The accountants, economists and bankers assembled for the 2009 PORK$HOP seminar in Des Moines didn't hold back on their diagnosis of the pork industry's financial ills nor their prescriptions for recovery.  While the hemorrhaging has been massive and equally distributed among all operations, producers with a land base, plus competitive production costs have better odds of survive.  The 2009 Latta, Harris, Hanon & Penningroth cost of production benchmarks reported substantial losses in every segment in 2008 due to high feed costs and projected continued losses in 2009 due to low market prices.

The LLHP concludes that:

•	Over the past 21 months the swine industry had lost an average of $500 per sow in pre-tax equity with one forth of producers in serious danger of remaining in business over the next twelve months.
•	The cost of production study found the spread between the 50th and 90th percentile producer to be between $7 and $10 per live hundredweight produced.  Producers in the 50th percentile are in the most serious financial trouble.
•	The accounting firm is developing strategies for its clients to adapt to the current economic environment.  For more information contact John McNutt or Mark Penningroth at (563)886-2187 or email jmncutt@lattaharris.com.

John McNutt shows historical and projected weaned pig costs from the Latta, Harris, Hanon and Penningroth benchmarks.

Joe Dykhuis describes how Dykhuis Farms is unlocking new opportunities through managerial accounting.

Controller Adam Hocker and owner Rob Brenneman discuss finishing site management at Brenneman Pork.

Lender Mark Greenwood warns that bankers will not be able to liquidate sows fast enough to solve the pork industry's overcapacity headaches.

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This year's FBS User Conference will bring together experts, principles and tools to help you organize, manage and profit from your most valuable resource—your management information.

Project.  Discover how to quickly create a flexible model of your production and financial business that can be used to test alternatives and monitor performance.

Protect.  You've invested your lifetime in your business and many years in your data.  Learn how to unlock the knowledge locked within your computer and present it in a format that you and your lender can depend on.

Profit.  Making effective marketing and investment decisions depends on access to accurate, timely and statistically-valid Key Performance Indicators, including historical and real-time production costs and margins.

The event will be held on August 26 and 27 at the Stoney Creek Inn in Moline, Illinois, with a special half-day pre-conference on August 25th for FBS Farm/Trust Manager users.  There'll be an abundance of relevant classes and networking for all FBS users and their advisors, plus a dinner cruise on the mighty Mississippi.  Watch your mail and the FBS website for details.

Hotel reservations must be made by July 24^th, 2009 to ensure availability and rates.  Call the Stoney Creek Inn at (800) 659-2220.

The 2009 FBS User Conference will feature hands-on training, user panel discussions and educational resources on the latest software.	The popular prime-rib dinner cruise on the Mississippi River returns!

FBS 2009 User Conference Dates and Times

Tuesday, August 25
1:00-5:00 pm Farm/Trust Manager Training Session

Wednesday, August 26
9:00 am-5:00 pm FBS General Training
6:00 pm Prime Rib Mississippi Dinner Cruise

Thursday, August 27
8:00 am-3:00 pm FBS Breakout Sessions

Tentative Topics

•		Taking advantage of new features in Version 8.1
•		Streamlining office workflow
•		How to choose which accounting and reporting options you should use
•		Getting your data ready for your accountant and banker
•		Unlocking the power of Report Generator
•		On-farm wireless connections
•		Farm Financial Standards update
•		Avoiding common FBS "boo-boos"
•		Converting to an SQL database
•		LifeCycle Budget as a stand-alone, long-term planning tool
•		LifeCycle Budget as an integral monitoring system
•		Specialized reporting breakouts
	•	Budget-actual financial statements
	•	Financial Ratios
	•	Lower of Cost/Market
	•	Consolidated Cost Analysis
	•	Batch Reports
	•	Dashboards
•		Using managerial accounting for decision support
•		Software as a Service—what are the next opportunities?
•		Enterprise Resource Planning for Ag—are we there yet?
•		Help us brainstorm on future development objectives

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Join us for these free webinars at 10:00 am CST:

•	Crop Budgeting and Reporting on Monday, July 6

If you'd like to attend any of these virtual meetings, e-mail norm@fbssystems.com by 8:00 am CST on the day of the webinar to receive login instructions.

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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. Q. I want to start a new company, but I want to use some of the setup of my existing company.  How can I copy existing setup files to my new company? A. On the select/change company screen highlight Create New Company. 1.  Type the three new initials in the company name box and click OK. 2.  Type the appropriate information on the farm name and address screen. 3.  Select (highlight) the source company on the right or use the Change Source button to change to the data location of the source company. 4.  Type a Y in the copy column by the setup file to be copied or click on the Yes to All button to include all setup files from the source company. 5.  Click on the Copy button and then Yes to the warning about overwriting the setup files. 6.  On the quick start screen leave the box blank and choose the Standard Start. 7.  Click Save, Cancel or OK on each setup screen unless it needs to be edited.  You will notice that the setup files are from the selected source company.  All setup files can be edited from the main screen under the setup menu as well. Top of Page         sales@fbssystems.com 800.437.7638

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©2009 FBS Systems, Inc.