RECORD BOOK INSTRUCTIONS By following the instructions, you will successfully download a FFA record book, enter your personal information and save the file to the school server or a flash drive.

1. Open Internet Explorer and go to the web site: http://calaged.org/ 2. Click on the word “Teacher” located in the blue box .

3. Select “Curriculum” and on the drop down menu . 4. Select “E Record Book Software”. This will allow you to save the electronic record book to your computer, a server or a flash drive. (There is not enough space on a disk to save the book and enter information.)

It is always a good idea to back up your files It is always a good idea to back up your files!!! You may save it to a flash drive. Do not save the file to the hard drive or desktop of the computer you are using at SLOHS. All campus computers “clean-up” every Summer. Save a copy to a flash drive for next year in June. IT WILL BE LOST!!! Click on “download release 2.0b. The “file download” box will appear. Save the file to your documents. Make sure you change the name of the file. This way you will be able to access your record book/s from any computer on campus. Change the name of the file from “record book version 2.00b to your name and the last two numbers of the year (example: kbibby 08) Remember where you saved this file!

CONGRATULATIONS!!! You are now ready to open your record book and enter your personal information. Close Internet Explorer and open Excel. When Excel is open, open your file from the location that you saved it. (I told you to remember where you saved it!) You must click on “enable macros” for this program to work!!! If your computer will not allow you to enable macros, the security setting is too high. To change the security setting, follow the directions on the next page. If you can enable macros, click on “enable macros”.

Now go back and open your record book file. ONLY COMPLETE THIS STEP IF YOUR COMPUTER WOULD NOT ALLOW YOU TO ENABLE MACROS!!! On the top tool bar, choose “tools”, scroll down to “macros”, then choose “security”. Click on “security” and a box will pop up. Set the security setting to medium and click on OK at the bottom of the security box. Now go back and open your record book file.

You are now ready to enter your personal information! Enter your name in the space provided. Enter your school name, San Luis Obispo High School Chapter name goes here: San Luis Obispo FFA Year in agriculture should be a number; example 1, 2, 3… Beginning date can be Aug/Sept your first year in FFA. Other years begin on Jan. 1st. Enter beginning date in this format: mm/dd/yy Enter the number of months this book will run. If the books beginning date is Sept 07 and will run until Dec. 08 enter 16 months. If your book is Jan – Dec. enter 12 months. (the ending date will be calculated for you. Enter your instructors names here: Bates, Evans, Thompson SAVE YOUR BOOK!!! The program will not let you change pages without saving each sections first.

Select “record book” from the drop down menu, and select “introduction page”. Click to select that page. You will enter the types/name of your enterprise project. Select the type of project: ownership means that you own the project and are responsible for the money. Paid placement is a paid job and unpaid placement is an unpaid job. Click on the appropriate type of project. SAVE WHEN COMPLETED! These are examples!!! You will enter the information for your personal enterprise project or projects.

Go to record book on the menu bar and select “calendar” Go to record book on the menu bar and select “calendar”. This will take you to the calendar pages. All calendar pages will be available to you, depending on the dates you determined on the cover page of your book. You can scroll through any/all of the calendar pages.

The calendar is used to help you keep track of dates & activities that are important to you. You should include information related to your enterprise projects, school and/or personal life. Calendar dates are available on the Program of Activities at www.sloffa.org Simply click on a date and enter the information. SAVE THE CALENDAR WHEN COMPLETED!

Back to the drop down menu for the record book: select Agreements. Business agreements are a written record of what each party agrees to provide and what they expect to receive. Agreements reduce the chance of misunderstandings between you the people with whom you are doing business. Yes, you need one with your parents! On the next two pages I have provided sample agreements: one for ownership and one for placement. Enter the dates of the project, your name will automatically be in the appropriate locations. Use complete sentences! If the example says “student name” that means you should put your name in that location.

This is a sample ownership agreement and may be adjusted to meet individual needs. Your instructor can answer any questions regarding your enterprise project.

Enter when your project started and when it will end in the appropriate locations. The “other party” is whom you have an agreement with, usually who owns the location where your project is located. “Name of Enterprise” is the same as what is listed on your introduction page. You must have an agreement for every project listed on the introduction page!

You may use this sample agreement for the written agreement. An agreement is between the parties involved in the project. It allows everyone involved to understand who is responsible for what. Insert your name where it says (student name)

This is a sample work experience agreement This is a sample work experience agreement. It will need to be adjusted to fit your individual needs for your specific employment. See your instructor for help in customizing this agreement for your needs. Use this example to complete your work experience agreement.

Enter the date you received the employment and the date you started working. Enter the ending date of your employment. If you are working from year to year, enter Dec. 31st as the ending date. Business name and type, supervisors name are entered in the location provided. How much are you paid and frequency of pay are entered.

This is a sample work experience agreement This is a sample work experience agreement. It will need to be adjusted to fit your individual needs for your specific employment. See your instructor for help in customizing this agreement for your needs. Use this example to complete your work experience agreement. This agreement lets the parties involved understand what is expected.

After completing your agreements and saving them, change to the budget page. Same thing, click on record book and select “budget”. Budgets are to be completed for all projects involving money. If you have an “unpaid placement” project, you WILL NOT have a budget. The values entered are your best estimate of your expenses and income from the enterprise. Enter the value, rounded to the nearest dollar. DO NOT ENTER DECEMAL POINTS OR CENTS. WHOLE DOLLARS ONLY! This is an estimate only, the total do not have to match anything in the rest of your book.

Enter a description of what you expect to purchase for your enterprise project. The type of projects (entered in the introduction page) will automatically be listed in the enterprise columns. Remember whole numbers only. The program automatically totals this for you. Yea!

The top of the budget page is for expenses. Now, estimate your income. How much do you expect to sell your animal for or how much will you make at your work experience? Enter those figures in the appropriate column. The program will total your income and then subtract from your expenses. If you are already losing money, why are you doing this project? It should be a positive number under “Net Income”.

After saving your budget page, go to Record Book and select journal. Select the month your project started. The journal is used to record all income, expenses and hours that you work on your enterprise. It should be kept up-to-date. Only activities related to your enterprise should be included in the journal. Do not enter equipment, breeding livestock or depreciable inventory here, there is a different location for these items in the book. FFA activities are entered in a different location of the record book; do not enter FFA meetings, judging contests, conferences here. The types of projects you entered on the introduction page are automatically listed in the enterprise columns.

The journal is the “heart” of your FFA record book. Take extra care and time to make sure you enter the information correctly! Please follow the directions provided.

We know that this journal page is January, it says so at the top of the page. In column 1, Date, you will only enter the actual day that you purchased or sold an item or worked. Example: 2, 15, 28. Do not enter Jan 2, or 1-15, or 1/28. In column 2, Description, describe what occurred. Be specific, if you worked, list what specific jobs your performed. If you purchased or sold something, list what that item was.

You may use more than one line to describe what tasks you performed You may use more than one line to describe what tasks you performed. Leave the date column blank when you utilize additional lines for the description. When you purchase items, complete the Units columns. Column 3 indicates the number of items bought and column 4 is the price paid for the individual items. DO NOT put the total paid for all items, just the cost of one item.

The program will not let you enter amounts directly into the income & expense totals columns or the total hours self labor! Entries must be made into the column for the specific enterprise and the program will transfer the information for you.

Record income, or money that you have received for your enterprises in the column for the specific project. This can be from wages or selling items. Wages should be recorded as gross wages, not your net pay (deductions are not listed.) The program will automatically total the income for you in column 5; you can not enter values in columns 5, 6, or 7. Enter expenses for your enterprises in the appropriate column. Expenses indicate the total amount that you paid for an item. The program will automatically total the expenses for you in column 6; you can not enter values in columns 5, 6, or 7.

Hours or time that you work on your enterprise project are entered into the hours column. Be sure to enter the hours in whole hours only, not partial hours or minutes. Enter the hours for each project separately under the correct column. Example: market animal hours are recorded under market animal  The program will automatically total the hours for you in column 7; you can not enter values in columns 5, 6, or 7.

You may enter your work experience wages and hours according to the frequency of wages being paid: monthly, twice a month or weekly. Most students find it easiest to enter wages and hours once a month at the end of the month. Be sure to fully describe the tasks performed when you were at your job.

You can summarize your total hours spend with an ownership enterprise at the end of each month. Be sure to fully describe what you did with your project. It is OK to use more than one line. Be sure the hours are in the correct column!

Check this out!!! The program automatically totals the columns for you. Imagine totaling this by hand?!? Not fun. The program also automatically transfers this information to the rest of the months.

Enter information for each month as occurs (so you don’t forget) Enter information for each month as occurs (so you don’t forget). You should update your journal monthly! Remember to enter the information under the appropriate column for each enterprise: market animal vs work experience. Some enterprise projects are year long and others may only last a few months. Work experience sometimes is only for a few months in the summer or all year long. Most livestock projects are for the county fair and only last a few months. Don’t worry about this, just enter the information in the correct months.

At the end of the year, all of your totals will appear in the totals columns. They will be totaled by enterprise, as well as totals of all enterprises. The addition is done for you and automatically transferred to your income summary page (no we have not talked about this page yet).

Save each page each time!!! OK, I am getting tired of telling you how to change pages! Save each page each time!!! To change pages in your record book, you will always go to “Record Book” in the drop down menu, wait for it to drop down and select the correct page that you need to work on.