220 FARM ACCOUNTING 



This is the information supporting the entries for labor. 

 Some grain is sold for cash. The specific amount received 

 supplies the data from which cash is debited and the 

 proper grain account credited. 



Under the cost system, data collection includes all that 

 is included under the general system and more. The col- 

 lection of data for cost records is not carried on automati- 

 cally, because there are usually no documents to support 

 the making of entries. The nature of the cost data explains 

 tins. Cost data are collected from transactions between 

 inanimate objects or inhuman beings on the farm. They 

 represent more or less continuous operations which are dif- 

 ficult to analyze into completed transactions. Hence, it 

 is more difficult to obtain this class of information for 

 bookkeeping entries. 



Some of the more important elements of cost not con- 

 sidered for each branch of farm operations in the general 

 system are: labor, horse labor, feed, depreciation of equip- 

 ment and building, repairs, rent, interest and general ex- 

 penses. Likewise, in general accounting, crops used on the 

 farm are not accounted for as incomes for which the crops 

 should receive credit. 



In general accounting, one element similar to these has 

 been considered; namely, the consumption by the house- 

 hold of some of the dairy and poultry products, and the 

 givinir by the household of certain services and food for 

 the benefit of farm labor. This is one reason why the 

 transactions between the household and the farm are more 

 involved in cost than in general accounting because they 

 involve transactions within the farm premises only. They 

 involve, however, transactions between the farm proper 

 and the household, which must be recorded properly in 

 order to enable the profit or loss as a farmer to be shown 

 separate from the profit or loss as an individual even under 

 the general system. 



