The Farmer’s Office

The Farmer’s Office is the third generation of farm accounting software from Datatech. It combines the ease of use and “look and feel” of a standard Windows based application with the powerful payroll, cost accounting and bookkeeping features you would expect. These features are complimented with toll free telephone support and program updates and enhancements, as well as training at the office in Fresno. On site training at your office is also available for an additional charge.

Video Overview

The Farmer’s Office is designed for both large and small farming operations. Whether you’ve outgrown a generic bookkeeping system like QuickBooks, or you need to replace another farm accounting system, or you need to get your bookkeeping computerized for the first time, The Farmer’s Office can do the job!

The Farmer’s Office is a complete bookkeeping system designed to meet the special cost accounting needs of growers. It’s a powerful Windows based application that combines all of these features into an integrated, easy to use system:

• Ag Payroll
• Accounts Payable
• Accounts Receivable
• Farm Management Billing
• Cost Accounting
• Equipment Costing
• Crop Budgeting
• General Ledger
• Pesticide Application Reporting
• Chemical Inventory
• Data Export/Query Tool
• Magnetic Media Reporting
• Multi-user Network Access
• Integration with Data Collection Units

Because it’s a Windows application, it’s easy to use. The Farmer’s Office is a third generation product, so you can be assured that the 25 years of experience in agricultural software have gone into the making of The Farmer’s Office.

Whether you have a large or small farming operation, whether you have vines, trees, row crops, or a combination of these, The Farmer’s Office can handle the most demanding bookkeeping, cost accounting, and payroll requirements you have.

The Farmer’s Office is designed to automate your bookkeeping functions–writing checks for vendors and employees, tracking bills, sorting and storing information for retrieval later, etc. What sets The Farmer’s Office apart from generic bookkeeping programs is that it’s designed specifically for farming operations. That means it includes cost accounting features that allow you to assign income and expenses to specific enterprises or cost centers. If the cost accounting feature is used the program will provide you with reports analyzing income, expenses and profitability that can assist you in making management decisions.

What Can The Farmer’s Office Do For a Farming Operation?

• Saves time wasted doing your payroll and bookkeeping by hand
• Designed for farm accounting–no workarounds to get cost accounting and ag payroll done the way you need it
• Help you fine-tune management decisions by providing detailed information on costs, profitability and yields
• Keep accurate records of profit or loss by commodity, field, ranch, and variety
• Set up budgets by crop and field and monitor actual expenses vs. budget
• Prepare accurate reports for your accountant and lenders
• Help you keep up to date and in compliance with changing payroll regulations
• Reduce time spent preparing pesticide use reports

To learn more about the modules available in The Farmer’s Office, click on the links below.

Accounts Receivable

The Accounts Receivable system is an option that you can add to The Farmer’s Office since most growers don’t need a full invoicing/receivables system. However, if you need to issue invoices to bill for your crops or bill for services such as custom harvesting or hauling, the Accounts Receivable system will provide these capabilities.

• Customer file maintains names, address, and current balances for all your customers. Customer lists and mailing labels can be printed from the customer file.
• When you enter invoices, income can be credited to multiple income accounts for the General Ledger, as well as multiple cost centers for the crop cost accounting reports.
• Invoice line item detail entry has columns to enter dates and tag numbers when billing for hauling. Also, a separate weight entry can be turned on if you need to bill by the pound or ton while also showing the number of containers, bins, etc. on the the invoice.
• Invoices may be printed at the time of entry or in a batch at a later time. If printed in a batch, invoices can be first printed as trials, proofread, then printed as finals.
• Invoices and statements may be printed on blank paper, letterhead or pre-printed forms. You can print your logo at the top of the invoices when using the blank paper format.
• Payments received for invoices are automatically updated to the Checkbook window and appear as deposits.
• Customer statements can be printed, showing all open invoices.
• Service charges may be automatically charged on overdue balances. Invoices and statements can be printed on standard forms, blank paper, or letterhead stock.
• Set up custom messages to print on invoices and statements.
• Aged Accounts Receivable Report, for accounting and collections, may be printed in summary or detail form, with user defined aging periods.

Cost Accounting

The cost accounting system in the Farmer’s Office is designed for the unique requirements of farming operations. Income, expenses and profitability are tracked by cost center and crop year, independent of the calendar year or the fiscal year in the general ledger.

Cost centers may be established for each block, field, variety, crop, or ranch. Overhead cost centers automatically distribute expenses to subsidiary cost centers according to user defined percentages.

Cost accounting reports provide a per acre and per yield analysis as well as comparisons between cost centers and crop years. Budgets may also be established for each cost center and comparisons to budget made.

Cost Accounting

The purpose of the cost accounting system is to provide you with information to assist in making management decisions for your farm. This includes information on yields, expenses, income, and profitability. (Other accounting systems use the term “enterprise accounting” for this.)

The crop cost accounting system is updated through the one time entry of information on payroll checks, vendor checks, deposits and pesticide usage. All of this takes place automatically when you enter a cost center and crop year for these transactions. Crop reports can be printed at any time for an up to date status on your bottom line.

Cost Accounting Features

• Cost accounting reports group expenses by crop year, independent of the calendar year or fiscal year. This eliminates any problems with crops whose growing season may span two different fiscal or calendar years.
• Equipment cost centers may be set up alongside your crop cost centers to track costs for operating the equipment, including repairs, parts, supplies, fuel, and so on.
• Memo crop costs allow you to record expenses for crop reports without having to affect general ledger account balances.
• The system can track a different commodity for each crop year, useful for open ground fields.
• Cost accounting information can be exported directly to Excel for use in producing charts or additional reports.
• Payroll overhead (employer taxes and worker’s comp) is expensed precisely to each cost center based on the total labor expensed on payroll entries. An alternative is available to expense a percentage of the total payroll as a memo cost entry instead.
• A single worker’s comp rate may be set up for each cost center. However, different worker’s comp rates may be set up for different jobs on the same cost center if you have lower rates available for certain jobs.
• For farm management companies, expenses in the cost accounting system feed directly into the farm management billing system.
• Consolidated Crop Reports allow you to group cost centers together to print a single report for a ranch, crop, overhead or variety. Cost centers may appear on multiple crop reports. For instance, you might define a crop report that includes all citrus cost centers, another that includes only your oranges, and another that includes only groves growing with Navels.

Cost Accounting Reports Include:

• Crop Report (profit or loss by cost center)
• Comparison Crop Report (prior year to current year)
• Comparison Crop Report (current year to budget)
• Monthly Crop Report
• Consolidated Crop Report
• Expense Report

Crop Budgeting

The budgeting capabilities of The Farmer’s Office allow you to easily create, modify and use budgets for each individual cost center you have set up. The budgets can be useful in monitoring actual expenses and for presentation to lenders. The budgeting capabilities of The Farmer’s Office include:

• Budgets may be entered for each field cost center for each crop year.
• Budgets can be entered with as much detail as desired.
• Budgets for new crop years may be automatically generated based on either the prior year’s budget or actual expenses, with a percentage increase/decrease.
• Once a budget has been created, you can adjust the amounts based on a change in planted acreage. This is useful for open ground crops that may have varying planted acres from year to year.
• Budget reports include the Cash Flow Worksheets and the Detailed Budget Report.
• Budgets for all fields are combined to print a master cash flow worksheet.
• Cash flow worksheet amounts can be exported directly into Microsoft Excel, then formatted for presentation to banks, lenders, etc.
• Crop Comparison Report allows you to see how actual expenses compare to your budgeted amounts.

Equipment Costing

f equipment usage constitutes a significant portion of your expenses, you may what to consider using the new equipment costing features of The Farmer’s Office. The Equipment Costing system allows you to:

• Track costs for repairs, parts, and maintenance of individual pieces of equipment. This helps you answer questions like “Is this old tractor costing more to keep up than it would to buy a new one?”
• Establish “charge-out rates” (per hour) for usage of equipment. Each piece of equipment you set up may have it’s own charge-out rate.
• During payroll check entry, usage of equipment may be recorded (up to two pieces of equipment per payroll check “line item”). An “memo” expense is recorded to the crop cost center for the use of the equipment.
• When a crop report is printed, expenses for use of equipment will then appear.
• Chargeout rates may be overridden on payroll check entry, or the default rate for each piece of equipment may be used.
• Equipment can be assigned to a specific employee and labor expense code.
• Two pieces of equipment can be linked, so that when one is used the other is automatically used as well.
• The goal of equipment costing is to distribute the costs of your equipment cost centers among the crop cost centers that they service. This gives your cost accounting reports a finer level of detail.

General Ledger

The General Ledger system is integrated with the rest of the Farmer’s Office programs. All information that you enter is updated to the general ledger automatically, so you don’t need to know what accounts should be debited or credited.

In addition, the individual modules that make up The Farmer’s Office get balances directly from the general ledger for specific accounts. For example, the bank balance displayed on the Checkbook window is directly taken from your general ledger cash in bank account. The Tax Deposit window in the payroll gets the balances for each tax from the general ledger liability accounts. And the payable and receivable aging reports use the appropriate general ledger account balances when printing aging reports as control totals.

Such integration between the components of The Farmer’s Office gives you greater confidence in the accuracy of the report totals, bank balances, and payroll taxes due.

Some of the features of the General Ledger system include:

• Full double entry accounting system with fiscal year independent of the calendar year.
• The standard Chart of Accounts supplied with The Farmer’s Office can be modified for your specific farming operation.
• Payroll checks, payable invoices, checks, deposits and receivable invoices are automatically updated to the General Ledger.
• Ability to enter general journal transactions, for any adjustments that your accountant may make.
• Prints a variety of financial statements, including:
  • Trial Balance
  • Balance Sheet
  • Profit or Loss Statement
  • Profit or Loss Statement with Ratios
  • Profit or Loss Statement with Budget Comparison
  • Profit or Loss Statement with Prior Year Comparison
  • Trial Balance Worksheet
  • Cash Flow Worksheet
  • 12 Month Financial Reports (Balance Sheet and Profit or Loss)
• Financial Statements may be printed at any time, even in the middle of the month.
• A prior fiscal year can be left open until final adjusting entries are made, while you continue with work in the current fiscal year.
• Recurring journal entries can be entered just once and posted monthly with one click.
• Financial Report Generator allows you to create your own financial reports.

Payables

The Farmer’s Office makes paying your bills as painless as possible. It keeps track of vendor names, addresses and 1099 information. The Farmer’s Office provides two methods of issuing vendor checks: “direct expense” and “payables”. Direct expense checks are easy to enter, and reports are similar to a “one-write” system. Payables checks give larger organizations the cash management control they need.

Vendor Check Writing

• Exclusive Checkbook window for writing vendor checks, entering deposits, transfers, voided checks, or miscellaneous transactions to your checking accounts. Your current (and running) bank balance is always displayed for your reference.
• One time entry updates both general ledger and crop cost accounting files. Expenses on one check or invoice may be charged to more than one expense account and/or cost center.
• Program supports up to 99 bank accounts with automatic transfer and audit trail between accounts.
• Acreage Split feature allows you to automatically divide expenses or income among multiple cost centers based on acreage.
• Vendor File Maintenance with name, address, Federal ID number, and year to date purchases.
• Checks you have written by hand can be entered without printing.
• Check information, such as the date, check number, description, and expense account, may be edited even after the check has been printed if you need to correct entry errors.
• Bank reconcilement program makes it easy to balance your checkbook.
• Checks that jam in the printer can easily be voided and reprinted.
• View vendor check and invoice histories on the screen or on printed reports.
• Prints miscellaneous 1099’s at the end of the year.
• Prints DE-542 report for California independent contractor reporting requirements.

Accounts Payable

• The Accounts Payable system allows greater control when it comes to your cash flow management.
• The system can operate on accrual or cash basis.
• Under accrual basis operation, expenses are posted to the general ledger on the date of the vendor invoices.
• Under cash basis operation, expenses on vendor invoices are not posted until a check is written to pay the invoice. At that point, the expenses are posted to the general ledger on the date of the check.
• Entry of vendor invoices produces cash management reports and allows you to print checks automatically as they come due or manually one vendor at a time.
• Batch Payables Check Printing allows you to select the invoices that you want to pay for multiple vendors at one time and print checks in one batch.
• Discounts for early payment are automatically calculated and deducted when checks are issued against payables invoices.
• You can change the payment status of invoices to place them on hold. Automatic check printing will not pay these invoices.
• Standard terms (e.g. NET DUE 7 DAYS) and discount terms (e.g. 2%/10, NET 20 DAYS) can be assigned to each vendor account.
• Statement terms are supported. (For instance, you receive a statement on the 25th of each month, and the invoices listed on the statement are all due 7 days from the date of the statement.

Payroll

The Ag Payroll system is designed from the ground up to handle the demanding requirements of a high volume agricultural payroll. Here are some of the highlights:

Employees

• Handles both Ag (943) and Regular (941) employees.
• The system automatically prevents two employees from using the same social security number.
• Records I9 numbers, tracks expiration dates and keeps track of employees that need to give you their I9 form. Reports can be printed to show which employees number will be expiring.
• Assign employees to crews to print Crew Sheets and speed up payroll data entry.

Check Entry

• Each line on paychecks can be charged to different crops and/or jobs, and different piecework and hourly rates can be combined on the same check. There is no limit on the number of lines you can enter on a check.
• The Daily Payroll window provides a fast way to enter payroll data directly from your crew sheets or time sheets. Settings for entry defaults speed up data entry by automatically entering items for you.
• Standard pay rates can be set up based on the job and crop entered. These rates will automatically appear on check entry screens.
• Use the Crew Sheet Wizard to quickly enter hours and pieces for an entire crew quickly.
• Piecework wages on payroll checks are automatically checked for minimum wage compliance.
• Straight piecework wages as well as hourly base + piecework incentive wages handled.
• Guaranteed minimum hourly rates (above the legal minimum wage) may also be set up for piecework wages by employee or by job.
• Employees can easily be found by name key, account number or social security number.

Deductions

• The program calculates all applicable federal and state taxes, and observes FICA, Medicare, SUI, and FUI wage limits. Handles California SDI, Oregon WBF, and Washington’s L&I deductions.
• Additional deductions can be set up for employee advances, child support, tools, housing, garnishments, etc.
• Advances can be tracked automatically, and deductions made until loan is paid back.
• Garnishments for child support or income tax can be tracked automatically for each employee. The Payroll system will generate a payable item in Accounts Payable for you to issue checks to government agencies that wages are garnished for.

Check Printing

• Payroll check stub is designed for agriculture. Meets and exceeds the federal and state requirements for payroll information. Employees not only see basis for gross wages, but also descriptions of where they worked on each day, what jobs were performed, and unit types (boxes, vines, trays, etc) for piecework wages.
• You have the option of printing Check Vouchers on plain paper when there isn’t enough room on the check stub to print all of the detail.
• When checks jam in your printer, it is easy to print new copies of any checks that did not print out correctly. No complicated voiding and re-entering of data is necessary.
• One-step void process for checks that do need to be voided (for instance, issued to wrong employee account).
• Headings on check stub can be printed in either English or Spanish (language is selectable by employee).
• Prints checks on any laser check stock.
• Checks can be printed for an individual crew, or you may print all employees with checks grouped by crew, printed in alphabetic order for each crew.
• Check sign-off sheets can be printed for employees to sign when they get their checks.

Cost Accounting

• All labor is charged to the cost centers you enter on payroll checks. Management or supervisor labor can be charged to overhead cost centers and automatically distributed to individual fields.
• Overhead payroll expenses–worker’s comp or L&I and employer FICA/FUTA/Medicare/SUTA taxes–get expensed out to the penny for each cost center recorded on payroll checks.

Worker’s Comp

• Worker’s comp rates can be entered for each crop you have (to handle different rates for row crops, vines, or trees) and for different jobs on the same crop (when some crops may have lower rates for certain jobs).
• Worker’s comp payable can be accrued to your general ledger when checks are finalized, or you can just print the worker’s comp reports monthly.
• For Washington State, program keeps track of both employee and employer L&I rates.

Reports

• Optional export option for sending a file to banks that use the Positive Pay system to verify checks.
• Prints California and Federal quarterly and annual forms, including DE-9/DE-9C, Form 941, Form 943, Form 940-EZ and W-2’s.
• Prints quarterly tax forms for Colorado, Delaware, Michigan, Oregon and Texas. A generic state quarterly report is available for other states for use in filling out quarterly tax forms. (Forms for other states may also be added as needed.)
• Generates quarterly magnetic media diskette for California, Oregon, New Mexico and Florida as well as the annual electronic file for the Social Security Administration. (Support for magnetic media reporting in other states can be added if you require it.)
• Payroll Tax Deposit screen makes writing tax deposit checks (or recording electronic transfers) easy–your current tax liabilities are always available.
• Prints Washington state’s Quarterly Industrial Insurance Report for Division of Labor and Industry (L&I) and generates file for quarterly UI reporting (for use with Washington’s UIFastTax reporting software).
• Complete check information is retained on your computer indefinitely, allowing you to print earnings records for unemployment, welfare, and other government agencies.
• Print or magnetic media options to the New Hire Report (California DE-34).
• Labor Analysis Report gives you flexibility to print reports including exactly the information you want, sorted and subtotaled in any order.
• Set up your worker’s comp rates for each individual crop/job. Worker’s Comp Report can then be printed that breaks down your labor by each worker’s comp category that you use.

Integration

• Optional interface to data collection systems (such as ADS, Phytotrak, AgriScan and Handtrak) allows you to track pieces and hours worked in the field and then automatically transfer this information to the payroll system.
• If you currently use QuickBooks and want to continue using it for your accounting, the Payroll system can generate an IIF file to import journal transactions into QuickBooks, including your payroll checks, tax liabilities, labor, tax and worker’s comp expenses.
• The Payroll system can generate a file with all of your check information if your bank uses Positive Pay or a similar system to validate checks that are cleared on your payroll account.

Pesticide Reporting

The Pesticide Application system gives you the tools to maintain information about your sites, the chemicals you use and the applications you make.

• From the information that you enter you are able to print a Notice of Intent (if required) as well as the Monthly Pesticide Use Report. Features of the pesticide reporting include:
• The Monthly Pesticide Use Report is a California State approved format.
• The Notice of Intent may is printed on blank paper.
• Maintains list of sites, with all information needed to print a Notice of Intent and/or Monthly Summary Report.
• Maintains list of chemicals, including manufacturer name, EPA Registration number and re-entry time.
• When entering applications, you may record the employee(s) that made the application and the type of safety equipment used during the application.
• Reports by chemical and site may be obtained for any date period.
• Safety meeting records may be kept with a printed copy for employees to sign at the time of the meeting to show attendance.
• Employee Exposure List shows all applications made by each employee.
• WPS Posting Notice can be printed listing active ingredient and re-entry time.
• Chemical file maintains inventory balances and cost of materials.
• Chemical purchases entered in vendor invoicing or check writing activate transaction entry for adding to inventory.
• Cost of application can be updated to cost accounting and general ledger, reducing inventory and expensing the cost of application to the cost center(s) you specify.
• Application information can be retained on your computer indefinitely for historical purposes.