version?

Shannon Sand:

Ah, I do believe that you can do like free trials, but they are paid. I will say Quicken is the least it's it's the most cost effective one easy form, I think last I checked, I want to say is between 406 100. That one you can't get on your phone, unless you're like running them the app from the website, which can you you know, it's it can be tricky times and stuff. But it's definitely more of like a downloadable, like PC option a lesser checked. Quicken is generally you can find it generally between 40. And like 120, depending on which version you get, which is always really nice. There are also subscription options now. So monthly, QuickBooks is generally between 180. And like 500 $600. Depending on which one you get, you can get a monthly subscription of that one, I want to say it's, I want to say $12. But I think it's really 20 or 25 to kind of get like a pretty solid base model. And QuickBooks and Quicken, they're both pretty powerful. Like I said, they just do slightly different things. So like QuickBooks will keep track of time if you have employers. QuickBooks is more easy to integrate with Word, Excel and outlook. Quicken doesn't have those options. So if you keep track of your inventory in Excel, you can integrate that you can integrate the two between them. So they're really nice. QuickBooks has tons and tons of financial reports. So if you're trying to do forecasting, if you're trying to get loans, or even if you're trying to get grants or investors, QuickBooks has a really nice one, and that you can just literally poop up people and pull reports, you know, so that's really nice. And there are all kinds of like, I think there's, there's Lastly, check, there's 1000s of reports. And there are several that are geared specifically for egg. So I mean, they're both nice. I've taught both I teach both. Yeah, I mean, they're both. It just depends on what you're looking to do. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. So, I mean, they're great. If anyone has any questions about kind of the differences, similarities, you know, feel free to like, shoot me an email. They're really nice because they both have those, like you said, the app options which I I'm the same way I want to Keep track of it. And it's nice because you have a partner in crime. And so like, if your partner is buying, let's say chicken food again, I'm sorry, I'm just gonna pick on mele because she's here, even if it's not in real life for me. But like so your your partner goes and picks up chicken feed, right? So he can scan the the receipt into an app, either Quicken or QuickBooks, either one depending again, on your needs. And it's automatically uploaded it and he you know, based on how your categories are set up, you just put it in there. And it goes into like your tax write offs. And it also takes it off. Like if you guys have a shared checking account. You know, it can take it just keeps track of all that stuff. It's so handy.

Melelani Oshiro:

Yeah, that sounds like it's very integrated into everything. Right. So that could help. Cool. Thanks for sharing that. And so you mentioned the other one easy farm. That's a new one I've never heard of. So what I guess what's the big differences between easy farm and like quicken and QuickBooks kind of seem to have a little bit of similar software in applicability, I guess to say, but what's the difference between easy for him then?

Shannon Sand:

So easy farm, the again, the easiest way to describe it is is it is specifically geared for AG. So it is specifically a farm accounting and management software. It's created by a company called vertical solutions. I want to say it I don't think it's been I don't know when the last update on it is, but it is really nice, because it's very specifically farm. And unlike Ranch, focus, it's an ag, specific software. And there's another one, but I can't remember the name of it right now.

Melelani Oshiro:

Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot right of different apps out there. It's just a matter of finding the one that fits in suits your Yeah, I

Shannon Sand:

mean, the thing with the EZ farm is is it's about $509. It's very nice because it comes preset with a lot of standardized charts of accounts related to the farm or ranch, but because we're Hawaii, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to adjust it as you know, obviously, I will say QuickBooks actually also has an egg option. Like when you go in and you set up your chart of accounts. So your chart of accounts or just like literally like the accounts like you were saying like what you like mark things as or categorize Catterick? Well, they're different, but for the purposes of this conversation, we're gonna say they're similar. So QuickBooks does have an option for AG. They are populated slightly differently. I briefly used EZ farms. But like I said, it's it also starts out at like,$509. Right, right. So yeah, I mean, they're all expensive, though. Or they all have some sort of cost. But you know, and it depends on what you're looking for. But it's nice, because like, if you have livestock or dairy, they do have specific stuff related to that. So yeah, that's nice.

Melelani Oshiro:

Cool. Thanks for sharing that Shannon. So other things we have to look forward to coming up this month is our next month's guest speaker is from the NRCS or the Natural Resource Conservation Service, income Wala'au. Her name is Carolyn Wong Avila, and she is a grazing lands specialist with them there. So we'll be talking with her about grazing management and pasture management and all kinds of other stuff, their programs that they offer and whatnot. So join us next month to listen in and hear what Carolyn has to share. And lastly, of course, our National Livestock days in October, so we know that this is not actually like livestock days, but it's even it's also just the products that livestock, you know, that we get from our livestock, right, the proteins and whatnot, and we celebrate those dishes are things that can be made with these different livestock products. So October 4, is national taco day. So get creative. I mean, there's so many different, you know, types of proteins you can use there to make tacos. Yeah, our national sausage pizza day is October 11. So once again, visit your local butcher shop why maple tree, you know, get some locally made sausage called the model Farms is another one you can get local sausage from and create a pizza or just visit a local pizza local pizza place to get some pizza there. Also, were 12 National Farmers day. Very important day, celebrate our farmers out there. And national gumbo day

Shannon Sand:

of gumbo. No See,

Melelani Oshiro:

and it's also his birthday. help put everybody through that Tober 16th is our World Food Day, which I think is extremely important, right? We all want to ensure the sustainability of those types across the world. So celebrate October 16. Be thankful and appreciate where all your food comes from. And October 26, National chicken fried steak they. Yes, we're definitely going to have to do that for sure. Yeah. So yeah. And

Shannon Sand:

I was like, the German enemy just wants to come like cook schnitzel for you. I was like, we'll just do like a like a beef.

Melelani Oshiro:

We'll have to see what our restrictions are gonna let us do but then we can actually celebrate that day. Well, who knows?

Shannon Sand:

Probably. Well, for the best.

Melelani Oshiro:

Yes, yes. Well, thanks, Shannon for sharing about the software programs available out there, at least some of them that's out there. And as Shannon said, please reach out if you guys have questions about those different programs. Or if you would like us to maybe do a tutorial on most programs, we can no even do

Shannon Sand:

that kind of thing. So if it's just a basic like starting setup, just let us know. We're happy to do that stuff. And yeah, so yeah, thank you guys for listening. Make sure to join our Facebook page, the livestock extension group. If

Melelani Oshiro:

you haven't already, be sure to visit the U H. CTAHR. Extension website and our YouTube channel listed below in the show notes. For additional information about this or any other topics or comments, send us an email at Wala'au at hawaii.edu. And thanks again for listening to livestock Wala'au.

Shannon Sand:

Before we go show some love for your favorite podcast. That's us by the way, by leaving us a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening to this, then stay tuned for next month.

Melelani Oshiro:

And thanks again to our sponsors the Western extension Risk Management Education Center, USDA NIFA, the livestock extension group and CTAHR. I'll label and thanks