In this Issue:

Greetings!  

Ag Computing's Annual Reunion

• Review the final agenda and list of guest speakers at the FBS User Conference.    
• FBS Users featured in the Wall Street Journal and Corn/Soybean Digest.  
• Our free, weekly one o'clock webinar addresses timely and time-saving tips for getting more done in 2013.  
• The Q&A of the Month discusses alternatives for accessing your FBS data through the Internet.    
• Read about how information gateways are cracking open in the Farm Management Software Blog. 

                                                                                      SDG

User Conference Agenda Finalized

Based on feedback from early registrations we've locked in a dynamic program backed up by top-notch guest speakers. 

Wednesday, August 28 Plenary Session

(Beginning at 9:30 am)

• What's New, Upcoming and Unexpected in FBS Software
• Making Precision Decisions in the Era of Big Data
• New User/Experienced User Idea Exchange

• Keynote:   "Data and the Farm - A 100 Year Recap"      

           Paul Neiffer

• Crop Cost of Production Benchmarks and Forecasts

           John McNutt & Moe Russell

• "Looking Forward" Panel--How leading operations are integrating technology into their management decisions.

           Blake Hollis        Bernard Peterson            Eric Jackson

• Accounting for Multiple Entities                                                                                     John McNutt 

• Mississippi prime rib dinner cruise

 Thursday, August 29th Concurrent Breakout Sessions

(Beginning at 8:00 am.  Each session held only once so bring a second person if you want to benefit from both tracks.) 

 Track I (Blackhawk Room)

• "The 21st Century Office"--Scanners, Electronic Banking, Cloud Computing.    
• "Getting Down to Business with Precision Farming Data"--Moving field data into FBS.
• "FBS Basics and SOPs"--Standard Operating Procedures that save time and reduce errors.
• "Customizing FBS Reports"--Financial Statements, Cost Analysis and User-Defined Reports.  
• "Farm/Trust Manager Training"--For professional farm management firms.  
• "Importing/Exporting Data in FBS"--Interfacing with Excel and other software.
• "Payroll Issues and Tips"--Integrating Centerpoint Payroll with FBS.  

 Track II (Salon C) 

• "Hedge Accounting Basics"--Introduction and "Fair Value" Grain Hedges.
• "Hedge Accounting Advanced"--"Cash Flow" and Livestock Hedges.
• "Producing What the Auditors Need"--Preparing your FBS records for the accountant, auditor or banker.
• "Management Accounting Best Practices"--How innovators are mining "gold" from their managerial accounting.  
• "The Next Level of Tracking & Reporting"--Dashboards, Depreciation, Parts and Partnerships.

Lunch for all participants sponsored by:      

 Note that you can register for either or both days.   Call the FBS Sales line at 800.437.7638 /Extension 2 or check our website.  Click here to download a PDF of the full conference agenda.

User Conference Updated Guest Speaker List 

Here's the current lineup of guest speakers and their topics:  

Paul Neiffer,C.P.A., is an Agribusiness adviser with CliftonLarsonAllenLLP Agribusiness Group.  He is best known as "TheFarm CPA" with Farm Journal Top Producer.  Paul will be presenting the keynote address:  "Data and the Farm--A 100 Year Recap," as well as breakout sessions coveringHedge Accounting recommendations from theFarm Financial Standards Council.   

 Robert Wolfe, C.P.A.., is Senior Audit Manager with Frost, PLLC, Little Rock, Arkansas.   Robert is engaged primarily in audit of food and agricultural clients and will be conducting a breakout session on Producing What Auditors Need Through FBS Accounting.  

John McNutt, M.B.A., is past president of the National Pork Producers Council and a business analyst and consultant with the CPA firm Latta, Harris, Hanon & Penningroth, LLP.   John will be presenting the Crop and Pork Cost of Production Benchmarks and will explain how to set up and track Multiple Accounting Entities. 

 Eric Jackson serves as Chief Sustainability Officer and President, Ag Services, at Conservis Corporation, Eric has 30 years of experience in commodity risk management, supply-chain, and international trading.  He will be sharing his vision and insight goals in the "Looking Forward" Technology Integration Panel. 

Joe Gooding, M.S., serves as Swine Analytics Consultant with Elanco focusing on value added services for customer production
and marketing data.  Joe will be presenting a breakout session on Managing Marketing Data & Variation to Achieve Full Value Pigs.

Blake Hollis, M.B.A., is a Northeast Iowa corn, soybean and hog producer at Lanehaven Farms, which embraces leading edge practices and technology to systematically standardize, flawlessly execute and continuously improve processes. Blake will share his experiences and goals in the"Looking Forward" Panel.

Bernard Peterson is partner in Peterson Farms, a 13,000 acre Kentucky family business with roots that go back to the 1700's.  He will describe his operation's ongoing quest for better management information and control in the "Looking Forward" Technology Integration Panel. 

Iowa grower Ray Gaessor was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal's story, Tractor Sales Riding High.  Ray's current practice is to "roll" new John Deere equipment every year but is prepared to revert back to keeping machines for five years or so "if profitability goes away and the outlook gets bad."  One of the conditions that will likely change is the Section 179 deduction dropping from $500,000 to $25,000 next year.

Meanwhile, Indiana grower and Indiana Farm Bureau president Don Villwock addresses the revenue side of his operation in "Hit top-third grain price" in the August 2013 Corn + Soybean Digest.  Don's market advisor uses put options to supplement cash contracts for his specialty crops.

Sarah Dixon, FBS Technical Services Manager.

 Q.  When I go look at a deposit that I entered earlier in the month why does it now show an Amt. to Balance in red? It was right when I saved it; otherwise it wouldn't have allowed me to save it! 

 

A. That can happen if you have recently changed a ledger account to a different Class  (i.e.Income, Expense, Asset, Liability or Equity).  This change could have happened accidentally if you were in looking at the account setup. An entry like this can affect several things in the system and does need to be fixed.  

To clear up the issue look at all of the ledger accounts used in that entry under Setup | Accounting | Ledger Accounts and double-check that they are all defined correctly. If they are, and you did purposely change the Class on a particular ledger account you will need to change the sign on the dollar amount entered in the deposit to reflect the change in Class you made or select a different ledger account that will balance the entry. If you didn't mean to change the ledger account Class then change it back to the correct Class and save the ledger accounts.  Next, go back to the deposit and click through the out-of-balance line and re-save the entry once the Amt. to Balance is zero. 

A good way to catch errors like this is to run the TransAction Plus User Defined Report with the box on the top right to "Print Undefined Entries" checked at the end of each month!  

Editor's note:  Sarah will be teaching these breakout sessions at the 2013 FBS User Conference:

• "The 21st Century Office"--Scanners, Electronic Banking, Cloud Computing.   
• "FBS Basics and SOPs"--Standard Operating Procedures that save time and reduce errors
• "Customizing FBS Reports"--Financial Statements, Cost Analysis and User-Defined Reports.
• "Farm/Trust Manager Training"--For professional farm management firms.  
• "Importing/Exporting Data in FBS"--Interfacing with Excel and other software.

Please join her on Thursday, August 29th!

 Sincerely,

  FBS Systems