PORKSHOP.2005: COME TO FROM WORLD PORK EXPO AND BRING HOME THE BACON
There are plenty of compelling reasons for attending the World Pork Expo
in Des Moines, June 9-11: investigating new technologies, meeting
old friends and enjoying the casual, but professional atmosphere. To
make that trip to the WPX really worthwhile, though, arrive a half day
early and join your friends in learning how to integrate all phases of
production and management at PORKSHOP.2005.
Jointly sponsored by the CPA and consulting firm, Latta, Harris, Hanon
& Penningroth L.L.P. and FBS Systems, Inc., PORKSHOP.2005
will be held on Wednesday, June 8th, at the Holiday Inn Downtown/Mercy
Campus in Des Moines, Iowa.
This year we'll help you prepare for lean times by starting with the #1
cost—feed. Dr. Steve Dritz from Kansas State will cover feed
cost control case studies and strategies followed by break-out sessions
conducted by LHHP and FBS on:
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Feed budgeting and monitoring with Gary Donley, Carthage Veterinary Clinic |
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Pig flow and financial budgeting |
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"How we use management accounting" panel |
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Proofing
and analyzing management accounting data with John McNutt,
MBA |
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Measuring
opportunity costs created by mortality, variation and capacity
utilization |
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Incorporating
traceability, custom formulas, financial and carcass
data in closeouts |
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Managing
breeding data in a next-generation Windows platform |
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Breakthrough
technologies for automating data collection and
traceability |
Throughout PORKSHOP.2005,
we'll be announcing new products and ideas that you'll be able to take
home and put into practice immediately.
PORKSHOP
is truly an elite gathering, but you don't have to be an FBS or LHHP client
to benefit from the ideas and interaction… just a commitment to continuous
process and management improvement. (CPE certificates will be issued on request.)
For a complete agenda or to register, click
here or call 800.437.7638.
Early registration deadline: May 31, 2005.
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TOP PRODUCER MAGAZINE FEATURES MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING COVER STORY
Stan and
Karmen Mehmen may not be our clients, but the Spring 2005 Farm Journal
Top Producer cover story, "Throw the Bums Out," reinforces the benefits
of the same management accounting practices available to FBS clients.
For the Mehmens—and virtually everyone who converts to management
accounting—this process requires a "total business philosophy change." Instead
of doing the same things year after year, they view each segment of their
business as either a cost center or profit center. "If the
operation is not making a profit or supporting a profit center, it has
to go," says Karmen.
A sidebar story describes how the Farm Financial Standards Council (which
FBS actively supports) is standardizing these practices.
For more information on management accounting, click this link to the
Top
Producer story or e-mail norm@fbssystems.com.
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FBS TO FEATURE SMART BREEDER AT WORLD PORK EXPO
Please visit
World Pork Expo Booth 756 in the air-conditioned Varied Industries Building
at the Iowa State Fairground to get a first-hand look (and take home a
free demo) of Smart Breeder for Windows.
 |
| Smart
Breeder produces industry-standard breeding performance reports
as well as offers exclusive features like multiple levels of drill-down
from reports. |
Although Smart Breeder has been commercially available for two
years, our marketing emphasis has concentrated on adding value to PigCHAMP
4.x® (originally owned by the University of Minnesota, and currently
by Farms.com). We've done that in three ways:
| 1. |
The PROMIS
interface (developed jointly by the U of M and FBS in 1998) which
allowed breeding animals to be moved back and forth between PigCHAMP
and Smart Feeder. |
| 2. |
An interface
with e.CLIPSE
Management Accounting (developed in 2001), which automatically
adjusted PigCHAMP pre-weaned pig inventories on the TransAction
Plus balance sheet. |
| 3. |
PigWINGS,
a free utility (introduced in 2004) which converts DOS PigCHAMP
data into Windows reports "on the fly." |
With the future of the industry standard for swine breeding herd management now up in the air, we've decided it's time aggressively offer a state-of-the art alternative that:
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Automatically
converts to and from PigCHAMP breeding data |
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Generates industry-standard reports |
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Takes full advantage of Windows technology (report drill-down, exporting to other software) |
| • |
Works
as a desktop, server or CITRIX / Windows Terminal Server application |
| • |
Has the capacity to accommodate and consolidate large herds |
| • |
Integrates
tightly with Smart Feeder and e.CLIPSE
for a complete pork M.I.S. |
| • |
Generates its own input forms and performs batch input |
We're looking forward
sharing these possibilities and more at the World Pork Expo. For a downloadable
Smart Breeder product sheet, click here.
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25 YEARS AGO / 25% OFF TRIVIA QUIZ...
Two months
ago we asked our readers to name the very first FBS program, computer/operating
system it was designed for and the medium on which it was recorded.
Thanks to everyone who ventured a guess. Some of you actually got two out of the three answers right—but no aces.
So the answer is "Commercial Pork Package" (later renamed
"Herd Audit" when upgraded to 5 1/4" floppy disks), which
ran on a 16K Radio Shack Model I, and was shipped on audio cassette tape.
This ancestor of Smart Feeder stored weekly swine breeding and
feeding data and produced performance monitoring reports and generated
a rudimentary cost analysis. Unlike "random access" disk drives, cassette
tapes were slow and unreliable means of storing programs and data and
sounded much like dial-up modems.
Floppy disk were available in 1980, but they were very expensive—so
you had to be a very efficient programmer (remember Y2K?). Compared
to 2005, how many times more costly was a megabyte of disk storage in
1980? We'll award 25% off any FBS module to the first person
submitting any reasonable answer supported by real examples from 1980
and 2005. Hint: Radio Shack floppies stored 90 kilobytes
of data.
Send your answers to norm@fbssystems.com. We'll
announce the correct answer and winner and introduce a new 25-year-trivia
question next month.
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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.
|
When I am editing an entry sometimes a field is accidentally changed and I don't catch it until much later. How can this be avoided?
|
| a.
|
A
recent feature added to FBS 7.6 is highlighted changes. When
you edit an entry and change data in a field, either purposefully
or accidentally, the changed data is highlighted with bold
blue type. You can see at a glance
what has been changed from the original entry.
To avoid accidentally changing a data field "park your mouse"
and tab or enter through the data fields. (To "park
your mouse" means to move the pointer up to the top of the
screen and out of the data entry area.)
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Call in your questions (800.437.7638) or e-mail them
to support@fbssystems.com.
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