In this Issue:

Dear Friend, 

Here's an updated FBS User Conference agenda with expanded details on the topics that will be covered on September 2nd and 3rd in Moline, Illinois.  You can still register online or call 800-437-7638 / Extension 2 (no service fees for direct phone orders).

Don't forget to make your hotel reservations at the Stoney Creek Inn (800.659.2220) and mention the FBS room block. 

Please note update schedule and topics are highlighted.

Wednesday, September 2

 8:30 am General Registration opens

 9:15 am  Attendee Idea Exchange

10:00 am  12 things that 98 percent of commercial ag producers don't do 
                Danny Klinefelter, Texas A&M University
                The Executive Program for Agricultural Producers

12:00 pm Lunch

 1:00 pm  Low Cost Producers’ ”Secret Formula”
               John McNutt and Moe Russell

 1:45 pm  Overview of Peterson Farms
               Bernard Peterson, Farm Journal Top Producer of the Year

 2:00 pm  Peterson Farms’ C.I.A.*
                Johnne Syverson, Transition Point Advisors
                Moe Russell, Russell Consulting Group
                John McNutt, LattaHarris
                Jack Makowski, Conservis

               * Central Intelligence Advisors

 3:15 pm  Break

 3:30 pm  Farm Financial Standards Update--Big Data Will Drive Financial Statements
               Paul Neiffer, CPA, CliftonLarsonAllen

 4:15 pm  Seamless Field-to-Financial Records
              Jack Makowski, Conservis

 4:30 pm  What's Coming Next From FBS

 6:00 pm Mississippi River Dinner Cruise

Thursday, September 3

8:00 am Breakout Training Sessions

• Controller's Corner
  • Professional Swine Management/Carthage Vet Services, Gary Donley
  • Allocating Costs Across Crop Projects, Mike Boggs
• Financial Statement Basics, Sarah Dixon
• Getting to the Bottom Line, Mike Boggs & Norm Brown
• FBS and Third Party Productivity Apps, Cheryl Brown & Sarah Dixon
  
• Converting from and Interfacing with Other Accounting Systems, Mike Boggs
• LifeCycle Budgets, Sarah Dixon
• Pork Cost of Production Benchmarks, John McNutt
• Essential Crop Reports, Sarah Dixon
• Web/Mobile Pork Production Dashboard, Mike Boggs & Norm Brown
• Trouble-shooting A/P and A/R, Cheryl Brown
• Accounting Round Table, Mike Boggs & Norm Brown
• One-on-one Custom Training, FBS Staff 

4:00 pm Adjourn

Agricultural producers who use commodity futures and options will have a unique opportunity to learn the best accounting practices at an intensive workshop held on Tuesday, September 1, 2015, one day prior to the FBS User Conference at the Stoney Creek Inn in Moline, Illinois. Paul Neiffer, CPA.   Led by Farm Journal Top Producer's "FarmCPA," Paul Neiffer, CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, the session covers the fundamentals of accounting for hedges as documented in the 2014 edition of the Financial Guidelines for Agriculture published by the Farm Financial Standards Council (FFSC). Neiffer also servers as the current president of the FFSC.   Participants will have the opportunity to work though realistic crop and livestock case studies developed by the FFSC Technical Committee using FBS software. Anyone within a farming operation who "touches" commodities--ag accountants, marketing specialists, controllers, CFOs and senior management--will benefit from this hands-on training.   Registration is $195 for the first person, $95 for additional company representative. Each student will receive a copy of the Financial Guidelines for Agriculture, a workbook,and FBS data files.. For more information or to register for the Hedge Accounting Workshop call 800.437.7638 / extension 2 or click on this link.

FBS Users In the News

Pork producers Mike and Amy Cronin of Bluevale, Ontario were chosen as the 2015 Outstanding Young Farmers (OYF) for Ontario at a recent OYF event in Ottawa. 

Mike and Amy have always been passionate about agriculture. They both grew up on family farms in Ontario, and knew their future would be on the farm. As a young married couple, they saw opportunity in the hog industry, starting Cronin Family Farms, and have never looked back.

“Mike and Amy represent everything positive and progressive about family farm businesses in Canada,” says Jack Thomson, president of Canada’s Outstanding Young Farmers program. “They have thrived in the hog business, despite very challenging times in this sector, by establishing goals, being ahead of the curve on production practices and diversifying to safeguard their business for succession planning.”

The couple will travel to Edmonton, Alberta, later this year where Canada’s outstanding Young Farmers for 2015 will be chosen.

Bryant Agricultural Enterprises, Washington Court House, Ohio, was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal article, "To Feed Billions, Farms are About Data as Much as Dirt."

Memorials

We grieve for and celebrate two members of the "Greatest Generation" who left a lasting impact on American agriculture as well as a treasured family legacy. You'll find their stories remarkable and inspiring. 

Paulina Salopek, Las Cruces, New Mexico.

William Peterson, Loretto, Kentucky.

 September Free Webinars

September 14: Harvest entries
September 21: Crop Inventories
September 28: Preparing for the next crop year

Cortana, Windows 10's answer to Apple's Siri.

Q&A of the Month: Applying Prepaid Crop Inputs

Sarah Dixon, FBS Technical Services Manager

Q. I put my crop prepaid inputs into an asset account last year when I purchased them.  The inputs have all now been applied through Crop Audit. How do I move the actual dollars from the asset account to an expense?

A. It depends on  how you recorded the original purchase. 

Scenario #1:  Did you use an unlinked asset account to book the prepay dollar amount and then recorded the actual input purchases through Crop Audit to show the inventory as you purchased it? Then enter an accrual-level journal entry transferring just the (credit) dollar amount from the unlinked asset account to an unlinked expense account for crop inputs as a debit.

Or

Scenario #2:  Did you use an unlinked asset account to book the prepay dollar amount (like Scenario #2) but have already recorded the applications through Crop Audit but have never entered the actual purchases of inputs?    Then enter an accrual-level journal entry crediting the dollar amount from the unlinked asset account and debiting the linked expense account as you select the inputs from the pick list and enter the quantities.

Scenario #2

Or

Scenario #3:  Did you use a linked asset account to put in the original outlay for the prepay so that the inputs went into the Crop Audit inventory when you made the prepaid purchase?  Then enter an accrual-level journal entry, crediting the linked asset account, entering a negative dollar amount and quantity for each input.  The offsetting side of the journal entry is a debit to a linked crops input expense account with positive dollars and quantity for each input.

My assumption for using an accrual-level entry journal entry is that you have already expensed the prepaid inputs for taxes and have used an accrual-level asset account and contra-expense account to adjust your accrual financial statements.

What’s the best practice?  We don’t recommend Scenario #1 since a) it requires a duplicate purchase in Crop Audit and b) there’s no clean tie-out between production records and accounting.   The problem with Scenario #2 is that you’ve got to remember to expense the inputs at the cash-level in the prior year, then manually reverse (credit) the expense at the accrual level and debit the asset account.  We also don’t like linked asset accounts (Scenario #3) since you have to “back out” the products at the original cost to move them to expenses.

You can totally automate the inventory/cash/accrual process by implementing E.CLIPSE Management Accounting.  You just expense the prepaids into linked expense accounts for tax purposes and the system automatically moves those costs to a raw material inventory on the balance sheet, then adjusts the balance sheet and physical inventories properly as applications are recorded.

Editor's note:  Sarah will be teaching sessions on financial statement basics, productivity tools, crop reports and one-on-one training at the User Conference.