"Elon to Earth."

Dear Friend,

What's the second richest man in the world been up to besides tweaking Twitter and Tesla? He's launched over 4,000 SpaceX Starlink satellites into low earth orbit. That's great news for rural internet customers, who now can experience speeds comparable to fiber without the data "throttling" typical from other satellite options. The downsides are:

$600 for equipment plus $120/month for residential customers.
Requires a clear view of the northern sky, However, the Starlink app will locate any obstructions:

The small powered antenna will automatically lock in on the orbiting satellites. You can simulate that activity from your own location in this interactive satellite map. (Caution: this site may be hypnotizing!) The "strings of pearls" you see are recently-launched/undeployed satellites.

Elon's plan calls for launching up to 30,000 of these "birds," which have a service life of 5 years, at which point they will burn up in the atmosphere. Read more incredible Starlink facts here.

Just when you think space is already too cluttered here's amazing news from the world's third-richest guy. Competition will be fierce.

Why is this important to you? In last month's newsletter we announced the next generation of integrated farm management accounting software that will be cloud-enabled and offer real-time connections with supporting technologies. Internet technology is advancing rapidly so please share your latest experiences with us and our readers. Here's an example from a MASA member:

"We’ve been happy with Starlink. It is definitely leaps and bounds superior to our other option. On stormy days we do have a little lag, but otherwise it is great."

There's plenty of action in the software world as well:

Look us up at the World Pork Expo.
Pork Powerhouse "secret sauce" is efficiency and accuracy.
Read our May Farm Management Accounting blog posts..
Farm Financial Standards / MASA member meetings
Upgrade shortcuts.
SDG

Find FBS/MASA in booth V170 in Des Moines, Iowa

June 7-9, 2023

Pork Powerhouse Shares "Secret Sauce"

Scaling a pork production system to 180,000 sows / 4.6 million pigs / 47 entities / 850,000 transactions requires efficiency, accuracy, and a robust accounting system. Sample the "secret sauce" from the Carthage System (Successful Farming's #6 Pork Powerhouse for 2022) in this presentation from the 2022 FBS/MASA Ag Software Success Summit.

May Farm Management Accounting Blog Posts

3 BENEFITS OF USING LIVESTOCK MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Managing livestock can be an enormous challenge, even for seasoned farm owners. From managing animal husbandry to raise generations of healthy and...

THE FARM LOAN APPLICATION CHECKLIST

Having liquid assets can be crucial for any business. Farms need money to help fund the acquisition of new acreage, pay for employee labor, buy and...

HOW FARM ERP SOFTWARE HELPS FARMERS STAY AHEAD OF INFLATION

Inflation is an ever-present problem for any business—and farms are no exception. Higher inflation rates can mean having to pay more to workers to...

AGRICULTURE ACCOUNTING: BIG BUCKETS AND THE "GOLDEN RULE"

Standardizing accounting practices for any industry can be incredibly difficult. In farming especially, there are countless variables that can...

Farm Financial Standards and MASA Meet in Moline July 26th

The Farm Financial Standards Council will be holding its Annual Meeting in Moline, Illinois, July 26th-28th. The events will be held in the Vibrant Arena. Click here for registration details.
The Mutual Agricultural Software Alliance (MASA) will hold its annual member business meeting at the Wyndham Hotel (next door to the Vibrant Arena) on July 26th.
The 2023 FBS/MASA Ag Software Success Summit has been moved to November 14th-15th (location to be determined).

We look forward to seeing you in Moline sometime this year!

Q&A: Upgrade Shortcuts

Q. I have not installed my annual upgrade discs for a few years. Can I go ahead and install 11.8 or do I need run all of the updates between the version I am currently running and version 11.8.

Sarah Dixon, FBS Support Coordinator
sarah@fbssystems.com (800.437.7638/extension 100).

A. Good News! You do not have to catch up and run those old updates. You can jump straight to version 11.8. Please remember that version 11.8 does require a database upgrade, so do set aside about 30 minutes for each company that you have to run the database upgrade.

The upgrade process for 11.8 is pretty easy; just follow the on screen prompts. After the initial install make sure to check for updates as there have been some since the CD/download was sent out. The first time you try to go into your data it will prompt you to run the database upgrade.

A tip I have is when you go through the process it will list all of your data sets if you have more than one. Only check the box to upgrade 1 database at a time. This seems to limit the chances of a database upgrade failure.