Computerized Farm Record Keeping with Quicken® 2002

Bulletin 897-02

Accounts

Accounts are set up within your data file to track your income and expenses. You can have over 500 accounts within a data file. Each account will have a register of its own. And you can create additional accounts within a data file whenever necessary.

You can transfer amounts from one account to another. For instance, using an ATM card will reduce the balance in your checking account and increase the balance in your cash account.

The types of accounts that can be set up include:

• checking, savings and money market accounts - these are used to track transactions and balances in these different accounts.
• cash account(s) - this account is used to track your cash transactions for the business and family. One cash account is usually sufficient.
• credit card account - used to track credit cards and lines of credit. For more information about using credit card account(s) to track credit card and lines of credit transactions, see Credit Cards and Lines of Credit in the Additional Quicken Topics section later in the manual.
• investment accounts - used to track various types of investments.
• asset accounts - used in addition to bank, cash and investment accounts. In a farm business, examples of asset accounts would be capital purchases and livestock purchased for resale.
• liability accounts - used to track loan balances and accrued liabilities such as payroll withholdings.

For a farm business, the most common accounts are checking, savings, cash, asset and liability accounts. If your business uses a line of credit for operating credit, you might want to consider using a credit card account. As you become more experienced with the Quicken program, you may want to add more accounts to track your personal and non-farm finances.