ATTRA Question of the Week

H.F.
Wisconsin

Thanks for asking ATTRA about accounting software for a value-added animal business. Most of the small producers I know use general accounting software like Quicken or QuickBooks, however, there is software designed specifically for livestock business needs such as keeping herd records for cow/calf operations, animal ID and traceability, order fulfillment for mail and Internet marketers, and so on. If you like the QuickBooks software, you may be interested in the QuickBooks Farm Accounting Cookbook, which tells you how to use Quick Books for farm accounting applications. User feedback on this "cookbook" is very good.

One software package that is widely used for farm accounting is FINPACK, which is recommended by many producers. FINPACK is a little more complex to learn to use, but offers many more farm-specific options than general accounting software, as well as a huge database of financial data that you can use .

Some software products you might want to investigate are listed below.

Some Software for Livestock Operations
General including livestock:
http://www.farmbiz.com/biz1.htm
http://www.redwingsoftware.com/rwssn/?Page=27
http://www.farmworks.com/

List of software for dairy operations:
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/library/dairy/software.htm#col

List of software for beef operations:
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/library/cattbeef.html (scroll down to "Software" at the bottom of the page)

Comprehensive list of software for all types of agricultural operations, including very enterprise-specific software:
http://www.capterra.com/agriculture-software

Comprehensive list of software for food processing:
http://www.foodprocessing.com/vendors/products/index.html