Dairy Finance Tools

The following tools were designed for dairy farmers that want to get a better handle on their production costs and finances. All that is required to use these tools is Windows 95 or higher operating system, QuickBooks by Intuit, and Microsoft Excel. You can download these tools and learn how to keep financial records, compute the cost of producing 100 lbs of milk, develop a monthly budget, or understand the linkage between production and finance. And you don't need an MBA in finance to use these tools; all that is required is a willingness to learn.

Note: These tools are made available electronically "as is" to the dairy industry at no charge to the user. The tradeoff is that support for these products via telephone or email will not be provided by the University of Missouri or by Ken Bailey. Instructions, however, are provided to assist users in learning to use these tools.

QuickBooks for Dairy Farmers

Using QuickBooks to Manage Your Dairy Farm New Publication!

QuickBooks Startup Files

You can download a startup file for QuickBooks 6.0 of a dairy farm that is a sole proprietorship. This file contains no financial transactions of opening balances. It is already set up with a chart of accounts, items list, and classes that are common to dairy-type farms. In addition, we have developed a number of memorized transactions that will make your non automated accounting tasks in Quickbooks easier (i.e. depositing the milk check, accounting for farm raised feed, etc.).

Please click here to download a QuickBooks 6.0 startup file for a dairy type farm.
Note: The file is now an executable zip and should still have a ".qbb" extension when unzipped.
Please click here to see the instructions for installing the QuickBooks 6.0 file on your computer.

QuickBooks Training Modules

You can download the following seven PowerPoint 97 presentations to teach dairy farmers the fundamentals of using QuickBooks for their accounting needs. The lesson plans were designed to work in conjunction with the startup file and the QuickBooks manual provided above.

Please click on each of the following Lessons to download them. The files are all self-extracting and are in PowerPoint 97 format. Just download them to any directory and double click them to extract the file into PowerPoint format. They can be viewed in PowerPoint 97 or later versions or by using PowerPoint Viewer, which is available on the internet for free.

• Lesson 1 - Intro to QuickBooks
• Lesson 2 - Understanding Financial Statements
• Lesson 3 - Setting Up QuickBooks
• Lesson 4 - QuickBooks Basics
• Lesson 5 - Other Recurring Issues
• Lesson 6 - Feed Costs
• Lesson 7 - Enterprise Accounting & Budgeting

Dairy Financial Planning Tool

This is the CADSIM99 model. It is an MS Excel 97 model used for financial planning on a dairy farm. Go to the Questions Worksheet and fill in all the light blue cells. Leave any red or purple cells alone. Then go to the other worksheets and make changes in the light blue cells: Assumptions, Feed, Livestock, Other Deprec, Investment, and Loans. If you make a new investment and borrow money, make sure you enter the loan information, enter the investment information, that it feeds through to depreciation, and that it enters the cash flow as borrowed money and a cash outflow. Make sure the Assumptions in the outer years are correct (i.e. culling rate). When you are done, use buttons to print out tables in Cashflow, ProfitLoss, DairyEnt, Balance Sheet, and Financial Ratios.

Please click here to download the Excel 97 Version in excutable zip format.

Dairy Enterprise Budget

Please click here to download the Excel 97 Version in excutable zip format.
Please click here to download the Excel 5.0 Version in excutable zip format.

Instructions for download: Select the file above that best suites your spreadsheet capabilities. The browser should prompt you to save the file. At this time, select the directory of your choice on your local drive. After the file is saved, you may access it through your computer's file manager, eg:Windows Explorer. Select and double-click the executable file you chose to download. The program will prompt you about were you wish to save the unzipped files. Once the files are unzipped, you can open them in the appropriate spreadsheet program.
If you have any other questions or suggestions please email us at agebb@missouri.edu or call us at 573-882-4827.

For more information on the Commercial Agriculture program, contact Rex Ricketts, 573-882-4553.

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