 Good afternoon. This is Robert Page, CPA and regional extension agent with the farm and agribusiness management team with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and Auburn University. This afternoon we're going to be talking about farm financial recordkeeping. And let's begin with a simple question. Are you a farm bookkeeper or not? Do you have any interest in numbers and basic math skills? Do you have computerized data entry skills? Do you have knowledge of accounting and bookkeeping principles? Do you have skill at organizing and filing financial records? Do you have the ability to concentrate on financial documents and data entry for several hours at a time? Do you have the discipline to complete data entry weekly or monthly? Do you have the ability to find and correct accounting errors and omissions? And lastly, do you have the ability to read and explain how income statements, balance sheets and other financial statements tell the story of farm operations? For those of you watching today, only you can decide if you are a bookkeeper or not. Most people will fall into one of two choices. On the left we see Yes, I like bookkeeping. Well for you, you need to find the right recordkeeping system for you. One is the Excel spreadsheet. One is a handwritten set of books. Another option is QuickBooks, Online or Desktop. And another option is using farm management software with accounting included. On the other hand, if you're one of those people to say, No, I dislike bookkeeping, you basically have two choices. You can delegate bookkeeping to somebody else in your family or you can hire someone to keep the books for you. At Auburn University and the Extension System, it's been my pleasure to build a Schedule F farm income and expense spreadsheet. So for those of you that are familiar with Excel spreadsheets, I have developed a tool that virtually any producer can use to keep financial records should you be ready to try to keep your own financial records for your farm. How do you find this Excel spreadsheet? Well, it's on the ACES website. If you go to the ACES website, you'll first select under Topics, you'll find the topic called Farming. If you notice on the screen, there's a blue arrow pointed directly to Farm Management. The next screen, once you click on that, the next screen is Financial Records. And as you can see, there is a blue arrow on the screen showing you where that screen choice is. Then you go deeper. Under Farm Management, then you have a list of several different items including an article called Using an Excel spreadsheet for Farm Financial Records. And there it is in the lower right-hand corner with the big blue arrow pointing to it on the screen. I have had the pleasure of developing the series called Farm Accounting 101. And if you read the articles available on the ACES website and watch the Farm Accounting 101 videos on the ACES YouTube channel, they can help you understand more about being a farm bookkeeper. The principles behind this course is that we assume that to learn farm bookkeeping, we will be studying typical checks and deposits in the farmer's checkbook. And we will also learn the accounting principles behind those checks and deposits. If you want to get started as a farm bookkeeping, the tools are already out there for you on the ACES website. Thank you for watching today. As part of this webinar, I will be taking questions. Again, my name is Robert Page, CPA, and I'm a Regional Extension Agent with the Farm and Agribusiness Management Team with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System at Auburn University. And thank you for watching today.