This lesson continues on from Lesson 2 with an investigation into ways ICT can support farmers with record keeping. In the previous lesson we showed you the Enterprise Accounting system and also introduced you to a spread sheet program called Excel. The intention of this lesson is to spend more time working with Excel so that you can evaluate whether spread sheets add value to your farming operations.

Enterprise Accounting Using a Spread Sheet
In the previous lesson we introduced Enterprise Accounting but did not spend much time considering what exactly an enterprise was. We used maize production and cattle rearing as two examples of an enterprise.  A farming enterprise, however, can be any activity identified according to receipts and expenses. Castle and Becker (1987) have defined three classifications:

1. Production Enterprises. Typically, activities that produce marketable commodities and include crops such as plantain, cassava, coffee, tea, maize etc. It would also include livestock of any description; chickens, cattle, goats etc.
2. Service Enterprises. Perhaps you have not considered machinery and equipment services or your own on-farm shop? These also constitute an enterprise and should be tracked.
3. Holding Enterprise. Elsewhere in this course, you have been encouraged to think about storing your produce to capitalise on times of shortage when prices are higher. The activity of storing and protecting your produce is in itself an enterprise with its own expenses.