Research Progress Report 157
November, 1964
The 1964 Purdue Farm Account Project-Conversion to Electronic Account Keeping
R. Rades, E. Carson, and L. Eisgruber
There is presently a keen interest in the question of electronic farm account keeping. This interest is shared by farmers, farm related businesses (banks, feed dealers, etc. ), teachers and researchers.
The cause for this interest is not so much the electronic account keeping itself, but largely the anticipated potential for teaching management, practical management analysis, and farm management decisionmaking. Nevertheless, at present the profession is still engaged in solving the problem of electronic account keeping at the organizational and technical level. A significant number of institutions already have commenced "electronic records projects, " and all these institutions find the task one which is extensive, which poses a variety of unfamiliar problems, and which extends into interest areas of a variety of groups. Furthermore, every year other additional institutions voice their interest in such projects. These institutions have as their first task to decide whether the best course of action is to start a record project by themselves or whether they should cooperate with an already established project.
These institutions should find it a valuable help if they could study the organization, experience and problems of other records projects. Similarly, those institutions al-
ready involved in keeping records electronically may find an organized report on another records project useful in their endeavor to improve their existing program. For this reason, we prepared this report. A secondary reason is that with this report the Department's staff can more effectively communicate with visitors who wish to study Purdue's records project.
The "electronic" Purdue account project does not have a long history, it does not claim to be the best possible or best existing project of its kind, nor should it be looked at as a final product. In fact, this report will point out some of the staff's plans, thus indicating the growing character of the project. While improvements are possible and will be made, the present project may, nevertheless, be able to supply those interested with technical information, ideas, a comparison, or at least a comprehensive description of an electronic account project.
Orientation and Purpose of the Purdue Project
The Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University has sponsored an account project for some thirty years.
Until 1963, all calculations required by this project were performed manually. The