What are the Beginning Vs. Ending Accounts?

These are internal accounts that are needed by Farm Works, they should not be removed or renamed.

For Supplies (seed, chemicals, fertilizer, etc...):
Your accrual books will always include a supply inventory that reflects the quantity of each supply currently on hand at the average cost that it was purchased for. In addition to the inventory account, your accrual books will show an expense account for each supply account that reflects the total of all purchases for that type of supply for the year. The Beginning vs Ending account goes with the expense account and is used to offset the expense so that only the cost of supplies that have been used is reflected on your books. For example, if you start out without any Chemicals and then purchase $10,000 of chemicals, $10,000 will be added to inventory and to the Chemical Expense account. Since the supplies have not been used yet, the Beginning vs Ending account will reflect a balance of a NEGATIVE $10,000 so that the Expense and the Beg vs End offset to give zero cost on your books. The same thing could be accomplished by using one account (instead of having a separate account for the expense and the Beg vs End), however if this was done you would not be able to easily see what the total amount purchased was during the year.

For Crops:
Your accrual books will include growing crop and harvested crop inventory accounts for each crop that you are raising. The cost in these accounts reflects the cost to raise the crop (as reflected on your enterprise statement). Basically when you first start raising a crop the value of the crop begins to accumulate in the Growing Crop Inventory account. When the crop is harvested this cost is moved to the harvested crop inventory account. When it is sold it is removed from the harvested crop inventory account. The Beg vs End account is used as the offset for the cost of the crops in inventory. These amounts will reflect negative balances as you are adding costs to the crops. The negative balance in this account is offsetting all of the various expenses that are in your books. For example, if you have $10,000 of Chemicals that have been applied to a field and that is the only cost in the field, you will have a growing crop inventory of $10,000. This is offset by a negative $10,000 in Beg vs End chemicals. In this case you will have a positive $10,000 of chemical expense and a negative $10,000 of Beg vs End crop that offset to zero. Thus you have no net cost on your income statement. Later when the crops are harvested and sold, the inventory will be reduced to zero and in this case the Beg vs Ending account will also be reduced to zero, leaving only the expense account with $10,000. If the year is closed and the crops are still in inventory all expense and Beginning vs Ending accounts are zeroed out with the year-end entry. Thus when you sell the crop in the new year, all of the costs to raise the crop will be gone (in this case the chemical expense account was zeroed out). However, when you sell the crop, the inventory will be reduced to zero and the cost of the crop (in our case $10,000) will be added to the Beg vs End account, thus the cost of the crop is shown on the income statement at the same time that the sale is. This allows your income statement to show you exactly what your profit is.

For Raised Livestock:
Raised livestock will work the same as crops. As you raise the animals, the costs to raise (feed, vet fees, etc) will be added to the inventory and shown as a negative to the Beg vs End. When the animals are sold, these costs are reversed.

For Purchased Livestock:
The only difference in purchased livestock is that the original purchase price of the animals will be added to inventory on your CASH books as well as your accrual books. This cost will also be shown as a Negative amount in the Beginning vs Ending account and a positive amount in the livestock expense account. Thus if the only thing that you do in the year is buy animals, you will see the purchase cost as a positive in the expense account and a negative in the Beg vs End account, leaving you with no overall cost. As the animals are sold, the inventory is reduced and the negative amount in the Beg vs End account is also reduced.

The key reason for these accounts is to provide you with the ability to track the cost of your inventory along with the ability to still see individual expenses that show the cost of what you've actually purchased during the year.