accounting software and sawmills

Kansas · August 08, 2007, 08:01:28 AM

I am curious what software smaller to medium size sawmills use for their accounting. I started using quickbooks online edition 1 1/2 years ago, and while I love the payroll, customer database, and ability to run reports it gives me, it doesnt do anything on the inventory side. I am looking at upgrading to a better quickbooks or possibly peachtree software, or maybe something else that is out there.Some of the questions I have are....
Do smaller mills use log tags for inventory tracking, or is that more the big mills?
Can log tags be used in quickbooks or similar software, or does it take highly specialized software?
I dont want to spend a fortune on software, nor do I want to wind up with something that takes far more time to make work than is worth. It just seems like its getting harder to get a handle on what we really have in inventory on the yard, in the timber, finished lumber, etc

Raider Bill · August 08, 2007, 08:16:50 AM

Kansas,
The full version of Quick books allows you to keep inventory most anyway you want. Through the years we have tried almost all the accounting programs and QB seems to be the easiest and best for my money.
I do not have a sawmill business but I don't think it matters what your application is QB will do the job.
Send me a PM and I will send you a older version if you want?

Warren · August 08, 2007, 11:50:12 AM

I use QB Pro also, but do not use the inventory feature. Started off with Peach Tree 13 years ago. Never got Peach Trre to work properly. Eventually switched to QB and have never looked back.

Warren

slowzuki · August 08, 2007, 03:14:00 PM

Currently struggling to do farm accounting in Quicken that has the business accounts. Should have taken a book keeping course first, have been recording way more information than needed and makes creating financial statments for taxes incredibly hard.

Kansas · August 10, 2007, 07:53:27 AM

Thanks for the offer, bill, but I am going to have to subscribe to a payroll service, plus I suspect I will need tech support when I upgrade, thinking about either the pro or premier service. The more I dig into this, I think if i want to tag logs and track inventory that way, Im going to have to have a different software dedicated to inventory that will work with Quickbooks. At least thats what the folks at Quickbooks told me. I think I will do the quickbooks upgrade from where I am at now, and try the log tagging inventory system later on.

OneWithWood · August 11, 2007, 12:58:02 PM

The question may be how much is it worth to you to track the logs by bar code? Peachtree has a couple versions that will do everything you want. Check all the software manufacturers and pay close attention to the attributes of each version. If you are currently running Windows OS be sure and check compatibility. I have found that a lot of the software out there is not totally compatible with Vista.
Also, read the tutorials and be sure you understand the concepts of double entry accounting and the setting up of a chart of accounts.

Kansas · August 12, 2007, 06:41:20 AM

Looking at peachtree, it does look like the premium software package would work using log tags with its serial number inventory option. I use windows XP, so compatability would not be a problem. I also tried peachtree 12 or so years ago, couldnt get it to work, but software, and computers have changed a lot in that time. Certainly worth looking at.

ARKANSAWYER · August 12, 2007, 08:23:46 PM

Using QuickBooks Pro to run the company. Karen is creating an inventory system with in it. The problem that I came to was that I buy logs by the ton and buy three different log scales. But we sell boards by bdftage and per board. So how to count them? Then there was the overrun to contend with and conversion factors that do not fall into line with the real world. We try to tally at the end of the day but with production like it is that often goes undone. We do tally for custom jobs but that runs in the 10's mbdft per week. Have not found a written program to just plug into. There are barcode deals in the trade mags that can scan and log in the logs. But then you have to track when the log is sawed and what comes from it to really know what went on. When we put in the moulder and started making siding we sell it by the sq ft. Now Karen is about to kill us because she needs to know how many bdft went into the sq ft to know how many tons of logs are now short on the yard. ;D

Bibbyman · August 12, 2007, 08:36:59 PM

Mary also uses QuickBooks.

slowzuki · December 05, 2007, 04:26:14 PM

I thought I'd update on my accounting program search.

We have taken a step back from the huge leap we had made into accounting. We are stopping the online banking part of our accounting software and going back to reconciling on paper. The process was supposed to save time but was causing us monster headaches with the automated process it was trying to apply to the transactions.

From Jan 1 on we will enter our bills, payments, invoices and customer payments manually then just match them when a statement comes. Our problem is like many small part-time businesses we don't have a strictly business account so we have mixed transactions (A HUGE NO-NO for those just starting! Believe me!) Jan 1 we are getting a separate business account and will start clean and close out our old set of books.

Now, the thing I will miss is we are giving up on the invoice creation feature in our current accounting package so I will have to manually make invoices like I did at the very start, but at least it forces me to make a pdf of each one and save it so it can't be accidentally changed like has happened in our register.

Kansas · December 05, 2007, 08:17:37 PM

I went on ahead and finally went with peachtree premium-thinking i could use a log tagging system in it, but it wont work. It was difficult to learn to use on the rest of it, but it is now up and running. Here is how we are handling inventory. I went on ahead and bought a log tagger, and we are now tagging all logs coming into the mill. When I bill out green lumber sales, that comes directly out of inventory. Any logs bought, or logging costs, go directly into the appropriate inventory account. We use three-one for cottonwood logs, one for oak, and one for everything else. Kiln dried lumber is accounted for when it comes out of the kiln, and goes into inventory. To make the log tag system work, and account for discrepancies between board foot in a log, and what we get out of it, I have a part time bookkeeper that has set the log tag system up in excel. She records the tag number, species, board foot, and cost. As the mills cut the logs, the sawyers record the log tag numbers, and she takes them back out of excel. In theory.... once we have all the logs finally tagged on the yard, every month she can run a report showing how many board foot in logs we have on hand, and make the adjustment of whatever overage we have for what we cut. The yard is full, it will take at least a couple of months to work down the untagged logs. Being that virtually every log has at least some lumber flowing into pallet lumber, and sometimes going into several other products, Theres no way we can try to measure and account for what lumber flows out of each individual log. .............At least all this works on paper.

OneWithWood · December 08, 2007, 08:25:12 AM

Have you investigated the assembly option in Peachtree? It is under Maintain on the task bar. You essentially start with the end product and work your way backwards. Don't know if you can get to the individual log as a component or not.

oakiemac · December 11, 2007, 08:27:52 PM

I use a spiral notebook and a dull pencil. :

Maybe I should invest in a fancy software package ???

dewwood · December 12, 2007, 09:42:10 AM

oakiemac,

Do you remember to back up your data on a regular basis, ie sharpen your pencil?

slowzuki · December 12, 2007, 12:27:54 PM

Oakie, I have to say I'm not keen to jump into computer accounting unless you have a real lot of transactions. I haven't found it saves me any time. Just spend as much time in help files and trying to find out what happened as writing and using a calculator before.

Quote from: oakiemac on December 11, 2007, 08:27:52 PM
I use a spiral notebook and a dull pencil. :

Maybe I should invest in a fancy software package ???

oakiemac · December 13, 2007, 06:18:02 PM

Well the least I can do is sharpen the DanG pencil ;D

I havent went to software because of the time ivestment. I'd have to learn a computer program that I'm not the least bit interested in and then I'd have to find time to input the data. Right now I just record everthing on a note bood and it only takes a second or two. Although with the computer (hopefully) it would help catoregize things like how much spent on fuel or repairs, ect.

slowzuki · December 14, 2007, 09:00:58 AM

Thats what I thought too Oakie but turns out there are other ways to do it. You can buy fancy notebooks called ledgers that you can label the columns at the top, they look like a spreadsheet on the computer. So if you have a gas bill, you enter the amount under that column and perhaps the tax in the tax column if you get rebates.

With this you can total up the gas (or any category you label a column) over a period of time and have more information available. The computer does this too but I don't find it as obvious what it is doing because it tracks so many other things too. Category, job, class, account etc. I don't have that much complication in my affairs and it confuses the heck out of me.
Ken

Quote from: oakiemac on December 13, 2007, 06:18:02 PM
Well the least I can do is sharpen the DanG pencil ;D

I havent went to software because of the time ivestment. I'd have to learn a computer program that I'm not the least bit interested in and then I'd have to find time to input the data. Right now I just record everthing on a note bood and it only takes a second or two. Although with the computer (hopefully) it would help catoregize things like how much spent on fuel or repairs, ect.

OlJarhead · April 01, 2013, 04:01:29 PM

I'm looking at premium vs contractor versions of Quick Books.

Any feedback?

alecs · April 01, 2013, 05:56:05 PM

This is only a little off topic, so hopefully it's useful. I used to run my engineering consulting business on Quickbooks Pro. While Quickbooks is great for lots of small businesses, it was not well suited to project related budgeting, or our business model in general. After a few years of struggling with Quickbooks doing the things it could do, and a bunch of Excel spreadsheets on the side, we made the leap into new project management / accounting software that is specifically designed for architects and engineers. It made a world of difference because most of the stuff we were trying to track on the side with Excel (which was never quite synchronized with QB) was folded right into the program.

No longer did every employee enter their time either in Excel or by hand, only to have this info re-entered into Quickbooks by our office manager. No longer did engineers budget their projects in Excel and then give the finished version to the office manager to be re-entered into Quickbooks. No longer did managers only find out how they were doing relative to budgets once every few weeks when budget reports were printed and handed out. No longer was our backlog of work a mystery.

Nothing against Quickbooks, it's great for a lot of businesses. My accountant complains every time he comes to visit that things would be easier if only we were still using QB. So it definitely has its proponents. However, in some of the other replies to this post, there are echos of what we used to do here. Forcing Quickbooks to do something it wasn't meant to do, and using Excel sheets or some other method on the side to make up for the inadequacies. I don't know that there is any silver bullet software package that is perfectly suited to sawmilling, but if there is, I would look into it seriously. Maybe there's another program that tracks log inventory and work in progress better than QB. I don't know what it is, I'm just suggesting to keep looking for it!

I didn't realize that the software we are now using even existed until a client of mine in a similar situation called me asking if I had ever heard of either of the two options he was considering. So I would suggest to keep looking for the best option that is as close as you can get to your business situation, and to resist the temptation of a "QB + something else to make do" option.

Aidas Survila · May 20, 2017, 02:24:55 PM

For our forestry and timber business we always use online accounting services software ZipBooks. Quickbook is very good for real estate hotel and restaurant business. But I am worried about the lack of integration between quickbooks and Linux. I tried with both wine and parallel but failed.

Aidas Survila · May 20, 2017, 02:26:32 PM

Quote from: Aidas Survila on May 20, 2017, 02:24:55 PM
For our forestry and timber business we always use online accounting services software ZipBooks. Quickbook is very good for real estate hotel and restaurant business. But I am worried about the lack of integration between quickbooks and Linux. I tried with both wine and parallel but failed.

You can check it here, if anyone need: https://zipbooks.com/bookkeeping-services/
Thanks.