JOIN OTHER PROGRESSIVE MANAGERS AT THESE TIMELY AND CONVENIENT WINTER SEMINARS

PRESENTED BY SUCCESSFUL FARMING, FARM FINANCIAL STANDARDS COUNCIL AND AGRICULTURE ONLINE

FEATURED PRESENTERS
Dan Looker, Business Editor, Successful Farming	Dick Wittman, Past President, Farm Financial Standards Council	Ron Swanson, Past President, Farm Financial Standards Council

Don't miss an unique opportunity to learn first-hand what managerial accounting can do in your operation through one of three seminars sponsored by Asgrow seeds.  You'll hear from nationally-know management consultant and innovative Idaho producer, Dick Wittman, and FBS e.CLIPSE user and past Farm Financial Standards Council president, Ron Swanson.

By participating in the SPP seminar, you will:

•	Implement professional managerial accounting systems in farm business operations.
•	Gain an improved understanding of linkage between financial analysis and strategic decision making.
•	Access strategic and training steps for implementing managerial accounting practices.
•	Understand technical issues and concepts necessary to managerial accounting.
•	Become familiar with the new initiative and guidelines being developed by the Farm Financial Standards Council.
Agenda:
•	Introduction of Managerial Accounting
•	Application Templates and Models for Applying Managerial Accounting
•	Lunch and Speaker
•	Review Application Templates and Models
•	Software Application Exercise
Dates and locations:
•	Augustana College, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, January 28, 2008
•	i wireless Center, Moline, Illinois, January 29, 2008
•	Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, January 30, 2008

To register or download a brochure click on Super Powering Profits.

Top of Page

Only one seminar drills down to the "financial truth" behind real-world crop production and marketing practices:  CROP$HOP, Tuesday, February 12^th, one day before the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky.  Watch your mail for more details.

•	Why Costs Still Count… and How to Count Them Just because corn may be approaching "Lincoln levels" and "beans are in the teens," doesn't relieve you of serious cost control.  In fact, costs in every phase of crop production are pressing higher.  The only accurate and effective way to measure and manage those costs is through managerial accounting.  Norm will update you on how producers around the country are moving to this practice and how you can get started.
•	Past Costs Do Count:  Real World Operations Cost Benchmarks 2.0 For the second year our e.CLIPSE managerial accounting innovators will share and compare costs for planting, spraying and harvest operations.  We'll "drill down" through the data together to analyze and compare their cost allocation methodologies and effects of purchasing and resource utilization strategies.
•	Present Costs Count More!:  Breaking the Farm Financial Standards Barriers Learn how to evaluate and make rental and marketing decisions with innovative "on-the-fly" managerial accounting practices.
	•	Two ways to monitor crop year costs
	•	Recording lower of cost/market
	•	How to incorporate unsold inventory into the equation
	•	Is P&L by field possible?
	•	Measuring contribution margin
	•	New analysis tools
•	Future Costs Count the Most!!  Applying the LifeCycle Budget Suddenly it's a whole new world for crop growers, requiring a whole new way to plan.  What can long-term, dynamic budgeting do for you and where can it take you?  Join Dr. Howard Doster, Professor Emeritus, Purdue University as we examine alternative production strategies through this new management tool.  Then load a demo copy of LifeCycle Budget onto your computer and begin creating your cash flow budget for 2008 and beyond through a tutorial that includes:
	•	Extracting known information from your MIS
	•	Creating your base production plan
	•	Adding the base unit budget
	•	Plugging in fixed costs
	•	Driving variable costs
	•	Working in capital investments
	•	The calendarization process
	•	Working the financing plan
	•	Tweaking your assumptions and branching scenarios
•	New Technology Showcase Hear and see an update of new tools for collecting and analyzing your data, including:
	•	Converting your precision farming data into precision accounting decisions
	•	Real-time market monitoring through a digital dashboard
	•	Low-cost, easy-to use field input technology
	•	What can you do now through the Internet?
•	Wrap-Up Although the world is consolidating quickly there's still time for you to help shape the future of agriculture.  Join other leading producers and consultants in a timely, freewheeling discussion. CROP$HOP.08 will be held from 9:00-5:00 on Tuesday, February 12th, at the I-65-Airport Holiday Inn, Louisville, Kentucky, one day prior to the National Farm Machinery Show.  Sign up by Monday, February 4th, to receive an early registration discount.  Click on this link to register or receive more information or call (800) 437-7638 and talk with Norm, Doug or Matt.

Top of Page

This is the first in a series of tutorials on using FBS's new LifeCycle Budget module, an interactive planning and performance monitoring platform designed to tightly integrate with your FBS management information system.  In this session we will cover general program setup and building from last year's accounting data.

Setup
Setup for LifeCycle Budget is in two areas.  The first is handled through its integration with other FBS modules. The second, creating and managing Scenarios for evaluating budget plans, is handled within LifeCycle Budget.

Integration with Other FBS Modules
The LifeCycle Budget module is designed for close integration with other FBS modules.  Presently this includes the TransAction Plus, Crop Audit, and Smart Feeder Planning modules.

Requirements
The following are the minimum and ideal levels of setup in these FBS modules.  Note that TransAction Plus must be installed, while Crop Audit, Smart Feeder and Smart Breeder are optional.

Required Setup	TransAction Plus	Crop Audit	Smart Feeder*
Minimum	Ledger Accounts Centers	Fields Crop Centers	Rate of gain tables Feeding centers Completed Planning Module
Ideal	Prior year's accounting data Reconciled loan balances (viewable through Loan Report)	Specific seed Specific chemicals Specific fertilizer Macros	Specific ingredients

* Smart Breeder Planning connects with Smart Feeder Planning to project pig flow based on breeding targets or current data.

Main Menu

The main LifeCycle menu can be accessed from FBS 7.9 by clicking on Input | Budgets | LifeCycle Budget.  Note that the budget fiscal year is controlled from this screen; it is independent from the file year selected in the main FBS File menu.

Scenario Setup

The basic building block of the LifeCycle Budget module is the "Scenario," or budget plan being evaluated.  You can maintain up to 10 concurrent scenarios that can each span multiple years.  For example, one may be purely forecasts and the other a blend of forecast and actual data.  Or one scenario can represent different yield or price expectations or alternative investments.  You can even "clone" scenarios to save different outcomes without losing all the input from the original projection.  More on this feature later.

Setup for scenarios is handled in the Scenario Maintenance window.  This window automatically opens the first time LifeCycle Budget is started.  Thereafter, click on the Scenarios button in the main screen to open this window.  IMPORTANT:  You must always start the budgeting process from Scenario # 1.

Building from Last Year's Actual Data

The Build Budget process provides a tool to aid in building a new budget from actual accounting data in TransAction Plus.  This includes using the closing Bank Balances and Loans for the prior year as the opening values for Bank Balances and Loans in the budget records for an upcoming year as well as selected "un-linked" income and expense account values.

There are two major parts in the Build Budget process:
1) a template for assigning Loan Liability, Interest and un-linked Expense accounts.
2) a Build Budget Parameters confirmation.
Each part has its own control button — LCB Template and Build Budget.

LCB Template

1.	Click the LCB Template button to open the LCB Template Maintenance window.
2.	Specify the ledger accounts for loans, interest and for "un-linked" income and expense accounts you wish to transfer to the budget.  "Un-linked" accounts are those that do not affect crop, livestock or input inventories.
3.	Click the Save button to save your entries and close the window.

(Note:  This part is only required the first time the Build Budget process is used.  Account assignments can be adjusted as needed.)

Build Confirmation

1.	First, in the LCB Menu set the target year in the Set Budget Year field.
2.	Click on the Build Budget button in the LCB Menu to open the Build Budget Parameters window.
3.	Specify whether to get Bank Balances, Loans and/or Unlinked Income/Expense Accounts by adding or clearing the appropriate checkboxes.
4.	Specify which Scenario to update.  You should always begin with Scenario #1 in a new budget.
5.	Click the Build button to proceed with the update or the Cancel button to stop the operation.  Note that the Build process will overwrite any existing entries of the selected record types in the new year.
6.	After the build is completed and there are no discrepancies between the Actual Loan data and the Budget Loan data, a confirmation notice will appear.

Additional Loan Processing

LifeCycle Budget allows for either an amortization schedule or manual payment schedule for each loan.  Since loans in TransAction Plus only store Due Date and Interest Rate you'll need to add payment schedule details manually to the LifeCycle Budget Loan Schedule.  You'll only need to do this once for existing loans; the payment schedule will roll forward for the life of the loan.  Also, if you receive an error report or find discrepancies between the LCB Loan Schedule and the TransAction Plus Loan Report, edit the accounting transactions and keep rebuilding the budget until it reconciles with your general ledger.

Income and expense accounts from the prior accounting year are automatically "bucketed" into totals by month/account/center and division. Below are examples of totals and detail by account. (In a future article we'll show you how to quickly adjust these accounts to reflect anticipated changes in quantities and prices.)

Drill-down to a Diesel Fuel account "bucketed" by month/center/division from last year's accounting records.

Summary
At this point in the training process we've:

•	Built accounting bank and loan balances from the previous years actual data into a new budgeting year.
•	Adjusted the Loan Schedule to reflect repayment terms.
•	Created projected income and expense lines and schedules from the prior year's accounting data.

In the February installment, we'll cover the next step in the budgeting process:  The Production Plan.

Announcements
Please join us for a free LifeCycle Budget webinar at 2:00 pm CST on Monday, February 4th.  To participate, e-mail norm@fbssystems.com.

LifeCycle Budget users qualify for one free registration at CROP$HOP.08, February 12th, in Louisville, Kentucky.  (See article above.)

For a limited time, LifeCycle Budget is ½ price (normally $995.00) when purchased with an FBS module of equal or greater value.

To view the LifeCycle Budget product sheet and sample reports, click on this link.

To purchase and activate your LifeCycle Budget, call the FBS Sales Department at 800.437.7638.

Top of Page