How do I…?

Step-by-step guides to running your payroll and books in LedgerBarn. Every guide here is also built into the app itself, on the Help tab.

Getting started

Set up your account and brandingCreate your admin login on first visit, then make the app yours — your name, logo, color, and location.Your sign-in (and giving staff theirs)How sign-in access works: one admin login for the books, and separate limited logins for employees.Give your people their own loginsEveryone who works in the app should sign in as themselves — the activity log then shows who did what, and nobody shares the admin password.

Farm & livestock

Livestock record-keeping software: tracking your herd in LedgerBarnWhatever you raise — cattle, beefalo, bison, goats, sheep, hogs — the Livestock tab is where every animal, pasture, and health event lives. Here's how to set up your herd records from scratch.Stocker and backgrounder cattle software: lot tracking, cost of gain, and closeoutsBuying feeder calves, running them on grass or in a lot, and selling them heavier is a different business than a breeding herd — LedgerBarn's Stocker Cattle module tracks it by the LOT, not the individual animal, the way the business actually runs.Cattle economics: scenario planning and breakeven pricingBefore you buy calves, sign a grazing lease, or commit to a marketing channel, the Economics tab lets you model the whole plan — cost to raise plus revenue to sell — and see the breakeven price and bottom line before you spend a dollar.Farm equipment maintenance tracking and depreciationTractors, implements, mowers, trucks, ATVs, generators, chainsaws — anything with hours or a service interval belongs in the Equipment tab, with a full service history and a Schedule-F-ready depreciation view.Field, soil, and crop record-keeping for small farmsFrom mapping your fields to logging soil amendments to tracking hay off each cutting, the Soil & Crops tab keeps your field-level records in one place instead of scattered notebooks and phone photos.Farm record-keeping: what to keep, how to keep it, how to choose a systemEvery farm keeps three kinds of records: production, labor and financial. This is the practice behind them — the habits that do most of the work, what the preparer needs in January, how long the federal rules say to keep things, and the questions to ask before choosing any system. General information, not legal, tax or accounting advice; the rules are cited at the end.

Payroll

Add an employee (with their W-4 and state withholding)One form covers pay setup, the federal W-4, and state withholding; SSN and bank details go in an encrypted section right after you save.Run a payrollRun Payroll is two screens: hours, then a preview of every paycheck. Nothing is saved until you approve it, and each run opens on the pay period after the last one.Pay your employees: checks, paystubs, or direct depositEverything hangs off the run: paystub links, check printing on your own check stock, and the direct-deposit file for your bank.After the run: what you owe and whenPayroll creates tax debts as you go. The Taxes screen shows what you owe, by agency, and when it's due — so EFTPS and your state never surprise you.PTO: policies, accrual, and using time offPTO accrues automatically every time you run payroll; balances and history live on each employee's record.Agricultural overtime, bonuses, and extra earningsFarm payroll software that gets agricultural overtime right: overtime pays 1.5× automatically, with a checkbox for the FLSA §13(b)(12) agricultural exemption. Commission on billable hours and bonuses are the built-in extra earnings.Deductions and garnishmentsA standing deduction or a court order is entered once on the employee and then comes out of every paycheck by itself, with a garnishment held to its legal cap.Quarterly and year-end tax formsThe app builds your federal worksheets, W-2s, and 1099s from pay-run history — including the exact e-file uploads. You do the actual filing, under your own EIN. E-filing straight from the app is coming soon; we’re working on it.Give employees their own paystub loginA limited login lets an employee see their own stubs and W-2s on their phone — no printing, no emailing, and no access to anything else.H-2A payroll software: what LedgerBarn handles for migrant farm workersH-2A workers are foreign agricultural employees on a temporary visa program, and federal law layers extra wage-and-hour rules on top of normal payroll. Here's what LedgerBarn's agricultural payroll software automates for H-2A and seasonal farm labor, and what's still on you today.

Money & books

Which kind of worker is this? W-2, 1099, family, or H-2AEvery person you pay falls into one of four boxes in LedgerBarn, and picking the right one drives their taxes, their forms, and what the app shows on their profile.Getting ready for year-end: your checklistA big-picture checklist for the last quarter of the year and the first weeks of January, so W-2 and 1099 season doesn't sneak up on you. For button-by-button steps, see the "Quarterly and year-end tax forms" guide.Invoices, statements, and getting paidBill customers, take their payments, send statements, and watch who still owes you, all from Customers.Charge and track sales taxPut a tax code on each invoice line and the app computes the tax, adds it to the total, and keeps a running liability so filing time is a read-off, not a scramble.Track parts & supplies with InventoryKeep a live count of what's on the shelf — parts, feed, supplies — see its dollar value, get a low-stock nudge, and have invoices pull from stock automatically.Service history for your customers' fleetsPut each customer's truck on file — truck or unit number, VIN, plate, engine, tires — log every service with the parts that went on, and let the books tell you what is due next by miles, hours or date, whichever comes first.Set up your chart of accountsYour bank accounts and your categories live on one screen. Keep the list short, name things the way your tax return does, and hide what you never use.Reconcile a bank or credit card statementTick the register off against the statement until the difference reads $0.00. Your ticks save as you go, so a reconcile can wait for tomorrow.Enter and pay billsEnter a bill when it arrives so the books know what you owe; pay it when it is due. Two steps, the way QuickBooks does it, so the A/P Aging report is always right.Reports: profit & loss, balance sheet, and the accountant's setOne Report dropdown, grouped the way QuickBooks groups its Reports menu, with period chips, cash or accrual basis, and a print-ready layout.Opening balances: start the books on a datePick the day the books begin, enter what each account was worth that morning straight off the statements, and everything before it stops mattering.Switch from QuickBooks to LedgerBarnMoving your books off QuickBooks Desktop or QuickBooks Online: pick the day the books start here, enter opening balances straight off your statements, run both side by side for a month, then turn QuickBooks off. The Dashboard keeps a dated checklist so no step slips.Where QuickBooks things live in LedgerBarnIf you ran QuickBooks Desktop, you already know the words. Here is where each familiar window lives, so you can sit down and work on day one.

Not a customer yet? LedgerBarn is payroll, bookkeeping, and farm records in one place, in your farm's own name and colors — see plans & start a free trial.