FBS TO BEGIN SHIPPING VERSION 8 IN OCTOBER 2008
FBS VIP and Corporate Service clients will be receiving their Version 8 upgrade CDs in mid-October, 2008. The upgrade will be shipped to Priority Service clients in November and Basic Service clients in December.
Version 8 is the most significant upgrade in FBS history, providing scores of valuable improvements to make your software experience easier and more productive. We'll be covering Version 8 in-depth in next month's newsletter.
Make sure that you've renewed your FBS Service Agreement so that you won't miss these benefits or access to technical support. If you're unsure whether you qualify, call 800.437.7638 or e-mail sales@fbssystems.com.
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TUTORIAL SESSION VIII: FINANCING PLAN
The financing
plan is the final stage of budget preparation not because it's less important,
but rather a) it's driven by all the other assumptions (production, purchasing,
marketing and capital investments) and b) it tests the overall financial
feasibility of the budget.
The financing plan involves:
1. Amortizing current term debt.
2. Financing new capital purchases.
3. Projecting credit line requirements.
Amortizing Current Term Debt
This information is normally
accumulated under Step 1 (Known Information). While
prior-year ending balances by ledger account, center and division can
be extracted automatically from accounting records, projected principal
and interest payments for the current and future years must be incorporated
through the budget module. The LifeCycle Budget has a built-in amortization feature
or projected principal and interest payments can be hand-entered through
the life of the loan.
Amortized Loans
Each line in the pop-up window provides data entry fields regarding loan
specifics: To Whom, Principal Borrowed, Loan Term in
months, Due Date (calculated from Origin Date and Loan Term in months
fields), Interest Rate, Payments per year, Total number of payments (calculated
from Origin Date, Loan Term in months, and Payments per year fields),
First Pay Date, Principal Account, Interest Account, Balloon Payment,
Principal Payment Amount (calculated), and Interest Payment Amount (calculated).
Manual Loans
If the loan type is Manual, then a payments schedule appears in a pop-up
window upon entering the Click here for Manual Payments field. The fields
in this pop-up include: Payment Date, Principal Payment, and Interest
Payments. The Interest Payments field is automatically calculated based
on the Interest Rate field, but it may be manually overwritten. The Loan
Balance field will show the balance remaining until all payments have
been entered.
Financing New Capital Purchases
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Last month we described how this combine purchase is entered.
|
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Because the
lender's amortization schedule is available, exact principal and
interest payments can be entered for the life of the loan
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The cash
flow statement now displays the asset purchase and the offsetting
loan.
|
Projecting Credit Line Requirements
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Begin
by reviewing the beginning cash balance for each month.
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Select
the operating loan from the cash flow report or edit menu and
adjust monthly loan activities using negative principal values
to indicate loan draws and positive values for principal payments.
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After saving the changes the monthly loan activity is displayed on the operating loan account's cash flow line.
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| Beginning cash balances have now been adjusted based on the credit line activity. |
The initial Cash Flow plan is complete, but we've only begun the entire planning/monitoring/control process, which will be covered in upcoming issues.
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WEBINAR SCHEDULES
Join us
for live overviews of the Farm SeRVey DashBoard at 10 am CDT on Monday,
October 6 and LifeCycle Budget at 10 am CDT on Monday, October 20. If
you'd like to attend either of these meetings, e-mail norm@fbssystems.com
by 8:00 am on the day of the webinar to receive login instructions.
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THE 64-BIT QUESTION
Recently some retailers have begun bundling the Vista Home Premium 64 Bit operating system with some computers instead of offering the 64-bit version as an extra-cost option, creating potential problems for our users. The bottom line is that FBS Windows software currently only operates in a 32-bit environment. It's also likely that other brands of software may not be compatible with the 64-bit version.
Our recommendations:
| • |
If
you are purchasing a new computer, make sure you select Vista
Business or Ultimate 32 Bit editions.
|
| • |
For
those who have already purchased 64-bit versions of Vista, work-arounds
(such as Virtual PC) are available to allow you to run FBS, but
they can add a layer of complication that typical farm users won't
want to deal with. |
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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.
|
Either I have a check that hasn't cleared and probably won't or I've stopped payment on a check. What do I do? |
| A.
|
Note
that the process is affected by whether the check was posted
in the current fiscal year.
| A. |
If
the check date is within the current fiscal year, then
you can void (delete) the check by going
to Input | General | Search for the
check by number. Click on the Delete
button. Or run a report to locate the check. Drill
down (right click) on the check to display the entry screen
and click on Delete Entire Entry button. Deleting
the check automatically clears the amount paid and date
paid on the invoice(s) paid by the check. You
can view an audit trail for deleted entries under Reports
| Accounting Other Reports | Deleted Entries. |
| B. |
If the check was written in the previous fiscal year,
deleting the check will affect last year's income statement,
balance sheet and the schedule F and this year's retained
earnings. Also any editing of the previous
calendar year's data will need to be rolled requires rebuilding
beginning balances for the current year. In
this case it would be better to make a journal entry
in the current year to reverse the original entry. Go
to Input | General | Add Journal Entry
and use the original vendor. Reverse (credit)
the original expense account by amount of the check on
one line; debit the checking account by the amount of
the check on the second line. In the description
field, type in "to reverse check #" or something similar. Also
edit the Date Cleared on the original check and
change it to the date of the reversing journal entry.
Finally, make a note in a Description or Long Description
field in the original check indicating that it was reversed
out. |
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sales@fbssystems.com
800.437.7638
|
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©2008 FBS Systems, Inc.
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