PORK$HOP.2007 BECOMES PREMIERE WORLD PORK EVENT
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Iowa producer Rob Brenneman explains his corn purchasing strategy with fellow panel members Norm Brown, Moe Russell, Mark Greenwood and Chad Hastad.
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| "Step right up and take a guess." Wells Fargo Ag Economist Michael Swanson describes how the corn market is now the oil market. |
Participants at the
15th annual PORK$HOP seminar in Des Moines enjoyed the combined wisdom
of six nationally-known ag economists—two on the program and four in the
largest audience yet for this event. Under the sponsorship of accounting
and consulting firm Latta, Harris, Hanon & Penningroth, LLP and FBS Systems,
Inc. and located at the spectacular DeWaay Commerce Park, PORK$HOP.2007 assumed
the role as premier management seminar at the 2007 World Pork Expo. Highlights
included:
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Attendees got a first-hand look at the 2006 Pork Production Cost of Production and Benchmarking Standards from the Latta, Harris, Hanon & Penningroth client base as well as Mark Penningroth's projections for 2007. |
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A producer/expert panel then identified challenges and provided insights on managing feed cost risks. |
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Keynote speaker Michael Swanson from Well Fargo provides a "big picture" overview of the interrelationship between corn, energy and land. |
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Breakout sessions focused on alternative investments and FBS program utilizations. |
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Dr. Andy Schweitzer presented a thought-provoking case study on how Burkey Farms uses Six Sigma processes (Focus, Improve, Sustain, Honor) to achieve sort loss targets. |
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Finally, D. Howard Doster challenged the group to constantly monitor and adjust to changing conditions measured on the basis of the long-term outcome. |
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Mark
Penningroth presents 2006 Cost of Production Benchmarks.
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Andy Schweitzer explains the application of Six Sigma to pork marketing.
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Howard Doster challenges the group to evaluate alternative strategies.
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YOUR SOFTWARE LIFELINE: USER CONFERENCE.2007
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Is your management
information system just drifting along? Or are you battling
upstream against a relentless work flow? Then set course
for the FBS User Conference, August 22nd and 23rd
on the Mississippi shores to learn how to add meaning and efficiency
to your system while unwinding in a relaxing, invigorating environment.
A new format this year includes more breakout sessions allowing
an in-depth coverage of topics geared to your level of experience and
interests. To make the program even more relevant we're opening
up a limited number of these breakout sessions to FBS users
to present a unique report or application they've developed or a case
study that would be of interest to others. We'll help you
with the technical side (Powerpoint, screen captures and software advice)
and a free seminar registration (including a dinner cruise on the
Mississippi). If you'd like to submit a topic for consideration,
e-mail a brief description to norm@fbssystems.com
by Friday, July 13th.
Tentative General Session and Breakout topics for 2007 include:
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A first look at FBS version 7.9 |
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Overview of the new CenterPoint Payroll |
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Tips of the trade |
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Understanding report levels and how they should be used |
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Advanced Excel reporting utilizing FBS data |
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Analyzing data visually |
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Managerial accounting case studies |
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Interfacing with precision farming data |
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Totally automated reporting |
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Using hosted software to enhance and enable client success |
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The latest advances in field and barn data collection |
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Hands-on
training and (free copies) of comprehensive budgeting software |
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Smart Breeder: PigCHAMP
beater? |
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More to come! |
This year's User Conference returns to the charming Stoney Creek Inn
on the Moline Illinois, Mississippi riverfront and includes a prime
rib dinner cruise on The Celebration Belle paddle wheeler.
Early registration deadline for hotel rooms is July 20th
(call 309.743.0101 for room reservations in the FBS block). Also
receive a 50% early-bird discount on your seminar registration
by confirming by July 31st. Call 800.437.7638
or click here to register.
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| User Conference means leaning…. |
Sharing
ideas… |
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| Cruisin' on the Mississippi… |
And
making new friends at the Stoney Creek Inn. |
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THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOUR SOFTWARE COULD DO: INVENTORY REGISTER
This module, first available in Version 7.8, was primarily designed to aid single-entry bookkeepers prepare balance sheets, but it also can benefit larger operations needing to track multiple assets.
Background
Although the primary focus at FBS has been to integrate cost-basis,
perpetual inventories with production records and double-entry
accounting, most producers are still preparing market-value
financial statements from periodic inventories using "external"
software not driven directly from accounting transactions (such as AFRA
or FINPACK). FBS users have requested a means of incorporating
the simplicity of AFRA-like schedules into TransAction
Plus. Even users comfortable with double-entry accounting have requested
an easy way to track and adjust market values for fixed assets while keeping
them "tied" to general ledger.
How it Works
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| 1. |
Select Input
| Inventory Register from the FBS main menu.
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| 2. |
The Inventory
Register main screen consists of seven tabs: Crops & Feed,
Livestock, Breeding Stock, Machinery, Land, Buildings & Improvements
and Other assets.
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By pressing
the Change button, each asset can be associated with a
ledger account, center and division as well as purchase date,
cost and expected life (for fixed assets). In addition
to "permanent" header information for each asset, updated data
such as market value adjustments and machine hours can be appended
in the table in the lower half of the screen for fixed assets.
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| 4. |
To update
current (periodic) crop and livestock inventories, create
a permanent header record for commodity, then enter the date,
quantity and market price for the ending for each desired financial
statement.
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To include
Inventory Register entries on the Balance Sheet choose one of
these two options under Balance Sheet Parameters:
(1) Include IF present (inserts Register values in place
of Financial and Market level GL values)
(2) Exclude all Inventory Register entries (strictly use
GL balances)
(3) Use Market Values Only (only displays on Market Value
statements)
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| 6. |
For example,
here's an example of the drill-down from a Market Value Balance
Sheet to the source Crop Inventory Register.
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| 7. |
Market values
of fixed assets also transfer from the Register to the Market
Value Balance Sheet.
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Summary
Advantages
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Builds
off of existing ledger account/balance sheet setup |
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No accounting knowledge required |
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Ideal for single-entry cash accounting and periodic inventories |
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The natural transition for AFRA users |
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Provides supporting schedule for market value adjustments to fixed assets for any accounting level |
Disadvantages
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Requires TransAction Plus (no stand-alone statements) |
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Free demo version (shipped with TransAction Plus 7.8) limited to 10 assets |
Full Version Cost: $395.00 (Free to current AFRA users). Can
be activated through the Internet.
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SOFTWARE
Q&A – WITH Q'S FROM YOU, OUR CLIENTS!
Send
us your questions/problems–be they short, long, simple or downright
frustratin'!–about SeRVware
and we'll handle them right "on the air" for the benefit of all.
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Q.
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What's the best way to make backups? |
| A.
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The
best way is the easiest way.
With all the inexpensive options available today for making
backups (CDs, DVDs, tapes, USB drives, network hard drives,
remote backup over the Internet), there's no excuse left for
losing historical data due to hard disk crashes. Still, it
happens (at the worst possible time), often because the backup
process wasn't easy or reliable. Therefore you need to develop
a practice that is as quick, simple and automated so that
regardless of the medium used, it gets done on a regular basis.
Here are a couple of options that are gaining popularity because they're so easy.
| 1. |
USB "thumb drives." These are now
commodity items that you can buy anywhere from Wal-Mart
to convenience stores. (The going rate is around $10
per gigabyte of storage.) Buy and label one
for every day of the week that you'll be using FBS. When
you insert one in a USB port, it will be assigned a
drive letter by Windows. In FBS simply go to Utilities
| Save Data and save the current year's data to
the drive letter assigned to the USB drive. (FBS automatically
changes the backup file name each day so you won't overwrite
any backups you've made in prior days.) Keep all the
USB drives that you're not using in different location
from where your computer is housed to prevent loss from
fire or tornado.
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USB external drives and sync software. Get
at least a 250 gig drive (roughly $130.00). Many
of these units come with syncing software, but you can
also download a free utility from Microsoft called Synctoy.
(For more information and to download go to: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx.
The advantages and strategy behind this approach: |
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These drives have enough storage to easily backup
all your valuable documents, photos and data files. |
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You can select whole folders and subfolders to backup each time and any new subfolders are automatically added to the backup. |
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You normally don't want or need to backup program files. |
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The sync software only copies files that have changed or are new so it's very quick. |
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One drive can be used for multiple computers (just make sure you set up folder for each one on the drive to make retrieval easier. |
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These USB drives can and should be stored
off premises from the computers.
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Note that
you need to adopt at least two backup methods so that you
have adequate redundancy. For example, making backups through
FBS rather than external software maintains incremental backups
by day so that you can restore data from a selected day rather
relying on a "single generation" backup on an external hard
drive. Backups fail too, so more than one is an absolute necessity!
Regardless which technologies you adopt, make sure your backup
system is as easy and as automated as possible…otherwise it
won't get used just before the inevitable disaster.
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